Dim Sum

We go to eat in a Dim Sum Tea House. My husband, who’s done this before, takes charge of the ordering while I throw in a few additional suggestions for good measure. When the food arrives in steaming bamboo baskets the children go very quiet and look on, curious yet disbelieving as we lift the lids.

To preempt the normal cries of “Errghhh, yuk! I’m not eating that!” we have ordered egg fried rice and stir fried vegetables for the children. Our four year old gags on the vegetables because they are green but happily eats his way through giant prawn wonton. Our nine year old bravely agrees to try the crystal prawn dumpling and will say only that it’s “Interesting.” Mostly however they use the chopsticks to play xylophone on the tea cups and charm the waitress into not noticing the mess they are making.

Dim Sum, a Cantonese speciality, is meant to be eaten with pots of Chinese tea for breakfast or lunch but arriving dehydrated from our ill-planned hike we gulp down water. I have been longing to sample it ever since we arrived but I have to admit the slimy translucent parcels do not look quite as appetising as I’d anticipated and picking then up with chopsticks is a skill which eludes me totally. One dumpling is too big to put in whole and my chopsticks don't appear to have a cutting edge.


My husband’s choices are spot on; steamed shrimp and vegetable dumpling, “Char Siu Bau” or barbecued pork bun, and glutinous rice and chicken wrapped with lotus leaf which even the children enjoy. My own selection of steamed mushroom and salty fish dumpling tastes and smells like the scrapings off the bottom of someone’s feet and I am thus relieved I didn’t insist on the crispy miced [sic] fish cake. I make a mental note to leave the ordering to my Dim Sum savvy hubby next time.