No Name Chinese Dim Sum Brunch Offers Bottomless Riesling

Feeling a little hung-over? No Name Chinese's dim sum brunch with bottomless Riesling just might make you feel alive again.

Uvaggio Wine Bar owners Heath Porter and Craig DeWald opened No Name Chinese with the goal of offering Chinese food that's light and fresh versus the usual greasy take-out. “People think Chinese and immediately associate it with heavy dishes,” Porter says. “We wanted to change that.”

Porter and executive chef Pablo Zitzmann have been planning a dim sum brunch since the eatery opened. “So many brunches overkill it with sweet, and that didn’t really play into the Chinese thing.”

Indeed, the sweetest thing on the menu is the bottomless Riesling, both in flavor and price. For $20, you get bottomless pours of a wine that pairs well with dishes such as steak and eggs with Sichuan peppercorn béarnaise.
The menu also offers brunch-specific items such as a unique take on fruits and nuts, with house-made crunchy granola and tofu almond yogurt finished off with mint, basil, and Florida honey ($9).
On a recent Sunday, Zitzmann poached eggs to order for the XO Benedict ($14). “XO is the traditional noble sauce. If you go to an old-school Chinese restaurant, only people in the know order it,” Porter says. The complicated sauce contains 20 ingredients and, according to Porter, is the perfect complement to eggs.
Other noteworthy contenders are a cold buckwheat noodle salad crowned with crab, shrimp, cucumber, scallions, trout roe, and spicy peanut dressing ($18) and red bean and chocolate babka French toast ($12).

Vegetarians are covered with options such as smashed cucumber salad ($9), shaken eggplant with maple and black bean sauce ($11), and veggie fried rice.

Save room for the frozen whipped honey ($9) with grapefruit, pavlova, and sesame cracker, and maybe another glass or two of Riesling. “Much like at Uvaggio, if you don’t leave here lubricated, we haven’t done our job,” Porter says. “The only difference is we’ll also feed you some really good Chinese food.”

No Name Chinese. 7400 SW 57th Ct., South Miami; 786-577-0734; nonamechinese.com. Sunday brunch  11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.