A dim sum adventure at Ten Ten Chinese Restaurant in Sunrise
Ten Ten Chinese Restaurant is in a Sunrise strip center
A brunch of authentic Hong Kong-style small plates satisfied a group of eight diners. The tab: just $188.
By ALAN J. WAX
It was shortly before 11:30 a.m. on a recent Sunday that eight of us arrived at Ten Ten Seafood & Grill in Sunrise. The sprawling upscale traditional Chinese restaurant, with 200 seats done up in shades of gold and yellow was almost filled.
We had schlepped for 38 minutes from western Delray Beach, hungry for a brunch of dim sum, the Hong Kong equivalent of the midday meal, in this case served from carts stacked with bamboo steamers and small plates of such delicacies as shrimp dumplings, pork buns, egg custard tarts, fried taro, lotus-wrapped sticky rice, and steamed chicken feet.
Ten Ten, located in the Nob Hill Place Shopping Center at Nob Hill Road and Sunset Strip that’s also home to an Asian supermarket, has been owned since July 2021 by Xin Zhi Li and Qiu Qing Chen, who own a similarly named restaurant in Orlando. The eatery in Sunrise previously was the Pine Court Bistro, which shut down at the beginning of COVID. It’s one of only a handful of Chinese eateries in South Florida that offer a traditional Hong Kong brunch experience. For that reason, and, no doubt, the tastiness of the offerings, Ten Ten soon after our arrival was filled to capacity with other diners occupying the vestibule or waiting outside to be admitted.
Ten=Ten’s filled dining room looks like a wedding hall.
To be sure, there are a half dozen or so other dim sum parlors from Miami to West Palm Beach, but to me Ten Ten is the among the most authentic purveyor of Cantonese cuisine that I have visited in South Florida.
Once in the sprawling dining room, you may feel as if you’ve entered a large wedding hall. There’s a riser at one end, a wall-size giant TV screen and a dance floor. You’ll see lots of multigenerational Asian families sitting at the large, round tables filled with tiny plates crammed with dumplings, steamed buns, and Chinese pastries. There were, to be sure, a handful of knowing gwailows (westerners) such as ourselves.
Dim sum are served from a cart
We were fortunate to have arrived before the rush, and soon after we were seated a server presented us with a bowl filled with dozens of little neck clams swimming in a briny jalapeno and ginger laced black bean sauce. We accepted it graciously, passing it from diner to diner for a taste of the bivalves. Not long after, we accepted a bowl of salt-and-pepper shrimp, their heads till on.
As a couple of women pushed their carts through the crowded dining room we accepted a succession of small plates. We enjoyed siu mai, open-topped steamed dumplings, in this case filled with shrimp; djeen yeung cay djedjee — pan-fried Chinese eggplant filled with ground shrimp and covered with XO sauce; what I thought were chaohou fun guo, plump pouches with a filling of multiple textures from a combination of pork, cilantro, and vegetables; deep-fried shrimp balls, crunchy golf-ball sized dumplings filled with bits of shrimp and then coated with crunchy ribbons of noodles.
Clams in black bean sauce.
Salt and pepper shrimp.
Shrimp-stuffed eggplant in black bean sauce.
I had to ask for one of my favorite dishes, Cheong fan, fresh steamed rice noodles rolled around minced barbecued pork and drizzled with a sweet soy sauce. Three orders of these tricked out of the kitchen. They did not, to my surprise, appeal to all my dining partners.
BBQ pork rice noodles
Baked roast pork buns
Baked egg custard buns
My wife, who lacks an eclectic palate, was happy filling herself with the light sweet doughy baked char siu bao (roast pork buns) and the similarly doughy lai wong bao, the same bao dough stuffed with an eggy milk custard and baked. My other dining companions devoured them as well. We finished our feast with daan taat (egg custard tarts), flaky egg pastries. We were quite stuffed.
Note, when you receive a dish, the server marks a slip that sits on your table. Most dishes cost $3.65 to $5.65 a plate. The clams and shrimp were a bit more. By the time we were done, we had stuffed ourselves on 11 different dishes. The bill for it all, including tax and tip, $188.
Patience is a necessity while dining at Ten Ten. Service is just okay given the large number of guests and a difficult hiring situation. We had to ask for water several times and on more than one occasion I had to seek out a server to order items not offered on the carts, which stopped mostly at the Asian-filled tables. And those special orders just dribbled out of the kitchen. Fortunately, we were not in a rush. To be sure, we’ve had also good dinner experiences here and would happily return for dim sum or dinner.
