Trying Everything on the Menu at an Iconic NYC Dim Sum Restaurant | One of Everything | Bon Appétit

Here we are in Flushing at New Lake Pavilion and we're going to order one of everything off of the dim sum carts. My friend Eric Z is going to be joining us today. He's the chef of Wenwen and 886 here in New York City. So why are we here? We're here to eat the menu of Lake Pavilion. They still have the push carts. All the carts have different items and you're going to have a little card with you that they'll stamp and the stamp is the denotion of how expensive that dim sum plate is. Ground rules. Chinese restaurants have hundreds of items on their menu so today we are only going to get one of everything from the dim sum carts. Because we don't want to die. The rule is we only take one bite of everything. I'm quite hungry to be honest. This is a bucket list item for me guys. When do you get to go to a dim sum restaurant and order every single thing off the menu? Literally. Because now we can definitively tell people when we bring people here to this restaurant, this is what's best, this is what you should come back for, this is a hidden secret stuff. For the sake of this video we should go by the general shape of food. So dumpling first and then balls, rice rolls, chuan fun, miscellaneous items. Oh but there's also buns. Let's do the buns before the miscellaneous. Okay. Desserts. This is the dumpling round. Before we begin we have our tea and we have our condiments. Dim sum in Cantonese largely translates to what you like which means that customizing each bite is part of the experience. Some people go chili oil, some people go chili paste, some people go spicy Chinese hot mustard, some people go vinegar. Totally up to you. The first is a siu mai often sold as a pork dumpling with a piece of shrimp and a little bit of shrimp roe over the top. This is the most classic dim sum in all dim sum restaurants. Here we go. Tastes like Sunday morning. Pork is fatty, pork is chewy, bouncy. Yeah. The wrapper is still tender, it's not too loose, not over steamed. The shrimp has the give and it's still fresh. Ha gow. This is a crystal shrimp dumpling because the skin as you can tell is a little bit translucent. This isn't flour, it's wheat starch which is why it's so bouncy. It echoes the bounciness of the shrimp inside. Very good. The skin is bouncy but it's also very tender. Let's do soup dumplings next. Handmade. You see this little hole? That's where your thumb goes when you're wrapping a dough. Your thumb is right in the center of the hole and then you pull your thumb out. You don't get that anymore. If you go to a dim sum restaurant and you see that there's soup dumpling, in the middle is just one tip, like a nipple. Machine made. Because the dough is extruded and the machine goes up like this. Good. It's so good. Everybody eats soup dumpling differently. I have an iron in my mouth. No first timers. So I can take heat on my fingers and my mouth. Just pop it in. Do it at your own risk though. This looks like shrimp. Beautiful braiding technique. Whole shrimps in here. Lake Pavilion. Not screwing around. This is chive. Less chive than I want for jiu cai chow. Any like chive thing. I want it to be super chivey. I feel like there's a lot of shrimp in here. I disagree with you because I think because shrimp is so much milder and it's more delicate. Yeah. I want the chive to be balanced. I think it's a good amount of chives. I didn't like this one growing up. Chow chow dumpling. It's huge. It's really heavy. It's probably gonna have peanuts, some pork, maybe some glass noodles. Depends. Do you think you can eat this in one bite? More like a challenge. Don't tempt me. I bet you couldn't. I'll do it if you do it. Let's do it. Okay. You just gotta chew. Eric f***ed us. Now we know where his limits are. Seven rounds. Fifth bite. We bit into it thinking that it was gonna be filled with things like vegetables, shiitake mushrooms, maybe a bit of shrimp. Plot twist. 70 grams of starch. It's gonna be a fun day. What we've learned? Momentum. I think we need to keep it up. This is a leek dumpling. I like this actually. I love it. I like this seared dumpling because it breaks up the monotony of the steamed dumplings which I think is the main anchor of dim sum. Excuse me. That chow chow really got to him. This is a very fun puffy glutinous rice mochi-like dumpling but it's very crispy on the outside. It's basically deep-fried mochi with a little bit of pork in the middle. I love this one. Again, it's just the beauty and balance and the textures, right? So crispy on the outside, so pillowy in the middle. A little bit of saltiness and savoriness from the filling. This is the one I've been looking forward to the most. Look at this beautiful honeycomb shape. This is taro paste with wheat starch. There's a good amount of oil in the batter itself. As it fries, the moisture starts to push it outwards to create this honeycomb effect and it just locks perfectly in shape. It's one of those like miraculous things you can only do with a taro batter. The reason why dim sum restaurants don't make this anymore is because this has to fry at a slightly lower temperature. If it fried at a higher temperature, it would lock in and get hard. So you need a separate specific fryer for making wu gao. I didn't have a lot of respect for this dish, but now I do. So good. I love this one. This might be the one. Okay, lotus leaf wrapped rice. Sticky rice with chicken. Like a Chinese tamale. Yeah. Usually there's one piece of fatty pork, sometimes some dried shrimp, shiitake mushrooms. 