The night before I attended this dinner, I had a dream. I dreamt of a dimsum tree. Pearly white, translucent beauties hung from the branches, stuffed with the most delicious meat and seafood of every kind. I woke up satiated and with a smile on my face, looking forward to my meal that night. 

JW Marriott Mumbai hosted me and a bunch of other food bloggers to celebrate dimsums as a part of a week long festival held at their in-house Asian restaurant – Spices. Chef Tenzin from Arunachal Pradesh, a maestro at dimsum making is sharing his passion and creations with diners as a part of the restaurant team. Dimsums/ momos feature in my top 5 favourite foods of all times, and that’s one difficult list to get onto! This post is going to be a long winding tribute to one of the many imports from China that we can’t do without – the dimsum.

Celebrating the movie award season and the dimsum festival, I’ve put together ‘Dimsum Awards’ of my own. Hope it makes for a fun read. Here’s celebrating the best of the dimsums I ate at the J.W. Mariott dimsum week.

Best Performance in a Leading Role – Popular Non Vegetarian: 

The most popular dimsum of the evening was the Prawn Crab and Chive dumpling. (Rs. 625/-) An open faced dumpling, filled with treasures from the sea that evoke a strong fishy flavour the minute you bite into it. And the caviar on top adds so much crunch and texture to this dish. A winner, hands down!

Best Performance in a Leading Role – Popular Vegetarian:

One cannot go wrong with a Truffle and Edamame dimsum. (Rs. 625/-) This one was smooth and buttery thanks to the edamame, along with being rich and flavourful. I also loved how delicately each one was packed and presented.

Critics Choice for Best Performance Non-Vegetarian:

This is the one dish that I really liked. May not be a popular consensus of that evening but I enjoyed the Spinach Rolls with Water Chestnut (Rs. 625/-). I’d have rolled my eyes at the concept of a dimsum where the outer flour coating was replaced by spinach. This one changed my mind. Plump prawns were wrapped in spinach, and steamed in a black bean sauce such that the prawns imbibed the flavour of the sauce. Really enjoyable!

Critics Choice for the Best Performance Vegetarian:

There has to be a pan-fried dimsum in my list! I loved the Vegetarian Shanghai (Rs. 525/-) which is a vegetable laden, pan fried dimsum, which a lot of people may find resemblance to a spring roll. The Shanghai sauce served alongside added loads of flavour and spice.

Best Performance in a Comic Role:

The dimsum that amused me to no end was the Hot Chocolate Bun (Rs. 500/-). An outer steamed bun coating, albeit slightly thick, filled with gooey, steaming hot chocolate inside. This was a delicious, finger licking, dessert dumpling that made the chocolate lover in me very very happy.

Best Performance in Negative Role:

The dimsum that I really did not care about one bit was the Chicken wrapped in Pokchoy with Schezwan sauce (Rs. 600/-). I’m not a fan of pokchoy the least bit, and the dimsum overall was far too salty. Also the sauce tasted nothing like a schezwan sauce. Avoid this one!

Best Costume Design:

The prettiest looking dimsum out there was the Wild Mushroom and Pokchoy Crystal(Rs. 525/-). Crystal dumplings are visually stunning in any case, and get their name because of their translucent outer covering. The veggie bits inside also added so much colour to make a visually pretty picture.

Lifetime Achievement Award:

This award is meted out to the one dimsum that we cannot get enough of. It is present on every dimsum menu, and remains a unanimous favorite throughout – The Prawn Har Gow (Rs. 625/-). Steamed to perfection and a robust prawn flavour, I love the prawn har gow. Always did, always will!

Celebrate Dimsum Week is on till the 1st of March  at Spices, JW Marriott Mumbai. The unlimited dimsum menu for Rs. 1999/- per person with a pint of Kingfisher is definitely worth checking out.

(The author was invited to preview the Celebrate Dimsum week at JW Marriott Mumbai courtesy the Food Bloggers Association of India).