A couple of Sundays ago, Jac and I met up with Chad and her fiancé J for dim sum at Emma’s Seafood and Dim Sum Restaurant (886 Albany Highway Victoria Park).
We’ve seen the lines outside the restaurant on weekends and wanted to be sure we’d be early enough to get a table right away – Jac rang up and confirmed their opening time on Sunday: 10:30am. We rocked up at 10:20am only to see there were already customers in the restaurant, eating and drinking Chinese tea! Luckily, there was no problem getting a table. It took a while for us to be served, but once the tea arrived and the food carts came round it was non-stop deliciousness. We must’ve all been very hungry, as we got through a rather large amount of food! Here’s what we ate:
Rice flour rolls filled with prawns.
Har gow – steamed prawn dumplings. The prawn filling was well-seasoned and bursty in texture, but the dumpling skin was stuck to the steamer, so when you tried to remove a dumpling, you’d find yourself stripping the prawn filling naked, leaving its dumpling skin behind!
I’m not sure what was in these – prawns again, I think, with spring onion.
As soon as the tray came around with egg tarts, I grabbed a serve. Egg tart is a must for me every time I have dim sum. I’ve loved these ever since I was a child.
These were my next favourite item – deep-fried prawn and banana dumplings.
All around the outside are croutons. In with the prawn filling inside was mashed banana. The flavour of the banana was lovely, and the prawn was delicious. In fact, all the prawn we ate was cooked to burstiness and seasoned to perfection.
Rice flour roll filled with barbecue pork (char siu).
Siew mai – Jac’s all-time favourite, steamed pork dumplings.
This is another dim sum favourite of mine – beancurd skin dumplings, filled with pork mince and bamboo shoots.
More pork dumplings.
Pork ribs, with a little chopped fresh chilli.
I ate most of this by myself, with a little help from Jac – a steaming bowl of rice porridge. It was lovely, flavoured with tasty fine threads of pork. The fried pieces of wantan skin on top were a nice touch.
This one was a winner with all of us – black bean eggplant.
We all enjoyed these deep-fried wantan with mayonnaise for dipping. The mayo was extremely thin and runny, but the wantan were beautifully fresh.
Jac was hanging out for one of her favourites, sago mango pudding, but then a waiter walked by with a tray of tall glasses filled with sago and jelly. She just had to try one. It was extremely sweet, and after consuming it she didn’t need pudding. :)
We were all getting full, but J pointed out that we hadn’t had any fried squid tentacles yet. And so that was the last of the savoury dishes we ate.
I ate one of the egg tarts, while the my three dining companions shared the other. The custard was very light, smooth and soft. Delicious! My favourite three out of all the dishes: 1. Egg tart 2. Prawn and banana ball 3. Rice porridge. If it’s the top five savoury dishes, 4. Bean curd skin dumplings 5. Black bean eggplant.
I’ll eat dim sum at Emma’s again for sure. My only complaint was there was no soy sauce – no sauce whatsoever – on the table. We had to keep asking for more sauce to eat our dim sum with – Jac loves the hoisin-based “sweet sauce”. They really should serve the sauce in larger dishes when there’s four or more people at the table – it would definitely all be consumed, and busy staff wouldn’t feel constantly harassed by sauce-loving customers asking for more.
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
great! now i have a massive hankering for dim sum!! i can’t believe you guys managed to get through so much food. I’m almost a little scared to go for dimsum though because i’ve always gone with family and had other people order. i get all the chinese names mixed up, then its a little embarassing ordering from the ‘english’ menu, don’t know my har gows from my siew mais I suppose :)
for me, its not dim sum until i’ve had the fried squid tentacles, char siew bao, egg tarts, har gows, century egg porridge, chee cheong fun, and mango pudding for dessert.
guess i know where i’ll be on Sunday!
wow all the dishes look amazing, especially that gorgeous-looking egg tart.
i really enjoy looking at your blog everyday. keep it up!
i love looking at dim sum as much as i love eating it! most things you featured are dishes i personally enjoy. i especially love har gow and egg tarts and i’ve loved them since i was a kid.
but what caught my eye this time was those prawn and banana dumplings. they sound yummy! they remind me of this dim sum dish i had once (can’t remember where though, maybe in singapore), of diced prawn and mango wrapped up in a spring roll wrapper and deep fried. it was so good eaten with mayonnaise! so bad, but so good! i would think banana and prawn is lovely as well.
This is among the several websites I visit daily, I need my TFP fix everyday, otherwise I start shaking. OH! Also I got my lunch bag, it is beautiful! I chose a different design and what not and I got it not much long afterwards!
xanderah,
Well, that’s the beauty of the dim sum cart – the dishes are all there and all you have to do if you’re unsure of the names is point to dishes that look good to you! :)
Cheers sadie,
I plan to keep it up!
dea,
Oooh, the prawn/mango spring roll sounds great. I’m not a big fan of mango but wrapped in spring roll skin sounds very appealing.
