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There are not that many places I have found in Bournemouth and Dorset region that does authentic Chinese dim sum. Through growing up, Chinese dim sum has always been a Sunday afternoon affair with the family driving through to Newcastle, a quick hour eating steamers full of the little delights and plates of noodles and rich dishes. In Bournemouth it is, or at least was, a different affair. When we first moved down in '96 it was all the run of the mill Chinese restaurants and their Westernised menus. It wasn't until Oriental Express opened that dim sum, such as fresh Har Gau, Sui Mai or Cheung Fun became readily available as a sit down restaurant. Oriental Express was more of a cafe but had a makeover and became a bigger restaurant, called Oriental Garden, albeit only slightly bigger. Jump forward to 2007. On my drives to and from work I had seen a hotel on Christchurch Road being renovated and it had a sign saying that a new Chinese restaurant and hotel would be opening soon. A strange combination I thought. It was even more interesting to hear that it would be doing dim sum. The place is called Ocean City Restaurant. Meg and Rich said they had been, once it had opened, and said they enjoyed it. I thought I would give it the efnic.co.uk test and see whether it wins our seal of approval. I actually went two days on the trot. Please note that they only do the full dim sum menu up till 5pm. I went they during lunchtime on Friday and then on Saturday. The weekend is probably the best time to fir it in. The real test is whether on Sunday afternoon it is full of Chinese families. Not been on Sunday yet, but it is always a good sign if that is the case.
The first time I went we sat at a table by the windows. Even though it was a grey day the sun still got through and it ended up being really quite warm there. To there credit the waiters noticed me wiping sweating off my forehead and promptly opened a few windows around me. You are given some laminated menus in English that had numbers, a description and a price for each item. They also give you a pen and a carbon copy form. You then write down against each box the quantity that you want. Simple as that. No embarassing attempts at bad pronunciation of stuff.
I enjoyed the food. All very light. The egg tarts you could barely feel when picking them up or eating them. The Har Gau and Sui Mai were plump. I felt the Cheung Fun could have been a bit thicker in its layers and the sauce a bit more sweeter and more of it but it was still nice enough. The cuttlefish cakes were very meaty, small in radius but thick. We only had a variety of dim sum dishes and no large rich or noodle dishes and we were full.
I went back the next day with Angela and had even more. We sat inside a bit more and it was much cooler! The decor is slightly darker feel inside but has a bit of a modern twist with haloegn and LED lights around the place. OK, there is a huge plasma TV by the front door that slightly detracts from the place but handy I guess when you are waiting. We had some dim sum along with a 3 meat platter with rice. The roast duck was very crispy as was the roast pork. The char sui was also succulent. I am glad there is another place that does dim sum that is bigger. Oriental Garden is still a firm favourite but this is a bit better for bringing large groups of friends and family to.
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