🍽️ Har Gow

Top dim sum: thin skin, plump shrimp.

Har Gow (shrimp dumpling) is the first of the Four Heavenly Kings of Guangzhou morning tea and the face of Cantonese dim sum. A translucent wrapper made from wheat starch is folded around whole or half fresh shrimp, often with a sliver of pork fat and bamboo shoot for texture, ideally pleated twelve times. Steamed, the skin is thin, slightly springy and crystal-clear, showing the pink-orange shrimp within. One bite gives bouncy, sweet shrimp, warm juice, and crisp bamboo cutting the richness. Har gow must be wrapped and steamed to order and eaten hot—the skin breaks easily, the shrimp sags, and cooling dulls everything. No Cantonese tea morning is complete without a steamer of har gow; it is both the table's standard and the first window through which outsiders meet Cantonese dim sum.