Yu-Ma-Mi, Stoke-on-Trent
Whether you consider yourself an old hand dining in British Chinese restaurants, or perhaps you’re looking for something a little different, I think you’ll like Yu-Ma-Mi. With its blend of traditional and modern, the well known and the unfamiliar, there’s lots to enjoy and discover – including authentic Chinese cuisine and dim sum.
FROM BAUHINIA TO YU-MA-MI – AN OLD FAVOURITE TRANSFORMED
As a relative newcomer to North Staffordshire, I wasn’t familiar with Yu-Ma-Mi’s former guise as Bauhinia in Trent Vale. Situated in the same building, albeit after a complete refurbishment, old regulars of that Chinese restaurant will be pleased to know that Yu-Ma-Mi has stayed in the same family.
Sam Yu heads up the new restaurant, opened in early 2018, which combines dishes familiar to British diners with authentic Chinese cuisine. Sam is the nephew of Bauhinia’s former owner and it’s his family name over the door in a cheeky twist on the word umami: Yu-Ma-Mi equals u-ma-mi. Get it?
Umami, only recently recognized in the West, is said to be the ‘fifth taste’ after salt, sweet, sour and bitter. It’s this savoury flavour that Yu-Ma-Mi sees as underpinning its offering which, I’m happy to report, includes bringing dim sum to North Staffordshire.
DIM SUM
Dim sum are bite-sized portions of Chinese food. I’m told the literal translation of dim sum is something like ‘to touch the heart’ or ‘heart’s delight’. That sounds pretty apt to me, as I love lots of little tastings of different foods. It’s a great way to eat, especially if you’re not familiar with a particular cuisine. Mainstream Britain has already been won over to Spanish tapas and Middle Eastern mezze. I think it’s about time dim sum joined them.
Dim sum can be steamed, fried or baked and many of them are dumplings, buns, wraps and rolls. Portions consist of three or four pieces. You may not know it, but you’ve eaten dim sum if you’ve ordered favourites like spring rolls or prawn toasts. The difference is that, in a quality establishment like Yu-Ma-Mi, they’ll be homemade.
Luckily, owner Sam Yu knows a thing or two about dim sum. He should do. His family owns China Court in the heart of Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter where they offer 70 different varieties.
Yu-Ma-Mi currently has 11 dim sum on the menu and hopes to add more. They are the same fresh, handmade quality as in the Birmingham restaurant, made by the same experienced chefs. There’s a great range of other starters which combine perfectly with the dim sum. You could make an entire meal of these items, share several as a first course or eat alongside larger dishes.
STARTERS
Eating with my partner (who was also my photographer for the evening), we decided to share three starters. Yes, we are greedy. But, as always on a first visit, we wanted to sample as much on offer as possible. The problem was, what to choose? What you might call, for simplicity’s sake, ‘starters’ come under the headings of ‘Soups’, ‘Steamed Dim Sum’, ‘Fried Dim Sum’, ‘House Starters’, ‘Vegetarian House Starters’ and ‘Starter Platters’. That’s around forty dishes, almost all of which I’d be extremely happy to try. Finally making up our minds, we chose two items from ‘Steamed Dim Sum’ and one from ‘House Starters’.
SCALLOPS & KING PRAWN DUMPLINGS
First off was Hand Made Scallops and King Prawn Dumplings (£5.95). Not only does the menu description of ‘mixed seafood steamed dumplings’ belie the pleasure this dish provided, but so too did their simple appearance.
I’ve learned that dim sum is most closely associated with Cantonese cuisine and, according to Ken Hom (the Chinese-American chef and food writer Britons of my age are most likely to be familiar with), the Cantonese style with its emphasis on ‘clarity, simplicity, freshness of taste’, is best displayed in its seafood dishes. If Hom is correct then the scallop and prawn dumplings were a perfect example of that. From my notebook, I see that my scribbled impressions were ‘delicate’, ‘pure’ and ‘fresh’.
This dish was all about the quality and flavour of the seafood which was first-rate. The dumpling exterior was pleasantly sticky and slightly gelatinous. As a whole, the dumplings were not heavy at all. I dipped some morsels into a dish of red vinegar and ginger, but they almost didn’t need anything else. For me, this first, apparently simple dish, was my favourite of the meal.
CHAR SIU BUNS
Is it just me or does everyone find lifting the lid off bamboo steamer baskets rather exciting? When I’m met with a plump, cloud-like offering like these Char Siu Buns (£5.45) then the anticipation is justified.
