In my last post I briefly mentioned that this post would be about our first experience with dim sum. Let’s just say we were completely out of our element (there are not many opportunities for dim sum in rural North Carolina).

But if you’re in San Francisco and looking for some great dim sum, we highly recommend a stop at Dragon Beaux!

I wanted to find something close to Golden Gate Park, since that’s where we were doing most of our exploring for the day. Dragon Beaux was about a mile from the park (we did 17 miles this day, so it didn’t seem like that much of a detour). I had a friend recommend that we do hot pot while in San Francisco, but goodness, that stuff is expensive, so we skipped that and just ordered from the menu.

I’m incredibly awkward, especially when it comes to not knowing what to do at restaurants. Ya know those where you walk in and have no idea if you’re supposed to seat yourself or wait for a host/ess? Ugghhhh, so awkward. Add in the fact that we were basically the only people who could just speak English and it was a hot mess.

We were seated at a community table and were given a menu and a pencil. And we sat there and stared at each other 😂.

Our waiter was super nice and helpful (especially after I blurted out “sorry, we’re new!” because apparently when I feel awkward, everyone else should too). He recommended something from a tray that a woman was carrying, so we figured, why not? Surprisingly, these were my favorite!

After a lot of searching through Yelp pictures, I finally found out that these were red bean sesame balls and are actually listed under ‘Sweets’ on the menu.

For the rest of our meal, we marked what we wanted from the menu. The family we were sitting with ordered, like, twenty items. Seriously, I didn’t think the food would ever stop coming and their numerous dishes made our pitiful one-at-a-time look sad. In addition to the sesame balls, our waiter also recommended sea bass dumplings, which I was super skeptical of (I rarely do fish), but he was right and they were a good choice!

Sea bass dumplings

We also ordered pork belly because, duh. When pork belly is on the menu, one must always order the pork belly. That was J’s favorite.

Roasted pork belly

We also ordered apple bbq pork pastries and Mongolian beef bao that came sizzling in a cast iron skillet (SO GOOD!). I wanted to try more of the bao and dumplings, but J was full (*eye roll*), so we stopped there.

Apple bbq pork pastries

Mongolian beef bao

So the big question is, was it worth getting completely out of our comfort zone?Definitely! I’m looking forward to the next opportunity for dim sum, and I think it would be fun to go with a big group and order a lot of different items in order to explore the menu a bit more. No squid ink dumplings for me, though…

Did I mention I was terrible with chopsticks?

What’s your favorite dim sum restaurant and what are your favorite things to order? Any recommendations for dim sum on the East coast? North Carolina?