Description
New Capital has dialed in the cost-to-quality equation. Their $1.99 dim sum--that's $1.99 for everything on the menu--is robust and fun, not virtuosic. The flat-rate pricing enables reflexive, eat-with-your-eyes ordering. Items that circulate quickly or are cooked on the fly are easy pickings. Try the zha cheung feng, wide rice noodle rolled up and scooped hot off the fry cart with scallion and sesame and a ruddy blob of hoisin. Even something as rudimentary as Chinese broccoli arrives in fresh emerald mounds, stalks crunchy, leaves tender, because it's hustled across the room on a hand-tray by a waiter desperate to attract attention from eaters addled by meat. Conventional cart fare like shrimp dumpling har gow, cha siu bao and chicken feet can be disappointing, or absent, in a food hall this large--there's a reason why other diners follow the bao trolleys around the room like seagulls behind a fishing charter. This is the only right way to eat pork spare rib with pumpkin and black bean, when each knob of flesh is still cocooned in seasoned stock and starch. Or a bowl overtopped with honeycomb tripe and daikon, everything braised the color of pottery tile. Chilied tripe is not meant to be consumed cold. Dim sum on a weekend afternoon is a gladiatorial affair, and shameless cart-ambush guarantees you eat hot.
