Discover dim sum diversity

I’ve been waiting for Yauatcha to open since August, when the redesigned International Market Place was unveiled. After some trepidation my Chinese heart was elated to discover authentic Cantonese dim sum at a quality and level Honolulu has not seen in 12 years, when Li May Tang ran Shanghai Bistro in Discovery Bay. At that time dim sum in Chinatown was running about $1.50 per plate, and Honolulu diners simply were not ready to pay $3-plus per plate, no matter how exquisite the offering. She closed the restaurant after three years.

A decade later, try doubling that price. Dim sum regulars are balking about the cost but need to consider the bigger picture. Yauatcha isn’t strictly about dim sum, because even in this place of diversity I’ve met plenty of kamaaina who have not/will never set foot in a dim sum restaurant. The idea is too foreign to them.

With its Western appeal, Yauatcha makes this most Chinese of traditions “safe” for the most timid diners. The first Yauatcha opened its doors in London in 2004 and was conceived to be approachable for all ethnicities. Clientele have the option to dine in ways most comfortable for them, whether gathering for traditional yum cha (a tea-and-dim sum brunch), for casual or serious Western-style dinners, late-night cocktails with appetizers, or French patisserie desserts.

The market for cheap, belly-filling dim sum in the daytime isn’t going away, but the typical hot tea-and-water dim sum enthusiast won’t pay the bills for a restaurant of this caliber. Instead, Yauatcha aims for an elegant evening dim sum crowd that hasn’t existed to date, and a trendier bar crowd, by offering the kind of small bites with cocktail pairings no one else is offering.

Yauatcha has done away with dim sum carts in favor of the Western course format. If you’re new to dim sum, you might consider the array of bite-size meat, vegetable, seafood or combination dumplings and related dishes as appetizers to precede entrees. Otherwise, you might stick to the more typical yum cha format of ordering several types of dim sum beautifully presented here by Michelin-starred international head chef Chee Boon Ho.

One of the most eye-catching of the bite-size morsels is the green chive flour dumpling ($6.80), described on the menu as a chive flower dumpling because of its verdant color and shape. The name is a misnomer — the filling is mushrooms with no chive flavor. If you want chives, get the prawn and chive dumpling ($6.80). Even so, herb flavors are light here to maintain a balance more palatable to a general audience. The shellfish is cooked to a perfect supple crunch, not the rubbery bounce of an overcooked dumpling.

Only fresh, quality ingredients go into dishes here, so flavors are clean and recognizable. You’re not likely to find gristle or a jumble of mystery ingredients in the dumplings. Thin, translucent wraps are on par with the best restaurants in Asia and also speak to the level of expertise in the kitchen … at the moment. I will address this caveat later.

You want to go with different here because there’s not much to differentiate a basic shrimp har gau ($5.80) from any cheaper version in town.

Among my favorite pieces at Yauatcha are the eye-catching Phoenix-Tail Shrimp Shu Mai ($8.80) and the transparent, mochi- textured Morel Crystal Dumpling ($12.80), one of the few to contain micro-snippets of cilantro, an herb not universally beloved. Among unique specialty items are a red rice ball with a lovely brittle-crisp exterior and foie gras filling ($15.80), and Roasted Duck Pumpkin Puff ($7.80) with a glutinous rice wrap shaped like a pumpkin and deep-fried to give the shell a crunchy jin dui consistency. Another eye opener is the prawn and crispy bean curd cheung fun ($10.80), a look fun roll with a layer of crunch from the crispy bean curd-wrapped prawn within.

A meal’s heft might come in the form of tender, lightly-flavored jasmine tea-smoked pork ribs ($22 for about six baby-back ribs). I love that neither chef Ho nor pastry chef Graham Hornigold is a big fan of added sugar, so the ribs don’t have the treacly quality so widespread in Hawaii. Given the light treatment, the tea element is difficult to detect. Also not to be missed is the black truffle duck ($28), crisp-skinned and served in a shallow pool of truffled duck jus. Again, there is such a delicate harmony here that unless you’re a super taster, you might miss the truffle completely.

Crisp soft-shell crab ($16) gets the salt-and-pepper-dusted treatment usually accorded to pork or shrimp at typical dim sum restaurants. The crab could be crisper, but as if to compensate, it’s served with heaps of crisp, slivered toasted almonds and red chilies.

Some misses: a wok-fried lobster stir-fry that, though tasty in a seafood-based XO sauce, didn’t have enough lobster to make it worth the $48 price tag, given that the going rate for a whole lobster at a Chinese restaurant is $13 to $20; and Shanghai soup dumplings ($7.80, called siew long bun here) which are devoid of soup! They appeared dried up upon arrival both times I’ve ordered them.

Things are set right again at meal’s end, when Hornigold’s pastry will blow your mind. The chefs first combine forces in savory dishes such as a venison puff ($8.80) and crispy seafood puff ($10.80) encased in exceptionally fine mille-feuille pastry.

Then come sweet creations such as a plush red floral-designed Raspberry Delice ($12) cake of Manjari chocolate and raspberries; a Tropical Dome of lilikoi white chocolate mousse, pineapple and mango, built over a coconut dacquoise crust and served with yuzu sorbet; and Apple Vanilla Choux ($12) with apples, Calvados-soaked raisins, pastry cream, crumbled choux and vanilla ice cream. The desserts play up natural flavors of the fresh fruit.

Also on the menu is a Cassis Grand Macaron ($12) the size of a dozen normal-size macarons. Once you try this, you’ll want to sample other flavors, and Yauatcha will oblige by packaging a selection of macarons to go.

Now, about my reservations. Things are well and good with chefs Ho and Hornigold in the house, but what happens when they’re gone is a question mark. Like every other new restaurant in town, this one suffers from a dearth of manpower, with unemployment at a low 2.9 percent. This is exacerbated by the need for a specialized skill set that Western classically trained chefs don’t possess.

Last, waiters have been energetic and upbeat, if somewhat forgetful about bringing extra sauce or showing up with drinks in a timely matter. But first impressions are formed at the hostess counter, and here the staff has been rude and unhelpful. I attribute this to being products of a generation that grew up with screens and without social graces, something that must be addressed because it is becoming a black eye for both the restaurant and visitor industries.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.