The Abalone and Pork Buns at the Chinatown Restaurant were very light on actual Abalone, but were tasty enough to earn a 3 out of 5 Rating.
I previously posted a review of the Buns with Abalone and Pork at the Urban Town Restaurant in Edmonton, which were pretty good. The ones you see above were served to me at the Chinatown Restaurant in Halifax. They were a bit different in that they were just steamed, rather than having been steamed and then pan-fried as with the Urban Town variety. They were good, but I think they may not have been quite as advertised.
Now, I don’t often order any of the Steamed Bun selections from Dim Sum menus. It isn’t that I don’t like them, by any means, but rather it is because they tend to be very filling. Even one or two can limit your capacity if your aim is to try and have a wide selection of different dishes. On this occasion, however, I was dining with my sister and we managed an order with no difficulty.
First, the leavened dough used to make these buns was steamed very nicely and the result was delightfully light and fluffy with a noticeable sweetness. There wasn’t a lot of filling, but this is fairly typical with sort of bun and didn’t affect the overall quality.
As for the filling itself, it was very tasty, and both sweet and savory at the same time. My only quibble was that I don’t thing there was any actual Abalone in the mix at all. The Pork was apparent. It was ground and obvious by the texture, but I couldn’t detect the texture, nor, really, the taste of the advertised Abalone. Indeed, I rather think, going by the wetness, was that the restaurant simply used an XO Sauce with Abalone extract in it. Still, I wasn’t bothered by this overmuch, as the Buns really were very good and I could easily see make a nice breakfast of nothing but these and a little tea.