10 bites in. What is your favorite? I think top, top bite for me would be the taro because there's just so much textural difference and they pack so much stuff into just one single bite. This is too technical of a dish for us as chefs to not respect it and not put it at the top. They have 470 seats here and they're still making these every single day. Lake Pavilion. That's why we come here. Respect. Balls next. This is a lightweight round. How are you feeling? I'm feeling good. That's a long pause. You know how when you play Tetris, you go into a game, you know you have a strategy, you're building it up and then you just make one mistake and it derails that whole thing. Chaozhou dumpling. Of these, the most traditional is the beef ball. It's whipped until it's emulsified and it develops a good amount of myosin which is why despite it being beef, it's quite bouncy. When I grew up, I didn't like the beef ball because it doesn't taste like beef. You taste beef, you want to see those protein strands. This is really bouncy. It's like a very light. It's not as dense and bouncy. It's more of like a fluff and bouncy. Fluff and bouncy. Do you think that this is an acquired taste for people who didn't grow up with it? Yes, but then I think the historical context is also important, right? This is a good way to utilize a very little bit of protein and make a lot of food. Right. This is a pork ball with Chinese mountain yams and lotus root. I've always preferred pork balls more than beef balls because pork in itself just absorbs more moisture than beef does. Yeah. And so the texture is always a little bouncier. Good. Sticky shiny bits of rice on top. This is my favorite. I love this one. So sticky rice on the outside, pork on the inside. So good. It's like a little rice bowl. It's like an onigiri. This is not strictly a ball, but there are fish balls. Oftentimes in the U.S., people will see pork skin in the form most common as chicharron or those crispy puff thing. Similar technique in puffing it, but you've built all this air inside. The gelatin is trapping all of that moisture. Why not braise it to soak up the broth? Natural sweetness from the daikon. I love this dish. There's so much flavor for such little color. This is lang yu kao, which is, fact check for me, I think the translation is carp. Carp fish balls. Freshwater fish tends to be a little bit grassier. Some people might say fishier or gamey. So that's what the white pepper on top is for. It's to cut through that gameyness. It's good. Similar flavor profile to the beef actually. Yeah. Fried black sesame ball, but they've dyed it green. What's inside? I think black sesame paste and fried glutinous rice. Oh my god, it's electric green. Why does it have to be green? Presentation is everything. Delicious. Round two, light work. Balls are done. What's your number one? The braised chicharron really struck a chord with me. It's not something I eat often. It could be a sleeper here. It's nostalgia, but like we're in a dim sum restaurant. I'm entitled to give out awards based on nostalgia. Very nostalgic for me. I'll put that at the top. Next round, rolls. I swear, I think they get a commission. By the way, they're like really trying to push their stuff. I wouldn't be surprised. Round three. How are you feeling? I feel okay. Actually, after the balls round, I feel kind of refreshed. I feel successful. Rolls, cylindrical items at the dim sum restaurant. These dishes in dim sum are really important because they have to be made to order. They're always steamed in pot. They plate it, they cut it up, give you the soy sauce over the top, table side. This is what they call a crispy shrimp roll. Deep fried shrimp inside of a batter, wrapped inside of a silky, slippery rice batter on the outside, soy sauce over the top. The reason why it's red is red glutinous rice. Mustard for me. As is for me. One bite. Shout out to the top of the charts. This might be the one. Glassy, crispy. It still has the textural presence. Not too airy. Really nice and sweet, plump, bouncy shrimp. The red glutinous rice is for show. How do you know it's a star item if it's not red, right? You have to be able to see it from across the room. It's the Cantonese marketing. This is like a Lake Pavilion special. If you go anywhere else and they have it, it's not going to be red. You have cha leung, which is a yau ta kuai in the middle, and then slippery rice noodle over the outside. This builds upon the classic success of this dish texturally. It's as if this had