Lin Chinese Cuisine

\

Guess who had to deal with a room full of impatient Chinese people all morning~ Don't we all love getting our passports and visas figured out?

Well. truthfully, I've never had to deal with those matters before, so I guess the experience is good. I'm currently working out the details of an exchange trip to China!

But that's not what I'm supposed to be rambling away about, huh. What was important was what was after figuring those documents out-- because it was lunch time!

Lin Chinese Cuisine  recently won some award for something or other.. I forgot where I read it, and I forgot what they won for, but I knew they were a shanghai dimsum joint, and that was reason enough to visit when I realized it was nearby the Chinese visa application office.

When we walked in the two or so servers were too busy to even greet us, and understandably so. It was a pretty large area for only two waitresses. I felt rather bad for them. However, we walked our way over to where one of the waitresses were, and they directed us to sit wherever we wanted.;;

It took a little bit of time, but the waitresses were very apologetic and we understood fine. They even took the time to clear a table that we really wished to sit at.

First to come was the beef wrap ($5). It was mostly dough, and very little beef. I'm hoping they meant for it to be chewy, because that's exactly what it was. The dough was just cooked. None of that crispy beef roll goodness that I prefer. It also lacked the extra dimension green onions bring. Fortunately there was no absence of hoisin sauce, or I would have been rather unhappy..

Look at that;; All dough. Little beef. No green onions.

It's a good thing our  next dish, the xiao long bao ($5), were a success.  Filled with a plentiful amount of broth and encased in a super thin skin, these were a lot better than the first xiao long bao's  I blogged about at Countryside Chinese Restaurant. The flavours were wonderfully subtle, which was contrasted by this soysauce:

The pungent soysauce had strips of garlic within it. Mm.

I tackled these dumpling by biting a hole, sipping out the soup, and then going in for the rest ; D See the thinness of the skin? It was great.

Red Bean Pastry ($5). Oh so flaky crust, how I adore you.The outer flaked nicely (and was lovingly lard laden).

And inside, the dough was soft and chewy. Almost a mochi like texture.
Now I'm not sure if this was intentional, and could be a sign of poor preperation... but I personally liked the contrast of texture in the dough. My eating partner though? Not so much. She thought it was due to poor prep.

I'm starting to see a trend here. Lin works with really subtle flavours. The red bean paste was not sugar laden like other red bean pastes I've had. While I personally like going over my sugar intake when I eat these things, others might prefer the subtlety. Don't get me wrong, it was still wonderful, but it's personal preference when it comes to the amount of sugar you like. My sister for example loved this.

The pastry could have also done with perhaps a little more red bean, but that's just me being greedy.. hehe;

And I didn't realize it when I first bit into the pastry, but underneath it was crusted with sesame seeds. Yum. The texture, the pop of the seed. Great.

Finally, our last dish to come was the daikon pastry. These pastries were huge spheres, and I ordered it per other food bloggers recommendation. The pastry was even flakier than the red bean pastry, and was made fresh, so was piping hot.

Again, the inner dough was a mochi texture, and just barely baked. And again, I liked this. The daikon filling had that bite of fresh vegetables, and was dispersed with small pieces of peas and ham. There weren't enough pieces of peas and ham for them to make a substantial difference to the filling, but the daikon itself was fine.

Again, my eating partner didn't like the subtlety of the filling. She felt that it couldnt' stand up against the pastry shell... And perhaps that's true. But the texture in itself made it great.

Average bill, for fresh, flaky, mochi-textured, and juicy food. Not bad. Not bad at all. I Like : )

Lin Chinese Cuisine:

Food:

• Seem to prepare dishes with the intention of being doughier (with the exception of the flaky outers of the pastries)
• Subtle flavours 
• Average price
• How much you enjoy the food depends largely on personal preference;

Atmosphere:

• Busy, older chinese joint.
• Clean (enough)

Service:

• Was understaffed and very busy when I went
• Recognize what customer service is though (in comparison to other Chinese restaurants..)