Move Over Brunch - Sundays are for Dim Sum

Move Over Brunch - Sundays are for Dim Sum

Brunch is great and all, but I think dim sum might be my new Sunday staple. My dim sum dining partner, E.J. Friedman (of Loudersoft) and I checked out Asian Palace over the weekend.

Dim sum, Asian Palace, Memphis, Tenn.

Asian Palace is like Golden Coast's more chaotic, populist little sister. Golden Coast is the girl your mom immediately likes, Asian Palace is the girl you'd probably have more fun with.

The dining room is bigger and much less formal and the crowd is ethnically and socially diverse - when we were at Asian Palace, there was a solid mix of huge families, couples having lunch and people trying to recover from Saturday night.

Inside Asian Palace, Memphis, Tenn.

The quality of Asian Palace's food is about the same as Golden Coast, but it's less expensive (we spent about $30 for enough food for a small army). Since E.J. is more experienced with dim sum than I am, I let him pick our food from the carts that the staff was pushing around the restaurant. I also forgot to snag our menu on the way out, so I don't have the technical names of the things that we ordered - next time, I'll do better on that.

One of the problems with letting someone else choose the dim sum is that in a few cases, I'm not entirely sure what I was eating. There were chicken feet (and I still don't like them) and a plate of amazingly tender, crispy pork belly. Imagine the best bacon you've ever had and add to that and you'll have an idea of what it tasted like.

Pork Belly, Asian Palace, Memphis, Tenn.

We also had some taro cakes that were only mildly sweet and sort of the texture of a chunky potato cake (not a bad thing). There was sticky rice and spicy pork wrapped in giant leaves, green beans and a thin sleeve of pressed bean curd stuffed with shrimp that tasted kind of like  a delicious, buttery perfect omelet.

My favorite thing, though, were the taro pastries. They were sweet and a little gelatinous (sort of like mochi) and had taro paste in the middle.

taro cakes, Asian Palace, Memphis, Tenn.

Asian Palace is open daily for lunch and dinner. They've got a full menu and they serve dim sum all the time, but if you want to get your dim sum from carts, you'll have to go on a weekend.

Go there:

Asian Palace

5266 Summer Ave #65
Memphis, TN 38122

Asian Palace on Urbanspoon

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Kerry
I've tried both several times and I think I like Golden Coast better. The staff at Golden Coast is easier to communicate with and more attentive and the food is just as delicious. :-)
July 31, 2012 2:53pm
Jonathan Chu
Would love to join you sometime, if you choose to go again, and help order and intro some of the dishes.  My family goes often to dim sum at Asian Palace and growing up Chinese in the south, tend to stick to the places that are as traditional as we can find here.  Thanks for writing about this traditional Chinese cuisine/meal! 
July 31, 2012 3:46pm
chris
Asian Palace: I love the idea, but the hair I found in my food and Health Inspection rating of 70 (noticed it on my out sadly) made me feel sick for the rest of the afternoon.
July 31, 2012 4:19pm
Kerry (Admin)
I would love that. I'll let you know the next time we go.
August 1, 2012 8:54am
EJ
So, Chris, I have to ask you: It is not that I do not believe what you're saying, but can you substantiate this claim with actual proof?  It's perfectly realistic to ask you to back up what you're saying because even sites like Urban Spoon and Trip Advisor do not allow people to make those kinds of claims without factual evidence.  If you add them to a review on their site, they will pull them down.  If you have something in writing that shows what you're talking about, please share it with me; I eat there all the time and I want to be confident in supporting restaurants that pass health inspection.
August 1, 2012 12:36pm
Henry
Dim Sum is so much fun in groups.  Next time try the little white dumplings wrapped in shrimps (har gow).  Steamed pork ribs with bean sauce.  Both Asian and Golden make one with and without the fermented beans, choose the one with fremented beans.  Also, a noodle wrapped shrimp with drizzle of molasses soy sauce (har cheong fun).  I won't missed the classic pork dumpling (shui mai). Enjoyed the article and be adventurous when ordering.
August 2, 2012 2:21pm
Teddy
Love the idea of dim sum, but am always skeptical about cleanliness (in mulitple cities)... For EJ - This comes from the public database found here:  http://www.commercialappeal.com/data/restaurantinspections/ Asian Palace Facility Location: 5266 Summer, Ste 65 Ave Memphis Facility Inspection History: Click on an inspection link below to see additional details   # of Critical Violations on Last Inspection:   2 # of Non-Critical Violations on Last Inspection:   12   Inspection Type   Inspection Date   Violations   Score Routine Inspection   5-Jun-2013   2 critical   74 Follow Up Inspection   5-Jun-2013   0 critical   84 Follow Up Inspection   7-May-2013   0 critical   80 Routine Inspection   22-Apr-2013   5 critical   57 Follow Up Inspection   7-Feb-2013   0 critical   81 Routine Inspection   7-Dec-2012   3 critical   67 Routine Inspection   21-Jun-2012   2 critical   70 Follow Up Inspection   22-Nov-2011   0 critical   78 Routine Inspection   12-Nov-2011   1 critical   73 Follow Up Inspection   23-Feb-2011   0 critical   87
March 28, 2014 11:40am