I admit, a convenience store is probably not the most conventional place to do a food blog post on. But one hurried morning, I was forced to have a quick breakfast (or more like a snack to tie me over) at a local Circle K convenience store. If you're unfamiliar with Hong Kong, Circle K is exactly like a 7-eleven offering common convenience store items: magazines, drinks, cigarettes, candy, alcohol, and most importantly, cooked and microwave food! They even have a microwave equipped on site for immediate consumption. I can't even count the number of times I came here to grab something because they are also densely located. There is one at almost every corner of the city!
Being breakfast time, we grab two packs of dim sum and made it on the spot. Each package has microwave instructions on it. for example on the shrimp dumpling box it has a number 4 on it, meaning you press 4 on the circle K microwave. If you decide to cook it at home they have a suggested microwave time as well.
Package of Shrimp Dumplings (蝦餃)
Shrimp Dumplings (蝦餃)
The shrimp dumplings were considerably good considering it only took 30 seconds to make. The taste was on point, and I find they did a good job preserving the flavour and crispness of the shrimp. The dumpling skin wasn't sticky like I imagined it would be after being frozen and reheated, so that was definitely a bonus. That's probably more than I can say about the next box of siu mai.
Package of Siu Mai (燒賣)
Siu Mai (燒賣)
Siu mai is a pretty common dim sum in the Chinese culture. Traditionally its made with pork wrapped in a yellow wonton wrapper and steamed. Now a days there are many variations of siu mai, the more common being fish siu mai. This package from circle K came with fish siu mai with 3 different types of flavouring. To be honest though, it all tasted the same: synthetic and artificial.
Of course if you had the time though, it's probably best to go to a real dim sum place. Microwave food is almost never representative of how food should taste. But for the equivalent of $1 CDN for each box, it's not bad. Convenient, quick, and somewhat filling.
