One of the latest events being held at Shanghai Blues was a Dim Sum demonstration by the chefs at Shanghai blues. I was wondering how they would manage to host an event without sacrificing any of the dining room – turns out that they just ended up converting their main larger room into the classroom. The class, including one champagne drink and a three-course meal, was priced at £48 … which is not to bad.

I’m not sure how many times Shanghai Blues had run this dim sum making class before we attended tonight’s section because the organisation certainly seemed to indicate this was the first time. The fact that they took our names about four times was frustrating – I mean, how many times must our names have been ticked off their checklist!

The night started with a glass of champagne … interestingly when I asked for a non-alcoholic drink they couldn’t substitute anything and instead charged me for my lemonade. A bit rich.

The demonstration itself didn’t really start at the time that we were told. Everyone was sort of shuffled into the bar area but there must have been at least 30 of us and so there wasn’t enough space for everyone so we all just ended up milling around. There wasn’t any sort of official start to the demonstration except for the natural gathering of people around tables – which was more a case of people following other people. The demonstration was about half an hour with the chefs showing us how to make a variety of different types of dim sum (crystal prawn dumplings, sao mai, scallop dumplings and vegetable dumplings.) It was actually quite informative … but there were way too many attendants. Even splitting the group between two areas didn’t reduce the cramped conditions.

After the demonstration was finished we all had a chance to make our own dim sum (which was later steamed for our consumption) but even that was kind of a free for all so it was mainly the most aggressive who had access to the dough and the ingredients. I was a bit embarrassed because some of the more aggressive people were Chinese – cringe!

Making the dim sum was quite a bit of fun – especially laughing at how bad we were at it! Ha ha!

After the demonstration it was time to sit down for our “feast”.

Starters including fried treats (Mooli Croissant and Shanghai Crispy Turnip Puff ) and dumplings (Yuan Yang Prawn Dumpling, Original Shanghai Steamed Xiao Loong Bao, Crab Roe Seafood Dumpling, Shanghai Grilled Pork and Vegetable Dumpling.)

Main course was a Egg Fried Rice, Dried Fried French Beans with Garlic, Assorted Emperor Seafood, Steamed Sea Bass with Lotus Root, and Five Willow Sesame Chicken (oddly looked more like pork belly).

Dessert was a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream.

Food at Shanghai Blue was as usual up to their high standards. I was very happy to have them serve the Mooli Croissant as part of our meal. Portions probably could have been a touch larger on the mains though its not like we were starving after the finish of our meal. At first I was disappointed with a brownie for dessert but was pleased to find that it had the added surprise of popping candy – which seems to be the new rage in food this year.

Overall, the Dim Sum Demonstration event, though execution could have done with some finessing, was a fantastic idea as you got a good mix of some learning, some feeding, and some socialising.