BENGALURU: Shizusan Shophouse & Bar has raised the bar in terms of serving up some stellar pan-asian dishes to Bengalureans. Despite having to brave traffic to reach its Whitefield location, the trip is definitely worth making. Their latest festival — the Travelling Dim Sum Festival — was all about these delicious little pockets. With 11 varities of dim sums from across the Orient, food lovers were spoilt for choice.
We started with the Thai Chicken and Water Chestnut Dim Sum, and the coconut curry in it gave the ample filling a creamy texture. The Vietnamese Spinach, Dates and Cashewnut Dumplings with nuts and mala oil was next, and we were pleasantly surprised with how these flavours complemented each other, especially the crunchy cashews that gave the dish a fun texture. The Japanese Pan Fried Asparagus Rice Baozi was one of our favourites – the light, crispy coating of he dim sum was what we especially loved. Another great vegetarian option we tried were the Malaysian Tung Tong Peanut Moneybags, filled with curried veggies in peanut sauce. This was by far our favourite dim sum of the night – the curried veggies in the fried outer layer made this dish stand out for us. While there were multiple seafood options to choose from, none impressed us as much as the vegetarian and chicken dim sums.
The Chinese Activated Charcoal and Crab Xiao Long Bao and Seafood Sui Mai were a bit overwhelming for us in terms of fishy-ness — the fish flavours were too strong for even us sushi and ceviche lovers. The Poached Sea Bass dim sum was good, but nothing special. After a bunch of slightly disappointing options, the Pan Fried Crystal Duck Buns lifted our spirits all over again. The cinnamon orange sauce that the duck was cooked in was sweet, tangy, and refreshing.
For dessert, we had the Thai Green Apple Pie Moneybags, and these made for the perfect meal-enders. Warm, crisp and served with sticky caramel sauce, these dessert dim sums were absolutely delicious, but a dollop of ice cream could've been the cherry on top that we were really looking forward to. Overall, the vegetarian options impressed us a lot more than the non-vegetarian ones.
The dim sum festival is on till May 13.
Cost for two: Rs 1,800 for two.