shrimp in the middle. Shrimp rice roll. Standard issue. Every single dim sum restaurant will have it. Back in the day, you used to have dim sum carts that would roll these to order on the dim sum cart. Beef rice roll. I actually quite like these plainer ones because you get to taste the sweet sauce a little bit more. Shrimp tofu skin roll. This guy comes with a salad dressing. Literally called sa la jia. So shrimp paste, ultra whipped. The skin on the outside is tofu skin, which is when you cook soy milk, the top layer coagulated protein. So tasty. It's warm, it's bouncy, really nice. Fried tofu skin pork roll. I bet you can't fit this whole thing in your mouth. Stop saying that. Yum. So good. This might be the first dim sum we've had that's dressed in sauce. A little bit sweet, savory. I like it. And the tofu skin is not crispy. It's more of like a elastic sort of dense texture that holds everything together, which works because this shrimp is so bouncy. That's the rolls. Fried shrimp roll. Still the one for me. For sure. The rice batter isn't too crispy. It's not too airy. And the shrimp itself is chunky and coarse paired with that super tender, light, fluffy, almost rice roll skin. There's no way you can go wrong. And the sweet soy sauce is just the cherry on top. You look like you're struggling. I refuse to believe that. You're right. It's a mental game. Yeah. And I'm ready for the bao. Round four. Easy. All buns. Buns, baos. Light and fluffy. Should be another cakewalk. This is the custard one. It looks a little bit like a Mexican concha. Not to be confused with the egg yolk bun. The egg yolk bun is salted egg yolk and runny. This is not runny. It's custard. Sweet aromatic. We've been eating so much savory, salty food. It's a nice change of pace. Here it comes. This is the egg yolk bun that's in question. It's really, really hot inside. Running hot lava. Gonna let that chill for a second. Classic standard dim sum buns. Very good. Pork. Honestly, one of my hot takes is I don't love bao. Why not? It's light but it ends up being quite dense. This is the chicken one. Same dough. Inside is a meatball. Not my favorite also. But to be fair, it's because we've eaten three previous rounds. Yeah. So this coming into our stomach and forming a dough ball in itself isn't the most appealing thing right now. This chicken meatball is good. This is probably my favorite item at dim sum. Salted egg yolk buns. Salted egg yolk. Salty, savory, plus sweet. Fatty, runny. You saw the difference between the custard bun and the egg yolk bun. That's up there. What's up with the pig? It's a sweet potato bun. It's cute. Fine. Fine. You won't. You won't. You know when you chew something, not outside in but inside out. It just keeps flipping. I think it's pretty good. Surprisingly not bad. Pineapple bun with char siu in the middle. Oh, nice and light. Thank god, right? It's called pineapple bun because it looks like the skin of a pineapple. Has nothing to do with pineapples. It's margarine slash lard, sugar, custard powder topping. To me, this is a better version of a taso bao. Yeah. Has more flavor, more texture. This snow white bun. I love the topping. It's a sweet crackly crumble. Yeah. I have to go with the egg bun. No questions. Egg yolk bun is a winner. It's an improvement on the custard bun. It's sweet. It breaks up the meal. Yep. Crowd pleaser. Round five. The quietest we've been all day. Yeah, I'm really starting to feel all the carbohydrates creep up. Very uncomfortable, especially when you're looking at this taro tower. Under normal circumstances, we would probably marvel at the technique and how you can see individual strands of julienned taro inside. Now it just looks like it's a lot of starch. This thing is like two pounds. This is the extras, the miscellaneous category. This is the stuff that didn't fit into the other categories. I have to say spare ribs are one of my favorite things at dim sum because there are so many of them. So if like the adults are talking, you just sit next to it, you can constantly just keep picking. You just keep attacking it. And hot take, I think spare ribs is the better way, right? I much prefer spare ribs over baby back ribs. It's meatier, it's fattier, and it's got that cartilage. This is also velveted and marinated in cornstarch, among other things. So it's nice and slippery and soft. Ultra tender. Beef short rib. This is tenderized beyond belief. The seasoning is black pepper. Super sweet. Honestly, I am not the biggest fan of how meat sometimes is over tenderized. Not my favorite, I have to say. You gotta keep into consideration that a lot of old people come here. They don't got your young teeth. I love chicken feet. So we're doing one bite, right? I was thinking about this. Oh yeah? I'm pretty sure that I can probably eat this whole thing your mother for me. Honestly, earlier I had believed that my biggest mistake was taking single bites of food. Now I realize the biggest mistake is bringing him. Even I'm impressed. Come on. This is really good chicken feet. It's not overly soft. And the gelatin, man. The gelatin is just so delicious. It's icky, gooey, nice sweet sauce. Is that your one bite? Are you serious? He's got no respect. 