Cantonese food is all about the freshness of ingredients.ĭo: Feel free to ask for chili sauce if you're hankering for some spice. The Cantonese-folks from Hong Kong and Guangdong province-own dim sum, so you'll look in vain for fiery Sichuan food or Shanghainese soup dumplings. If someone serves you tea, tap the table with your pointer and middle finger as a gesture of thanks.ĭon't: Expect spicy.
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Always pour your companions' cups before your own.ĭo: Know how to show appreciation. You're usually given three choices: pu'er (superstrong fermented black tea from Yunnan province), jasmine ( hua cha in Mandarin), and chrysanthemum flower ( ju hua in Mandarin), which is lightly sweetened and believed to help digestion.ĭo: Leave the lid of the teapot ajar if you would like a refill.ĭon't: Pour yourself tea first. It's also a question of argument whether a "proper" dim sum restaurant needs to offer a menu at all-many restaurants dispense with the formality of a printed menu, and instead encourage guests to choose from whatever's on offer from the carts circulating the room.ĭiving into dim sum can feel like navigating the world's most delicious traffic jam: The carts! The crowds! The perhaps deliberately inexplicable rubber-stamping system! Below are a few helpful dos and don'ts to help you master the basics as well as some of the finer points of dim sum dining.ĭon't: Ask for coffee. There's debate about the "best" time of day for dim sum: In China, dim sum is served as early as 5 a.m., whereas here in the States, it tends to be more of a brunch-type affair, although some restaurants offer dim sum through the dinner hours.
The meal is sort of like tapas on wheels: a savory and sweet variety of Cantonese dumplings, buns, and congees, all served from wheeled carts on small plates designed to encourage sampling and sharing. Venture south to Kent's Great Wall Mall, where the anchor restaurant, Imperial Garden Seafood, offers the quintessential cart-traffic-jam experience:ĭim sum is also called yum cha, which means "drink tea" in Cantonese, or dian xin in Mandarin (the direct translation: "touch the heart"). With the recent closing of the beloved Gold Mountain, the best bet for dim sum might be a cherry-picking walking tour of Chinatown's many takeout-friendly dim sum joints: Wing Sing for dumplings (1125 Stockton Street, between Jackson Street and Pacific Avenue), Yong Kee for soups, noodles, and more dumplings (732 Jackson Street, between Jason Court and Ross Alley), and Good Mong Kok Bakery for buns and pastries (1039 Stockton Street, between Washington and Jackson streets).
The prices are higher than your average divey dim sum joint, but you won't hear anyone complaining who has a steamer pot of the translucent shrimp dumplings. In a city with more dim sum options than you can throw a chopstick at, Red Egg is dismissed by some as inauthentic for its loungey atmosphere, but the creativity and freshness of the dishes are impossible to ignore, and the dim sum menu is served all day until 11 p.m.Ĭome early (before 10 a.m.) to beat the crowds at this much-lauded, elegant Cantonese seafood restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley. A Beantown dim sum institution-except without carts! Don't panic, just order from the tantalizing photo menu, and don't be shy about asking a neighboring table what they've ordered if something looks great.Ģ02 Centre Street (between Hester and Grand streets), Manhattan
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