Planning dim sum with friends at Jade Garden might require “Save the Date” cards: The flagship restaurant of Hong Kong’s Maxim’s group is the hottest table in town and – at the time of printing – the next available reservation is six months away. For yum cha aficionados who aren’t deterred by hours-long queues, the Jade Garden does save some tables, but it’s less of a walk-in and more of a mass sit-in.
All this fuss, despite the fact the restaurant opened in late 2013 (making it old for Shanghai) and has a cavernous dining room that can seat 350 hungry diners without breaking a sweat.
Even for the foodiest among us, few eateries merit queuing for a minimum of an hour and a half, but Jade Garden is worth every minute. While it serves “creative Cantonese” dishes – like baked curry seafood stuffed into a conch shell à la Portugal and steamed egg topped with a tiger prawn poached in rice wine – it’s the classic dim sum that makes people line up (and what earned them a Michelin star in 2010 in Hong Kong).
Plump, sweet steamed shrimp dumplings (虾饺, xiā jiǎo) glisten like freshwater pearls in their steamer baskets. The standard order of chicken’s feet (蒸凤爪, zhēng fèng zhuǎ) with fermented black beans is so meaty that even the diners who question the merit of gnawing on the poultry appendage will understand the appeal.
The roasted meat platter (烧味拼盘, shāo wèi pīnpán) is given the Cantonese treatment, with a duo of pork showcasing how texturally versatile the animal can be. The crackle of suckling pork skin echoes from almost every table, served alongside juicy slices of roasted pork so tender they make us want to move to Hong Kong after one bite. The same honey-drizzled meat is also stuffed into puffy buns (叉烧包, chāshāo bāo) that are a staple at any dim sum restaurant. However, the ubiquitous offering is done so well here that all others will pale in comparison.
That’s the biggest threat of eating at Jade Garden – our standards for dim sum have become unattainably high, and we start justifying the hours spent waiting in line to get a table on a regular basis. A friend of ours – who shall remain nameless – takes another tack: She throws fake tantrums at the hostess for “losing” her reservation. A word to the wise: This stunt only works so many times before you get recognized and possibly banned, which equates to a life sentence of disappointing radish cakes (萝卜糕, luóbo gāo).
When we do get a table, we make sure to save room for dessert. A gargantuan pineapple bun (菠萝包, bōluó bāo) will need that pat of butter for scale when Instagrammed, and the flavor is as big as the saucer-sized pastry. Historically, pineapple buns received their name from the crusty top that looked like the scaly citrus fruit, but Jade Garden adds real pineapple to its monster creation. It also offers a fruit napoleon with 101 layers of dragonfruit, strawberries, kiwis, blueberries, cream and crisp puff pastry sheets. It’s as stunning as it is delicious.
We like to gather a big group to dine at Jade Garden so we can work our way through the whole menu when we finally get seated. After all, we’ve waited long enough. (Rumor has it that queues are slightly shorter at Jade Garden’s second location in Xujiahui, which opened in August 2014.)
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