July 12th, 2025
I knew this place was authentic when the Chinese waitress, who was shorter than me, shouted my name from the doorway with a thick accent to let me know that our table was ready. Grant was across the street and even he heard her shout.
She spoke to me sharply in Cantonese, directing us to a table in the corner of the narrow restaurant. I nodded. I was glad I understood her. Although she was a petite woman with a giant velvet hair clip, I did not want to get on her bad side. I was certain she knew I was Chinese and expected me to know how to speak my birth language.
We were in Oakland Chinatown. Everyone Chinese is expected to speak Cantonese here. The fact that the Chinese school around the corner was packed with children even on a sunny Saturday was evidence of this unspoken expectation. Seeing the children waiting to be picked up reminded me of the many Saturdays I spent in my youth at a Chinese school in downtown Fresno.
The dim sum at Ming’s Tasty brought back so many other memories. The noise and pungent smells were loud and busy – just the way my childhood home was when all seven members of my family were together eating.
We mustered up the courage to order two items on the menu that I have not eaten in a while: durian (which came in the form of deep-fried durian puffs) and wrinkly bitter melon stuffed with juicy ground pork. Despite knowing durian is aggressively smelly and bitter melon is aggressively bitter, I wanted them. Why? Because they transported me back to the many times my mom urged me to eat them for my health and I resisted, gagging at the stink of the durian. I remembered refusing to even be in the same room as a durian. Now that I’m older, hopefully wiser, and slowly turning into my mom in many ways, I want to be more courageous with food.
When the durian puffs came to the table, Sean wanted to see my reaction before he took a piece. For my first bite, I felt discomfort but then surprise. Ming’s Tasty somehow was able to mellow out the durian so that it was pleasant to eat. It didn’t smell that bad either. It was the same with the bitter melon. Although Grant declined the durian puffs because of my initial reaction, the three of us wolfed down the entire plate of stuffed bitter melons with delight.
We also ordered some of our usual dim sum picks: pork soup dumplings (xiao long bao), daikon cakes, sticky rice with chicken wrapped in lotus leaves (no mai gai), stir-fried Chinese broccoli, and black bean pork ribs. They were all delicious. I could see and taste the sophistication and complexity in the bites of dumplings and sticky rice chicken. My mom was a dim sum chef for ten years at Imperial Garden in Fresno and she brought her talents home, so I’ve made plenty of dumplings and no mai gai next to her in our little home kitchen. You need a certain technical mastery for the authentic preparation of dim sum. It requires patience and skill, which my mom has and I am still working on.
Feeling brave after tackling durian and bitter melon, we decided to order more items we’ve never had before. We got preserved duck rice claypot, crispy pumpkin pastry, beef stew wonton noodle soup, taro with coconut gelatin, and an osmanthus gelatin dessert made with fragrant tiny golden osmanthus flowers.
This set of dishes was a little less successful. The duck in the rice claypot was as tough as shoe leather, the pumpkin pastry lacked pumpkin flavor, and they left out the wontons in the noodle soup. However, the risk we took paid off through the two gelatin desserts. They were simple but unique, refreshing, and memorable.
Overall, Ming’s Tasty was tasty and affordable. For twelve dishes and a pot of chrysanthemum tea, our bill came out to $120 including tip. Just a warning: the bathroom is like a gas station bathroom so it’s not a place to go to if you are looking for something fancy, pristine, and quiet.