Carmen,
That is great! I meant to ask you whether you received it ok, so I’m pleased to hear it.
Oh dear God, as far as my level of drooling, this might be the best TFP set of pics in a long time! Nuff Said.
Rudi
Thanks, Rudi, glad you like ‘em. :)
tfp, my husband HATES dim sum. Crazy man. I wish I had you and Jac here to go with.
Ohhh you are naughty! After reading through this post I HAD to try some of the things… I just had my first Pork dumplings and man am I in LOVE!!!
Thanks for the awesome pics
That looks unbelievably good. I’m so dragging P there for dim sum!
This is really weird, because Jac and I and another friend had tim sum yesterday morning! I tried to take some photos on your behalf but they are nothing like yours, see my flickr photostream :)
My hb and me love dimsim. Missed having my usual Sunday dimsim fix in Msia. I think I might try Emma but it would be a limited choice for us though.
The egg tarts looked so eggy n nice. I love both the normal egg tart and portugese tarts with caramelised topping yummy. Have you tried the Tong Kee (msia) egg tarts. They said its nice. I cant eat it becoz the important ingredient to make the pastry so nice n flaky is lard.
Now I know what I HAVE to have for dinner tonight *shakes fist in air* Darn you, tfp, darn you!
lol. thanks for the lovely pictures!
Nicole,
What a shame hubby isn’t into dim sum. I’d have been devastated if Jac wasn’t into it. :)
Tiphphinne,
Me naughty? Never! Heheheh.
C,
Hahahah. You guys will love it!
E,
Yes, she told me about it over the phone last night. I was wondering if you would write about it, and you did! She really enjoyed herself, thank you for looking after her. :)
flower,
No I haven’t tried the Tong Kee ones. Yes, probably too many pork dishes at Emma’s. If only they would make a non-lard pastry egg tart, with that lovely soft custard… you would love it, I’m sure.
nalinee,
Mwahahahahahah. Yes, that was an evil laugh. ;-) Hope you get to eat something tasty for dinner!
Thanks for covering this place TFP
I’t brought back good memories.
I went to Emma’s once with 4 friends of mine, I must say, I think we at twice as much food!
But why no chicken feet? you must try the chicken feet! They are my favourite!
Oh yum!!! I love yum cha! Like Jac, I MUST have siw mai every time I go. Siw Mai and Har Gow is a must. And the steamed rice noodles with beef and steamed pork ribs and chicken feet! OMG I’m so hungry now!!
Those banana prawn things also look awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever had them in sydney, the ones that look like your photos is prawn only. Or mayb they’ve changed since?
what..? no xiao long bao??!
the rice rools with prawn and char siew.. i think they’re called chee cheong fun. smth like that.
banana & prawns..? hmm.. still trying to figure that out… hey nice pics!
Mikeymikemike,
Heh, no worries! I’ve eaten chicken feet before and am not really a fan. You know what? I don’t recall seeing any chicken feet pass by on a cart that morning.
SoRMuiJAi,
I’ve never had prawn with banana at a dim sum restaurant, but that’s not to say it’s not served elsewhere. It was great – I have been thinking about those prawn and banana things ever since.
ct,
Yes, they are called chee cheong fun. I like chee cheong fun, both the dim sum style stuffed with prawns or char siu, or this style, featured in previous posts:
Yay, Fook Kee’s back!
Favourites
The food looks amazing. I grew with this food and it doesn’t always occur to me how foodies of different cultures would perceive them, so I’m glad to read about it on this blog and look at it under a different light. Great job on the descriptions. I just have to defend the restaurant a little, because dim sum is rarely served with soy sauce, since there is usually a lot of sodium in the dishes. The only condiments used for dipping is mustard and hot sauce.
Diana,
I grew up with this too – I am Chinese-Australian, originally from Malaysia, after all. I like to have something to dip my savouries into – whether it’s sweet sauce, chilli sauce or soy sauce. I’ve been to other dim sum restaurants which do have soy sauce on the table, which is good to have while waiting for staff to deliver the other sauces to the table. :)
hi, I left PERTH some yrs ago,, and I know
Emma’s seafood was at Williamstreet?at Northbridge
Or do they moved?A Grocery shop ,in Williamstreet.
This Victoria Park ,EMMA- Was it new Shop?
anyway, I am fr Wagga NSW (regional), will be back to Perth end of yr..thanks for yr mentioned many foodstuff..
I missed “MUNCH Terrance? sooo yummmy..