40 rounds of dim sum later, I don't have to play your f***ing games. Trying to walk out of this restaurant with a modicum of self-respect. Spring rolls. If you come to dim sum too late, everyone else who got here early, they have all the fresh stuff. Stuff like this doesn't sit very well. I bet if this was piping hot, it would be delicious. But it's too late in the afternoon. Spicy peppers stuffed with fish paste. Oh, spicy. Yeah, it's good. Back to that emulsified whipped fish paste. Oh my god, it's really spicy. Really spicy. But you know, classics. Lobako. Turmeric cakes. Taiwan has improved upon a lot of Cantonese dishes. The lobako, they've decided to remove all the bacon and mushrooms and aromatics and things that make it taste good. Because we have better quality radishes. A little bit denser. Lots of rice flour. I mean, you can't come to dim sum and not order turnip cake. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. Even if it's maybe not everybody's favorite, it still sits there as sort of a courtesy to your ancestors. This is tripe. Cows have multiple stomachs. This is one of them. I love this. Texture that I don't think a lot of Americans grew up with, but I love it. Very good. There you go. Taro Taro. A little bit of chili oil. Quite nice. Quite good. Oh, that is delicious. There's Chinese sausage in here. It kind of like takes you by surprise. It's very tender. And it's more pronounced in flavor than the lobako. Yeah. Dude, I think we owe this guy an apology. I would actually maybe for this round, put it at the top for me. Yeah, I think so, too. Sleeper. Sleeper. It's the final countdown. We did eat some things earlier that were sweet, but here it's dessert proper. Malaigo, which I think the translation is Malaysian cake. So good. Very, very airy sponge cake. Like a dark molasses-y flavor. Black sesame rolls. We call this feilam, like film. Like Kodak. Yeah, like Kodak. It is also made from glutinous rice. It is a steamed, slightly sweet sesame flavored roll. And when we were kids, we would eat this by unrolling it. Delicious. Oh, yeah. Winner this round for me. I really want another bite of this. I think this is so nice. This is the tofu pudding. Super slippery. Slippery, velvety. Silken tofu texture. Mango mochi. This is theoretically one piece of mango inside. Traditionally, that's how it's made, but I can feel that it's multiple little pieces. Look how soft and gooey it is. I'm not an idiot. Delicious. No, we're gonna wait in silence until you learn your lessons. Water chestnut cake. I've with a little bit of sliced water chestnut to give it crisp. Lightly sweet. Good. Not for me. This is like jello shot consistency, but there's no vodka. It's like seared jello. Yeah, but I can appreciate nostalgia. I mean, half of the stuff here is nostalgia, right? I mean, speaking of nostalgia, this is probably everyone's go-to dessert here. So egg tarts, normally, two ways to do it. One's a cookie crust. One is a pastry crust. If you don't see black spots, it's a Hong Kong style one. If you see black spots, it's a Portuguese Hong Kong take on pastel donata. It's really good. It's really good. It's so eggy, and it's so glossy and consistent. Barely sweet. Pastry is so buttery. So good. All rounds done. As you can see, empty tables, defeated men. It's the most we've ever ordered for two people, at least. The next order of business is to figure out what our accolades are. The star, best thing we ate all day. The repeat, what we want to come back for. And the regular only corner of the menu that you only get if you're here all the time. It goes without saying that our favorite thing that we ate was probably the steamed rice roll with shrimp. Yeah. Very special fry on that shrimp. Yes. Rice flour fry, like a Vietnamese-style spring roll. Yeah. Very tasty. Anytime you're putting a deep-fried thing and then wrapping it with something that's super hot and moist, you run the risk of ruining the entire dish and ruining the crisp. But well done here. I think that might be the best-selling item here. The repeat, I think, is probably the taro puff. I just think you can't deny the technique that went into the taro puff. I can see that. I respect it. It is a dying art form. It is way more technical. The secret one, the one that the regulars know about. Sesame roll. The film. The sesame roll. The Kodak. Subtlety, perfect texture. Fun. A little bit of nostalgia. Yeah. That was fun. Are you good? Yeah, I'm good. I think it's going to hit a little later. I'm just glad that we got to check off this bucket list item. Yeah. I've always wanted to do this, eat every single thing at Dim Sum because Dim Sum is, in Cantonese, whatever you like. So why not actually figure out definitively what it is that we like? You're struggling. I'm struggling, bro. I'm trying to remind myself to breathe, sit up straight. Well, cheers to a great lunch. New Lake Pavilion.