DIM SUM AT U AND ME - Chinatown

Wow, September has been a busy month with celebrations and work, and I didn't get a chance to try anywhere new. However, I did manage to convince my sister and her husband to have dim sum with me on one of the few days I was free. I wanted to go somewhere that I haven't had dim sum before and had soup dumplings on their menu. I had a choice between two places in Chinatown, and I chose U and Me since this place is big and have a very big dim sum menu. I haven't been to U and Me since my University days where we would go late at night for some yummy greasy Chinese food. This place was and still is known for staying open very late (or early). Their hours are 8am to 4am everyday.

Dim sum is a style of Chinese cuisine, particularly Cantonese. The food is usually small bite-size portions served in small steam baskets or on small plates. Dim sum is made famous by the way the food is served - fully cooked dishes and pushed on carts around the restaurant for diners to select. Some restaurants in Calgary still have the traditional carts but most have a paper menu list where you check off or write down the quantity you want and then flag a server afterwards to give the list to them. I don't know which way I like better - maybe the cart since you can see the food before picking it. U and Me had the paper menu list and, naturally, we over-ordered. Here are some of the items we ordered:

(l to r) Pan fried Shrimp Bean Curd Roll $4.95; Baked Egg Tarts $4.95; Century egg and Meat Congee (s) $6.95; Pan Fried Turnip Cakes $4.55; BBQ Pork in Rice Rolls $5.65; Garlic Sauce Spareribs $4.95; Shanghai Style dumplings $7.75; Chinese Donut Rice Rolls $6.25; Not picture Shrimp dumpling (har gow) $5.25 and Steamed BBQ Pork Buns $4.95

So, yeah. Ten dishes and three people. Everyone chose what they know and love. Dim sum dishes are hardy - full of carbs and greasy. We were pretty full afterwards, and there leftovers to take home. All the dishes were typical dim sum dishes that you can get anywhere. There was nothing that stands out or a specialty to U and Me. The one dish I was looking forward to was the Shanghai style dumplings (xiao long bao). They are dumplings, when cooked right, have soup inside. This soup is very flavourful and rich. I read that in New York City xiao long baos are popular, and they are experimenting with many types of stuffing - one including chocolate! I don't know if this will be the next mini food trend or not. But anyways, the xiao long baos at U and Me were not to my expectations. The meat was good but where is the soup?! I bit into one hoping that it was full of soup, but there was hardly any, and they were all like that. I was very disappointed since I was talking it up to my sister and brother-in-law. However, I know of two places in Calgary that suppose to have good xiao long baos. (Comments to me below if you know of more or any places that have unique flavour ones.)

Overall, this is a typical Chinese restaurant that opens super late. We went on Sunday at 11am, and the place was almost full when I went in. I think we missed the early dim sum crowd since there were dim sum "happy hour" specials serving till 11 am. The servers were attentive in that they were clearing our empty dishes and re-filling our tea pot right away. Initally, it was hard to get their attention to hand in our item list, but I think that is typical in most dim sum places. I always have to wave the paper around to get the servers attention even when it is not busy.

U and Me Restaurant
201 233 Centre Street SW
403-264-5988