Chicago’s Best South Side: New Furama Restaurant

No South Side episode would be complete without some dim sum in it. For people who aren't so familiar with what dim sum is, can you explain what that style of eating is? Dim sum is most popular brunch in my country. I came from Hong Kong. Also, dim sum is a little everything and with a small portion, so you can order four or five dishes. I like to try everything on the menu, so dim sum's perfect for me because I can pick four, five, six things and have little bits of everything. That's the good thing about it. You've been in the restaurant business a long time. We've been having a business for almost 35 years now. There's a restaurant up north, New Broadway in Nagao. That's what we started. And five years later, I start this one in Chinatown. Your restaurants are so popular that you've even made it onto the 100 Best Chinese Restaurants in the United States list before. I brought in the chef from Hong Kong, actually, when we started, The good thing is, you can have dim sum anytime right now. So traditionally, if we were in Hong Kong, you wouldn't really have dim sum afternoon, but if people want to have dim sum for dinner here, you offer it. You get the idea because we try to get everyone to taste the dim sum. We are particularly going to feature, is it shui mai? Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yes, siu mai. Everybody loves siu mai. Are you ready to teach me how to make a dumpling? Oh, yeah. I'll try my best. First, we have chopped pork belly, and then we have the shrimp, and it's all diced up. It's okay. And then we put half the mushroom in there, sesame oil, the soy sauce, sugar, and the salt, and then this is chicken powder, cooking wine, and then we have cornstarch. That's how you make the inside ingredients. And then now we come to the hard part. We have to put it in a little wonton wrap, okay? I will have my expert come in to help me because I haven't done this for a long time already. Sounds perfect. Right here. Right here in the middle. And it takes very skill to make 200, 300 a day. They have to be fast and have to be accurate. So the size of siu mai is almost the same every time. Think we have enough to go to the steamer? Yes, we're ready. Probably have to wait seven minutes, but we have some already pickled on the steamer. Then we're going to take it out and we'll do the garnish. So just adding a little bit of color and texture on the top there. Yes, this is tapioca. It's ready to be served. You guys were nice enough to give me my own little dim sum here. Nine different samplings here. Should we dig right in? Oh, yes. Yes. This is the best dumpling I've ever eaten. Thank you. I love it. I eat it every morning. The flavor in this, Eddie, it has such a nice saltiness because of the pork and that salt and the mushrooms that you put in. But that wonton and a little bit of caviar on the top really give it like a nice complimentary sweetness to it. I get why it's the most popular item. I tell you, we have the best siu mai in Chinatown here. If you make it onto the list of the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the country, I'm pretty sure you're doing something right, Eddie. Okay, thank you. How do you say cheers in Cantonese? Kan pei. Kan pei to you. Yeah, kan pei, pretty close. Thank you. Thank you so much.