location_on316 N. Washington St., Rockville languageWebsite Last year, Steven Wu was feeling pessimistic about the state of dim sum in the DC area. The Guangzhou native, who ran a pan-Asian restaurant in Annapolis, was well acquainted with the local Cantonese seafood palaces and teahouses se rving the food of his childhood—and he felt they were declining in both quality and ranks. “Dim sum was going to be disappearing soon,” Wu says. “The young generation doesn’t want to work in the kitchen, and the chefs are retiring. Right now, a lot of restaurants are ordering frozen dim sum from New York and California, so I’m afraid that the rest of my life, people would be eating, like, 60 or 70 percent frozen dim sum.” Wu decided to do his part to reverse that. He hired Hong Kong–born chef Zhou “Joe” Zhuohuan and last August opened Corner Bites in the same downtown Rockville space that once housed Bob’s Noodle 66. Photograph by Evy Mages. Photograph by Evy Mages. Photograph by Evy Mages. Photograph by Evy Mages. Photograph by Evy Mages. Photograph by Evy Mages. Photograph by Evy Mages. There are no pushcarts here, which will disappoint some traditionalists. Wu thinks the best dim sum is served to order for maximal freshness. I’ll take the tradeoff: The crumb of the pineapple buns is so tender, the bean-curd-skin wraps so juicy, the egg tarts so flaky, the rice-noodle rolls so delicate, that I didn’t miss the carts. Those sunflower-yellow pineapple buns may be Wu’s proudest achievement. (Pineapple buns don’t contain pineapple—they’re named for their sugar-cookie-like topping, which resembles the fruit’s texture.) Hong Kong teahouses often split them and slide a pat of butter inside; the Corner Bites version is filled with gooey egg custard instead. As brunchtime transitions to lunch, more wok-fired and stewed dishes appear on tables. Everyone orders chow fun, the thick, charred rice noodles tangled with sliced beef, Chinese broccoli, tomatoes, and bean sprouts. Zhou expertly applies the Cantonese “salt and pepper” treatment—deep-frying and tossing with an umami seasoning blend, garlic, scallions, and green chilies—to both pork and seafood. Sweet-and-sour pork chops, just this side of saccharine, are piled with still-crisp onion and bell pepper. These dishes, which became Chinese American staples, are deeply familiar. In fact, for many Washingtonians, Rockville may have been the first place they tried Chinese food that wasn’t beef chow fun or sweet-and-sour pork. For decades, most Americans’ idea of Chinese food was essentially simplified Cantonese cuisine. Only since the ’70s and ’80s have more immigrants from other regions arrived, eventually filling communities such as LA’s San Gabriel Valley; Flushing, Queens; and Rockville with Sichuan, Yunnan, and Shaanxi-style eateries. But the Hong Kong repertoire goes deeper than just those original takeout staples. Corner Bites serves a mean black-pepper beef, clay-pot rice, and century-egg-topped congee, as well as traditional roast meats such as barbecue duck and honey-glazed pork. Then there’s fish: This place doesn’t have the aquarium’s worth of lobster tanks that characterize some Cantonese restaurants, but dishes like flounder stir-fried with XO sauce show off Zhou’s way with seafood. Wu believes many of his customers have a renewed appreciation for the pleasures of Cantonese cooking: “Dim sum is super-hard, and it’s hard to find a good chef. But opening a dim sum restaurant was my dream.” This article appears in the March 2026 issue of Washingtonian.The post Looking for Great Dim Sum? Head to This Rockville Newcomer. first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less