Chennai | It rains dim sum at Crystal Woo, the city’s newest Asian restaurant

Crystal Woo Dimsum House is focussed on bringing authentic flavours to Chennai, complete with a dim sum cart, egg tarts and more

A shiny steel cart is pushed around Crystal Woo Dimsum House, cane baskets neatly arranged stop it. It stops at our table. The lids of the baskets are removed with a flourish, each basket containing a different type of steaming hot dim sum. 

“Instead of waiting for your food, you can just take your pick. This way, you aren’t left hungry or waiting,” says  Dhasha S, a partner at Crystal Woo. In Chennai’s burgeoning Asian food scene, dim sum is plentiful, but the cart concept is unique and something they are excited about, she adds. 

At this new Hong Kong-inspired restaurant, dim sum obviously, is the pièce de résistance. Apart from those on the cart , there are ornamental dim sum baskets suspended from the ceiling. A large glass on one side of the restaurant shows us an assembly line of kitchen staff making this said dumpling by the dozen. 

“I have always loved Chinese cuisine, and have immensely enjoyed food in places like Din Tai Fung. I grew up in Malaysia and have eaten some amazing Chinese food there, and was keen to bring authentic dishes here,” says Dhasha.

We begin our dim sum sojourn with an XO prawn hargao, soft dumpling wrappers stuffed with juicy, flavourful shrimp. Prawns seem to be Crystal Woo’s strong point — while the prawn shumai is fresh and steamed to perfection, it is the prawn toast from the starters section, a crunchy bread crusted with sesame and filled with shrimp, that wins us over.

Navigating a soupy xiao long bao can be hard if you are not adept at using chopsticks, but the truffle chicken and golden butter and Vietnamese pho beef flavoured ones here, make the effort worth it. We resort to balancing the steaming hot xiao long baos on a large spoon, and ensure we get enough of its soupy goodness before proceeding to dig into the flavourful meat inside. 

Crystal Woo has a host of vegetarian options as well including combinations such as bok choy and ricotta, broccoli and chestnut, and asparagus and miso. The radish cake, an appetiser pick which comes highly recommended, has an interesting sweet and spicy flavour profile, but is texturally befuddling. Is it soft, or chewy? We can’t decide.