Cook Chai Dim Sum 2 by Cook Joss in Hatyai • กุ๊กชัยติ่มซำ2-By Cook Joss

The surprise food find for me from my recent south Thailand trip was.... dim sum 🤔 Thais love their dim sum and they are good at it.

Truth be told, dim sum is not top of my mind when I am in Singapore - good dim sum is expensive, average dim sum are factory made 😅

Our Hatyai hosts brought us to Cook Chai Dim Sum 2. It wasn't their first choice - that one, boss just struck lottery and was taking a few days break to celebrate 🤣 (Not sure if they were pulling my leg... . If a joke, haha 😄 If true, congratulations!)

I was initially a little disappointed but it turned out that I enjoyed the alternative, Cook Chai Dim Sum 2 very much 👍

It's a busy, spartanly furnished corner coffee shop. Southern Thais enjoy dim sum and Cook Chai have their own loyal following.

The dainty dim sum were beautifully hand made at the coffee shop and laid out in a display chiller to keep them fresh. There were so many varieties, some I have never seen before.

Customers just point to the items they want.

The staff will cook the items by steaming.

Our dishes delivered to our table. Ordered so many, we had to stack them double decker.

I enjoyed everything because the ingredients were fresh produce from the surrounding area.

The generally savoury sweet flavour profile was natural and at the intensity I like.

Skilfully steamed to the desired doneness and texture.

Tasty. Fresh sea bass slice with pork ball.

I wasn't super keen to try this as it was all carb and deep fried. But, one bite and I swooned. The bun was soft tender just a bit firmer than steamed egg white while the inside was filled with char siew type pork. Yeah, it is actually char siew filled fried mochi (glutinous rice ball 煎堆). Nice.

My smiley black kopi O kosong (can you see smiley?).

Yeah in south Thailand, they yum cha with kopi besides tea, and other drinks. Here, the Nanyang kopi (coffee) is the same as in Singapore / Malaysia.

They have bak kut teh too. The soup was the watery type with Chinese 5 spice, herb, soy sauce and sweet flavours mixed with a bit of porcine sweetness.

The best were the pork parts as they were fresh, cooked to just right doneness, soft tender with all the natural porcine sweetness retained.

Khun said must order Cook Chai's signature "noodles topped with sea bass head".

After trying myself, I also say 👍

The dish was made up of:

1. Broad flat rice noodles (kway teow) held together with rice flour batter which was pan fried till the outside was lightly browned and crisp. The kway teow inside remain soft tender and moist.

2. Sea bass head or tail, fried then stewed in a thicken sauce with pork, mushroom, vegetables, fermented bean, etc.

Take a slice of the kway teow pancake and slather some fish meat and sauce on top.

The gently savoury sweet pancake was crackly crisp chewy outside with soft kway teow inside. The pancake tasted mildly savoury sweet with a subtle toasty flavour. The soft tender stewed sea bass was savoury sweet complementing the pancake perfectly.