This DC-Area Dim Sum Restaurant Is a Winner

"Dim sum was going to be disappearing soon. The young generation doesn't want to work in the kitchen, and the chefs are retiring. Right now, a lot of restaurants are ordering frozen dim sum from New York and California, so I'm afraid that the rest of my life, people would be eating, like, 60 or 70 percent frozen dim sum."

"Wu thinks the best dim sum is served to order for maximal freshness. The crumb of the pineapple buns is so tender, the bean-curd-skin wraps so juicy, the egg tarts so flaky, the rice-noodle rolls so delicate, that the tradeoff of no pushcarts is worthwhile for quality and freshness."

"Those sunflower-yellow pineapple buns may be Wu's proudest achievement. Pineapple buns don't contain pineapple—they're named for their sugar-cookie-like topping, which resembles the fruit's texture. Hong Kong teahouses often split them and slide a pat of butter inside; the Corner Bites version is filled with gooey egg custard instead."

Steven Wu, a Guangzhou native concerned about declining dim sum quality in the DC area, opened Corner Bites in downtown Rockville with Hong Kong-born chef Zhou Zhuohuan. The restaurant prioritizes freshness by serving dim sum to order rather than from pushcarts, featuring specialties like custard-filled pineapple buns, delicate rice-noodle rolls, and flaky egg tarts. As service transitions from brunch to lunch, wok-fired dishes emerge, including expertly prepared chow fun with charred rice noodles and Cantonese salt-and-pepper treatments applied to pork and seafood. Wu's initiative addresses his concern that younger generations are abandoning kitchen work and many restaurants resort to frozen dim sum from other states.

Read at Washingtonian - The website that Washington lives by.