At Gitlo's, it's always time for dim sum
He calls himself the "dim sum snob." When Richard Li of Somerville wrote to suggest we review "a new OUTSTANDING dim sum place in Allston," he made his case for Gitlo's Dim Sum Bakery this way:
I "have not eaten dim sum in Boston in years except under intense peer pressure, but I've been to Gitlo's six times this year already (they opened in December). Well worth a trip."
It turns out that Li, a 29-year-old marketing director for Red Hat software company, is the toughest kind of dim sum critic for two reasons. First, he compares most dim sum treats - from fresh rice noodles to pork-filled steamed buns - with the Cantonese-style cooking of his mother (and it's always hard to top a mom). Second, he fell in love with dim sum in Hong Kong, the standard-bearer for this brunch-time meal. There, he sampled the most delicate dumplings, the crispiest spring rolls, and so on, and it ruined him.
"After that, I could only eat dim sum at a few places in New York, San Francisco, and Richmond, B.C.," he said. "Here, the dim sum just didn't seem as grounded in cooking." But Gitlo's, he said, was different. And it is.
What you get is the reverse of the Chinatown dim sum scene. The usual roving snack carts and the lively dining-hall-meets-cattle-auction atmosphere are exchanged for a quiet, spare storefront with just 20 seats. No carts. No chaos. No limited hours (Gitlo's serves dim sum all day, every day). Just a no-frills menu and a wunderkind chef, 24-year-old Deng Laing of Hong Kong.
We started with shrimp dumplings ($3.25) gorgeous enough to display in a curio cabinet. Pudgy with a delicate filling of juicy shrimp, capped with a dollop of flying fish roe, and draped in expertly thin, pearly white wrappers, they are what you would get if you could turn the sound of purring into a flavor.
What followed was just as impressive. Steamed scallop shumai ($3.50) tucked mouth-watering shrimp, scallop, and pork into tender wonton wrappers. Pan-fried Cantonese dumplings ($3.25) burst with the plucky flavors of chives, crunchy watercress, and fresh ginger. Wobbly spears of pan-fried daikon cake ($2.95) dotted with jerky-like preserved pork yielded every texture from chewy to crisp. Seafood rice wrapped in lotus leaf ($3.50) wooed us with the sweet, herby, almost tobacco-like flavor of the lotus plant deliciously steamed into every last grain.
Happily, the word "homemade" dominates the menu. The dumplings, puff pastry (try the sweet potato puffs, $2.95), and daikon cakes (don't miss the spicy XO sauce daikon cake, $2.95) are from scratch, as are the fluffy, white, half-moon-shaped filled buns (try the unusually moist char siu bao with barbecued pork, $3.50, or the cream buns oozing with warm, sweet custard, $2.65). Most impressive, though, are the clear rice noodles rolled out daily. Stir-fried with ham, veggies, and mushrooms ($3.75), they offer just the right elasticity and chew.
But all this home cooking can have its downside. Dishes sometimes run out. Others are slow to arrive. "We never freeze. It's always fresh. That's why we run out," explained owner Shi "Gitlo" Liu.
A former Boston cabbie, Liu opened Gitlo's partly because he found weekend dim sum hours inconvenient. But mostly he felt his cousin Laing, who spent the last eight years honing his skills in a Hong Kong dim sum kitchen, needed an audience here. It was a good move. One that requires no peer pressure to support.
