Review: Dim Sum Library, Covent Garden

Different food cultures, different norms. Sometimes it catches you off-guard, though. We ordered various bits of dim sum, and then a fried rice main dish and a side dish at Dim Sum Library. Then we were a bit startled when our side dish and two dim sum came even before we’d been served our drinks, and then the other dim sum and the fried rice arrived two minutes later.

But of course we should have known, as we’ve been to Hong Kong and enjoyed some amazing dim sum. And you pick what you want, and it usually appears then-and-there or a minute later. And then you eat it, and maybe order something else, and then when you’ve had enough dim sum maybe you order a bigger dish to finish you off. Just… that’s not usually the way things are done in central London, even in restaurants bringing cuisines from far across the world to us!

We were surprised and amused, not displeased. Because the table was just big enough to contain all these plates, and all the food was delicious and the dim sum all scoffed greedily before they had chance to cool down!

It’s a big, high-ceilinged dining room in a grand building, furnished in dark wood and cool paint, with a huge long bar-and-dim-dum-counter to whet your appetite. Service was great, very friendly. Their cocktails are excellent, I had a great old fashioned given some vegetal smokiness with pu’erh tea. Our side dish was one of my favourite Chinese treats; shredded potato salad, and this one was dressed with a good sweet-sharp vinegar and just enough chilli.

The three dim sum we picked were all excellent and felt very original. The char sui buns were baked in a very delicate pastry with a crunchy-sweet crust, the pork inside just packed with the very intense and vivid red flavour of char sui. There was a “Dan dan xiao long bao” which was a lovely soft little boiled dumpling filled with a flavour-packed hit of

pork and the fiery broth used in Dan Dan noodles. Then the very dramatic little “Yu Xiang” crispy pork dumplings, which looked like alien egg cases on their folded metal platter. The charcoal-coloured crispy rice casing was scrunchy and delicious, and the delicately spiced minced pork filling was a great counterpoint in texture, good flavour too.

Our “black cod fried rice” had less cod than I’d expected; crispy-fried nuggets of the fish scattered through a lovely crunchy fried rice with oodles of fermented black beans for flavour. Extremely moreish to eat, so much so that I’ve just bought a pack of fermented black soy beans to make fried rice at home!

All in all, a great place to have in Covent Garden, I can imagine coming back frequently. Our meal was about £30 each before drinks, though admittedly this was on the lighter side – I could have tucked in another dim sum or two!