Enter Rol San restaurant.
Located in the middle of bustling Chinatown right on Spadina street, Rol San is a piece of home away from home. Loud clamouring servers, tables covered with stacks of plastic sheets for ease of cleaning, artwork and oddities hung on an off white wall… I knew this place was legit.
Dim sum places are usually packed by 11 or 11:30 am, so we lucked out when we got seated as soon as we got in. We proceeded to fill our order sheet with everything steamed, fried, and deep fried.
Pork dumplings, deep fried squid, siu mai, sesame pork buns, egg custards. The whole shebang. Who needs Santa when you have all of that.
Dim sum is usually fast paced for me. My friends and I barely talk because if you keep talking, you’ll run out of food. Not to discourage socializing but we can get to that before or while waiting for food to arrive.
I found everything to be delicious (relative – for the price we paid, it was good). The pork siu mai was particularly porky, the egg custard wasn’t too sweet, and they didn’t skimp on filling for the steamed buns. One of my favourites was the minced mushroom and rice dish wrapped in what I think were banana leaves. It’s a lovely gift from the dimsum gods with a generous portion too. Another dish you should also try is the mango pudding; a lot of dim sum places serve mediocre mango puddings. Theirs is something I could eat seconds and even thirds of.
There are tons of dim sum places in town, including more expensive ones where the servers are dressed in French maid outfits (which warrant a separate blog post in the future). If you’re looking for a dim sum place that’s relatively average priced around town, make sure to give Rol San a try. Just make sure to get there as early as you can so don’t have to wait too long!
