I'm currently not very mobile and am desperately missing my dim sum

I've made both Siu Mai and Har Gow before but would love to just have some ready to steam without the copious amounts of effort, and my sloppy creations!

Problem is, the few times I've bought frozen, they've always been awful quality.

Has anybody got recommendations for the best frozen dim sum, especially siu mai and har gow, and where to buy them?

Two of my most favourite foods. I buy a brand called Sam Pan, they do a variety of frozen dim sums. I highly recommend the chopped steamed ribs in black bean sauce too. I buy them from my local Chinese supermarket, I think they're a pretty well known brand.

Tesco is offering a range of frozen dim sum at half price till 2nd Dec. The brand is Mei Sum (which I have not tried before) but I don't think you can go far wrong paying £1.69 for 12 pieces of Siu Mai and £2.25 for 6 pieces of Har Gow.

No advertising intended! just a fellow dim sum lover and bargain hunter.

I'll give that a go, see how it compares to the Chinese supermarket brands. Cheers for the heads up.

Please let us know your verdict, if you don't mind being our guinea pig, sorry taste tester

Me too - if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life..!

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll get the scout to look for those ones. I've not bought frozen for a couple of years so can't recall which brands I tried and which not - but whichever ones I did try were really not up to much, I binned a few packets the quality was that dubious!


Ooh thanks! At first I thought you meant those awful lumps of greasy chicken in filo Tesco often try to pass off as dim sum, but then I saw the ones you've mentioned which look to be the real deal! Problem is they're not available on my Tesco.com, so I'll have to drop them an email and see if they're available anywhere here. Bloody good price too - nice find!

So far the best mainstream supermarket dim sum I've found is at Ocado by a brand called Zao - they do some Sui Mai and a strange triangular version of har gow they call Prawn Dumplings which both far surpass the others I've had, but still aren't quite right.



Thanks to you both - I'm going to have to send the other half off to the Chinese supermarkets so want to tell him which brands are possible good 'uns and which are best avoided.

Maybe it's time to make myself another batch, sigh! They're just never as pretty and take forever to make I wonder if it'd be weird or wrong to call and ask a restaurant to make me up a batch and freeze them?

I lurve me some dim sum. Quite possibly my favourite meal to have out. I buy the Royal Gourmet brand for home. The char siu pau is pretty good - the siu mai are ok, I find that any frozen siu mai are always a bit rubbery but the har gow are pretty decent - I just have to remember to put down a bit of greaseproof so they don't stick to my bamboo steamer.

Mmmmmm.... I want some now!

The fillings are really easy to prepare at home, in fact it's cheaper and you can vary the pork-prawn ratio, spring onion, ginger, soy sauce according to taste. You can buy ready-made wonton skin to wrap the siu mai, but making the har gow pastry is trickier (for me anyway!).

I have to admit, I think making my own and only eating in good dim sum restaurants has spoiled me - the ropey fillings most takeaways and frozen ones have are so grim in comparison.

The issue with making them is the time, results and storage. I'd usually make a batch of around 50 and freeze them, but if you like a nicely formed dumpling it takes ages, and my har gau though I eventually nailed the pastry, are never as pretty or regular, the crimping is such an art! They take up a lot of room in the freezer, and making a small batch isn't economical for ingredients nor time.

Plus I'm just feeling sorry for myself that I can't get to a restaurant and am poorly so it'd be a real treat to have some top notch ones ready to zap and pamper myself

I know! Too delish aren't they!

Thanks for the recommendation - I want to avoid ropey ones!

I reckon you are not living in London or Manchester then
otherwise you will be spoiled for choice of restaurants serving good dim sum. Although I live in London, I have yet to find a Chinese restaurant serving dim sum buffet. When I holiday in Singapore, the highlight has been eating all the top-notch dim sum that I can in one sitting for a fixed price, typically around £10 per person. Yum yum!

No I'm in London and yep we've got some amazing restaurants, but I can't go to any for a while as I'm pretty much housebound. So I need the dim sum to come to me

Some of our local Chinese takeaways do the most popular dim sum including my two faves, but the quality is shockingly bad and I'm certain they're just bought in frozen and obviously not made by them.

£10 all you can eat dim sum?! I'd bankrupt them! There are lots of dim sum buffets in London, though I've always found them to be pretty poor in the evenings, best go early in my experience!

My family are from Singapore and when I go over they take me to a place just over the boarder in Johor, I will find out the name of the place for you, as the dim sum there is fantastic!!

Thank you very much, that's kind of you.
By the way, dim sum lovers in London, do try Royal China (bar their Harrow branch). They are so good that they have opened a branch in Singapore where the competition is very stiff.

Was just having a look at the wing yip website to see if you could get it from them but they don't do their frozen stuff online

fyi - best place for dim sum in chinatown is Joy King Lau next to the Empire casino

Sorry didn't see this - thanks for the recommendation!

I haven't send him in search yet, but I have found some decent gyoza on Ocado, made by Yutaka. Not quite the same of course, but they are brilliant quality and half the price of the Zao dumplings.

If anyone has any more recommendations I'd be really grateful!