Char siu pork is one of those terms we’re becoming more familiar with in Britain. The combination of sweet and savoury, sticky and meaty, is an excellent one in my view. Even better, sit that rich pork in the centre of a steamed, fluffy bun and you’ve something very special.
While I love a sweet and savoury combo, what I don’t like is too much sweetness. In this case, the balance was just right with that all-important umami flavour shining through.
SALT & PEPPER SQUID
My other half is a bit of a squid fiend. If it’s on the menu, he’ll probably order it. Cooking seafood at home, there’s a good chance he’ll say “how about some fried squid to start?”
While I do like squid, I don’t quite share his passion for it. Perhaps that’s because, at home or in a restaurant, it’s often been tough. Or maybe, for fear of overcooking, it’s been a little underdone and consequently not very pleasant. So my heart didn’t exactly leap when he suggested we tried the Salt and Pepper Squid (£7.45).
However, I’d pushed for Scallops and King Prawn Dumplings (how right I was) so conceded to his choice. Happily, when the squid arrived, it was clear I wasn’t the only one making good decisions that night.
Without exaggeration, I’d say this was one of the best squid dishes I’ve eaten. The squid came in a crunchy batter and had been tossed in salt, pepper and lots of fried spring onion, garlic and chilli. My first, visual, impression was that perhaps the batter was a little heavy, but I was wrong. It was perfectly light with no hint of greasiness.
And the squid itself? Put it this way, despite coming in large pieces, the fact that our only cutlery was a fork, spoon and chopsticks presented no problem at all. The squid was beautifully soft and tender, easily cut into with the edge of a fork – no knife required. I’d even go so far as to say the squid was juicy; not a word I’d previously associated with this cephalopod, no matter how tasty.
Yu-Ma-Mi also serves King Prawns (£6.95) cooked in the same manner, so if squid isn’t your thing you can still get close to what we enjoyed.
MAIN COURSES
Larger plates at Yu-Ma-Mi come under the headings of ‘Meat and Poultry’, ‘Seafood’, ‘Vegetable’ and ‘Rice and Noodles’. Among these you’ll find sizzling chicken and steak with a range of sauces, crispy coated dishes like the familiar Lemon Chicken, Roast Pork Char Sui and Roast Duck, meaty ribs, and sweet and sour vegetables. While there’s also the usual side dishes of rice or noodles in various styles, do take a look at the main course rice and noodle dishes, especially the Noodle Bowls (£11.95 – £13.95). With a choice of noodle – vermicelli, egg or thick Ho Fun – plus protein (steak, chicken, prawn etc.) or veg, these would make a great one bowl meal, for lunch perhaps. Or of course you can have them as one of a range of dishes to share.
For our main course, we chose three dishes to share; one each from ‘Seafood’, ‘Vegetable’ and ‘Rice and Noodles’.
WOK FRIED SCALLOPS WITH XO SAUCE
Seafood is one of my great loves so I was pretty sure I wanted something from the ‘Seafood’ section. I was very tempted by the Wok Fried Seabass Fillets (£15.95) with black bean sauce but, as so often with me, I succumbed to the call of scallops. Now, I do eat a lot of scallops, but it’s usually as a starter with three on a plate, garnished with fancy bits of this and that. So I wasn’t quite prepared for the huge mound that was set before us. On our platter of Wok Fried Scallops (£15.45) there were maybe sixteen or so fat scallops. Just as well, because the aroma coming off them was enticingly good.
a word about XO sauce
These scallops (king prawns cooked in the same way are available too) come with a choice of sauces: Thai Green Curry, Ginger and Spring Onion, Garlic and Chilli or XO sauce. XO sauce, completely new to me, was described as ‘Cantonese seafood flavour sauce’. As a seafood lover, how could I resist? I have to confess though, that in my ignorance I thought XO was a Chinese word, probably pronounced something like ‘sho’. However, Sam Yu explained that it’s just the letters X and O and is the chef’s own version of a sauce containing umami-laden goodies like dried shrimp.
After some subsequent research, I discovered it was developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong where XO is slang for something of quality or luxury. As the sauce often contains expensive ingredients like dried scallop and a special type of ham, that’s how it got its name. However, I was amused to learn that XO is taken from the XO brandy classification eXtra Old. I’m quite a fan of brandy so, despite VSOP (Very Special Old Pale) being the highest quality I’d usually buy, I guess I should have caught on a bit quicker!
