We were greeted by bright and contemporary atmosphere as we stepped into Sum Dim Sum outlet. With a name like this, there was no doubt as to what we would having – dim sum, of course!
Sum Dim Sum started in 2019 and now has multiple outlets. We paid a visit to the one at Jalan Besar. It can be found just two streets away from the main location of a dim sum stalwart Swee Choon. But we were here to sample what Sum Dim Sum had to offer.
Sum Dim Sum Menu Items
Contrary to what you may expect, Sum Dim Sum has more on its menu than simply dim sum alone.
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You can also find Hong Kong style dishes along with noodle dishes such as mee goreng and moonlight hoe fun.
But we were for the dim sum.
The casual dim sum restaurant was not very busy and very soon the food started to arrive after we had placed the order through a QR code.
We started our dim sum meal with a specialty – Pandan BBQ Char Siew Bun ($6.30). Each green coloured bun sat on a small piece of pandan leaf. It was crispy on the outside with moist abdominal juicy morsels of char siew on the inside. The pandan gave it a unique flavour. We give it a 4/5.
Next, we moved to the dim sum staple – siew mai. We were quite pleasantly surprised by how juicy the Wolfberry with Mushroom Siew Mai ($5) was. The siew mai burst with flavour as we bit into it. 4/5.
What intrigued us was the har gow. There are two versions on the Sum Dim Sum menu. We could either order the regular Fresh Prawn Hargow ($5.10) or a blue skinned version, the Fresh Prawn Tiffany Blue XL Hargow ($6.30). We decided to order both.
The regular white skin har gow was a bit hard for our liking. We give it a 2.7/5.
The blue skin version – which we understand is made with blue pea to give it the bluish tinge – was more expensive than the white skin version. It did taste slightly better than the white skin version and had a slightly nutty taste profile. 3/5.
What impressed us was the Pan Fried Carrot Cake ($5.20). This arrived nice, hot and crispy and was covered with a heap of fried onions, spring onions, chilli, fried ikan billis along with some sauce. 4.5/5.
The Char Siew Bao ($5.70) was a decent size and had a high bao-to-meat ratio. 3.5/5.
While the skin of the BBQ Pork Rice Roll ($5.10) was nicely delicate, the meat inside was rather hard. We give it a 2.8/5.
We did enjoy the Signature Hot & Spicy Dumplings ($5) which had a deeply vinegary sauce.
On the whole, the stand out dim sum dishes for us were the deliciously plump siew mais, the fried carrot cake and the Pandan BBQ Pork Buns.
Dining at Sum Dim Sum
We also liked the modern and casual atmosphere at the Jalan Besar outlet.
There are many other dishes on the Sum Dim Sum menu and we will give them a try in the future.
In addition to Jalan Besar, Sum Dim Sum also has outlets at Punggol East and HomeTeamNS Bedok. Islandwide delivery and self-pick up options (with 10% off) are also available.
Visit the Sum Dim Sum website.
If you enjoyed this story, we think that you will also enjoy this story on other dim sum places in Singapore, this other story about dim sum at TungLok Teahouse or this other story about cha chaan tengs in Singapore.
