Outside of Montreal's Chinatown Dim Sum: maison Foo Lam

To be perfectly honest, Montreal Cantonese culinary scene sucks. Most of the time, dim sum joints are boring places where dumplings are too soft, often time overcooked, too much fried stuff, too much salt, Stir fried place lacks wok-hey, cornstarch everywhere. You get the picture. There's a few rare places that are decent. This one is one of them.

Maison Foo Lam

The Athmosphere is exactly as you think it would be, hoewever, it is doubled by a slot machine/pool bar. Making it even sketchier. It is outside of the main Chinese clusters, located in the industrial part of acadie, near the clothing factories of Chabanel and the warehouses of Parc-Ex. 

We ordered a variety of dishes, first, steamed octopus. Clean flavour, relatively fresh, a hint of garlic, not chewy.

Phoenix claw, which are chicken's feet fried and steamed to make it puffier, and braised in a sweet red sauce, garlic, and peanuts. It was tender, full of collagen and delicious softened tissues. I happen to love chicken foots, and I'm happy if I find a good one.

Fried Fish full of fish eggs, salt and pepper shrimps.

Well, Fried seafood in the morning, who would have thought it was a good idea? My parents did and ordered this dish. The fish was full of eggs, and the shrimp was fresh. Fried both. It's good, but fried fish isn't really a challenge. They both could have been a tad spicier.

Stewed Beef innard

This is one of my favourite dish, and this was sad. Too much honeycomb tripe, too little liver and lungs. This dish was average as best. 

Har Gow and Taizi Gow

 Shrimp dumplings and Scallop dumplings. Both classics of Cantonese dim sum. If Con tsao gnor hor is the way to measuring stick for wok-hey cooking, stir fries and the like, Har Gow is the measuring stick for dim sum chef. Those ones were ok. The shrimp filling was fresh, I like how he didn't use too much ginger, just a very small gentle touch, signifying the shrimps are fresh. The wrappers were a bit too soft, but really tasty. a decent har gow.

Same goes for the wrapper on the Taizi gow, the scallop dumplings. My problem with this dish is they didn't use enough scallop, you know, since this is a scallop dumpling and not a shrimp dumpling with a small amount of scallops. No matter how much it sucks at other places, I will order it again and again, because I had a very good one once upon a time. Only to be met with an average dumpling each time. I will order it again, just to see if one can make me reach that high once more.

Fried tofu rice noodle roll and Tsa Leung, fried bread rice noodle roll.

The Tofu was tasty, fried until crisp, and wrapped around a fresh rice noodle. There was a nice balance, but it was a bit colder than the optimal temperature. Still a decent plate.

If my "i'll always order this dish" is Taizi Gow, my dad's equivalent is the Tsa leung, fried bread in rice noodle roll. This dish is one of the hardest to do correctly, the intricate play between fried, steamed, and serving requires a minutiae. My dad loves this dish, it is all about texture and the type of sauce that you serve it with. 

I found the fried bread not puffy enough, and a lack of condiment. Fact to be noted: I do prefer when they put hoisin and sesame sauce on it instead of soy, so maybe this is why I found it too one dimensional. It was ok.