The scallops themselves were soft and lightly cooked which is just to our taste. In the highly aromatic seafood sauce were lots of peppers, onion and spring onion. A small garnish of salad brought welcome crunchy textural contrast and freshness. I ate more of the delicious scallops than I imagined I ever could and, for my partner, this was the stand-out dish of the evening.
STUFFED PEPPERS IN BLACK BEAN SAUCE
Yu-Ma-Mi has a good selection of dishes suitable for vegetarians and vegans and we chose one in the form of Stuffed Red and Green Peppers in Black Bean Sauce (£11.95). Arriving on a sizzling black platter, this dish looked and smelled incredibly appetizing.
I’ve made stuffed peppers a number of times and find they can be a little dull and worthy. But in this guise, nicely charred, they were a winner. Inside was a mix of chopped mild-flavoured vegetables which were enlivened by the caramelized, scorched outsides of the multicoloured peppers. Black bean sauce gave a deeply savoury note. Spring onions and sliced chillies strewn over the top added to the colour and flavour.
SINGAPORE RICE NOODLES
For our final main course dish we chose that old favourite Singapore Rice Noodles (£10.95). I’ve no idea whether Singaporeans actually eat Singapore noodles or whether it’s one of those things, like Chicken Tikka Masala, that’s said not to exist in the land it supposedly comes from. But what I do know is that Britain loves this combination of curry-flavoured vermicelli noodles with eggs, vegetables and meat.
The version we ate at Yu-Ma-Mi was certainly among the best I’ve had. Packed with juicy prawns, shredded omelette, chicken, roast pork and plenty of vegetables, this was no side dish. Despite containing both fresh and powdered chilli, these Singapore noodles had only moderate heat. We’d perhaps have liked a little more chilli. On the other hand, this dish wasn’t among those on the menu displaying a one or two chilli symbol, so hadn’t made any claims to be hot. Anyway, I’m sure more heat could be added if asked for, as all the Yu-Ma-Mi staff seemed to aim to please.
GENEROUS PORTIONS
Despite being rather greedy diners, even we couldn’t finish all of our main courses. That’s not because we were having an off day, but rather that Yu-Ma-Mi exhibits real generosity in its portion sizes. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see that this generosity was coupled with a desire not to waste food. Wasting food is one of my real bugbears so I was very happy to hear staff asking diners, unprompted, whether they’d like to take their uneaten food home. Of course we jumped at the chance. We’d eaten all the scallops, but came home with a nice little package of noodles and stuffed peppers.
DESSERTS & DRINKS
As you might expect from a restaurant whose name is an homage to savoury tastes, desserts are not a big deal. But there’s plenty of ice creams and the like to choose from if you do like a sweet end to a meal. I had that old classic, pineapple fritters with ice cream, and thoroughly enjoyed the hot, crisply-battered fruit with cold accompaniment. Other half was happy with a little coconut ice cream, complete with cherry on top.
What Yu-Ma-Mi does have though, is an excellent range of drinks, including beers, wines, spirits and cocktails. To go with our meal, with both had Asahi beer which is available on tap.
After dessert, I tried a delicious cocktail made with Boe Peach & Hibiscus Gin Liqueur and prosecco. This had a really light and refreshing, fruity flavour with a subtle hint of peach.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Whether you consider yourself an old hand at British Chinese restaurant food, or perhaps you’re looking for something a little different, I think you’ll like Yu-Ma-Mi. With its blend of traditional and modern, the well known and the unfamiliar, there’s lots to enjoy and discover.
Personally, I’m especially looking forward to trying more of those fabulous dim sum and delights from the extensive range of small plates. I can’t wait to learn about and sample more authentic Chinese cuisine. Maybe next time I’ll book for a Friday or Saturday evening when you can dine accompanied by live piano music.
Perfect for a quiet meal with a partner or a small group of friends, I guess Yu-Ma-Mi’s larger, open areas would be great for group bookings too. And if you want to simplify ordering then there’s a range of set menus to select from.
For informal meals or quick lunches, don’t forget to take a look at their noodle bowls, soups and broths either. If your interests extend beyond Chinese food, then you might be interested in dishes like Thai-flavoured Tom Yum Goong Soup or Papaya Salad which reflect Yu-Ma-Mi’s pan Asian style.
But, whatever you choose, the friendly and efficient staff are sure to make your visit an enjoyable one. As Yu-Ma-Mi says on each of its menus, its aim is “to influence and enhance tastes and preferences, yet… also strive to meet customers’ needs.”
What more could you ask?
All images in this post are copyright Ian Dakin Photography and are not to be reproduced without permission.