Have you felt when you woke up on a lazy weekend morning and crave for some dim sum? There’s ample of dimsum shops around Penang. One that I’ve been to a few times is Red Tea House in Farlim, opposite the old Sunshine Farlim Hypermarket.

This place is smaller and not as famous as the Dim Sum Food Restaurant @ Macalister Road but it is always pack with patrons during weekends. Even by extending their tables to the corridor of two shops beside it, customers still have to wait for a table if they come at around 8-9am.

During weekends and on public hoildays, it is in self-service mode. But they do not have a big area where they placed the array of dimsums, so be ready to crowd around and fight for your share. Luckily, they dish out the freshly steamed dim sum pretty fast, so do not fret.

While choosing some dim sum, I saw behind the kitchen, the workers are constantly wrapping/steaming the dim sums for the demanding weekend crowd.

Most of the dim sum here are prawn-based.

Prawn Siew Mai. As you can see from the picture, it’s really filled to the brim with chopped prawns. The prawns are very fresh and juicy.

 

 Siew Mai. Size is much smaller than the ones above. Taste-wise it’s just normal.

Prawn filling and crabstick wrapped with seaweed. A nice alternative to the usual ones.

Har Kow with scallop.

This is something like siew mai but with prawns and chickpeas inside.

Another prawn-base dimsum. The green thing is just an extra layer of green-colored skin. At first I thought it is some kind of vege.

 

Prawns and ku chai har kow.

 

On to the fried items. There’s a variety of snacks like egg tart, sesame balls, and many others.

Prawns wrapped in beancurd skin

 

Prawns wrapped in wantan skin

Chai thau koay (Radish cake)

Wu kok. I love the crispy outer skin layer!! And the yam is very soft but yet doesn’t stick all over your mouth.

 

(pictures turned out a little green because our table was under a green awning)

Other than the steam and fried dimsum above, they also have steam fish fillets, braised chicken leg, porridge, loh mai kai, pau, chee cheong fun, shark fin soup, xiao long pau, and others.

Overall the ingredients used are fresh and constantly steamed batch by batch, so you don’t taste like you are eating overnight stuff.

Prise-wise, it’s reasonable, 3 of us ate a total of about RM 35++ (can’t remember the exact sum).

Contact:
Red Tea House
Air Itam, 11500, Penang

Others:
Self-service during weekends and public holiday.

Business Hours:

6.00am - 12.00pm

(Monday to Sunday)

GPS:

5°23.899′ N   100°17.261′ E

Map:

 red tea house

(click on the map to view a larger image)

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