Our first meal out in Dublin featured Persian/Kurdish food (at Passion 4 Food). Our second meal out featured dim sum. I’d done some cursory googling on Dublin’s Chinese restaurant scene and the consensus seemed to be that Good World on Georges St. was the place to go. Accordingly, we went there; only to discover on arrival that we needed to have made a reservation. Casting around for a fallback option, I came upon another restaurant just a few minutes walk from Good World: Ka Shing on Wicklow St. We sauntered over and were glad to be told that they could seat us. Herewith a report on the meal that followed.

Now I will say upfront that our expectations were not high. I don’t mean for Ka Shing specifically but for dim sum and indeed Chinese food more generally in Dublin. Most of the informed articles I’d found seemed to suggest that the Chinese food scene is not very developed. Now, the next week we actually ate at a Sichuan restaurant that we liked a lot (and returned to). And as it happens our low expectations of dim sum were also surpassed, both at Ka Shing and then at Good World a week later (when we went back with reservations). This is not to say that the dim sum at Ka Shing was great—but it was acceptable. Coming from Minnesota that is more than acceptable.

The restaurant itself is not small but it’s not over large either. There are a few tables by the entrance and in the narrow hallway past it but the bulk of the tables are in a dining room in the back. There also seem to be a tables in a small area above some stairs. We were given a table in the corner of the dining room and got right to work. There’s a picture menu that contains most of the dim sum standards and there’s also a larger Cantonese menu. We stuck with the dim sum.

What did we get?

• BBQ pork puffs. What arrived wasn’t exactly what was pictured but was decent enough.
• Salt and pepper squid. Long strips of tentacle, very nicely fried. We quite liked these.
• Shrimp rice noodle rolls. Likewise also tasty.
• Duck egg and pork congee. Quite good. We got the small portion and it was enough to split between the four of us.
• Chinese chive dumplings. These were just okay
• Shiu mai. These didn’t look so promising but turned out to be quite tasty; we got a second order for the boys.
• Har gow. These were just okay as well.
• Shanghai-style steamed dumplings. Aka soup dumplings. Larger than the ones usually served at dim sum in the US and quite decent.
• Pork spare ribs in black bean sauce. Quite nice.
• Chicken feet in black bean sauce. Good flavour on the sauce but the feet were too gloppy.
• Sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf. This was done well.

For a look at the restaurant and the food, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

Service was the usual dim sum rushed/brusque but effective enough. Price? About 82 euros or about $87. Which is pretty good for Dublin (an expensive city) and also quite a bit cheaper than inferior dim sum in the Twin Cities. We paid $118 at Yangtze in April (albeit with a few more dishes). On the whole, it’s not a place you need to go eat at if you’re visiting from a city with a decent dim sum scene. But if you don’t have good dim sum where you are, Ka Shing is perfectly acceptable. We did like Good World more the following week (more on that later).

Alright, my next restaurant report will be once again from Tuscany. I might even try to get two of those out this weekend. Back to the Twin Cities next Tuesday.