August 9 2006 - REAL Dim Sum

Well, I thought I had gone to get Dim Sum before this, but now I know that all the Dim Sum places in my past are just pale imitations of the real thing. Today Sandy, my Cantonese teacher, took me to a truly Asian Dim Sum restaurant. It was on Wellington Street on the “other” side of the escalator, where Hong Kong starts to get less expat and more Chinese. I’ve wandered down that street before; it’s like a mini Wan Chai, with all kinds of strange little shops with their goods spilling out into the street.

The sign for the restaurant that we went to was all in Chinese characters. There was no English anywhere, and no menus. It was only around 11 AM, but it was full of happy eaters. It was a huge mess by western standards, but I had already decided that I was going to be brave. I knew that if we washed our chopsticks and bowls with the hot tea water chances were I wasn’t going to get any dread disease! 

We wandered through the restaurant looking for two open seats. We grabbed them; never mind that the table hadn’t been cleared yet; we needed to stake our claim while we could. Sandy unceremoniously grabbed a small stool from an adjoining table too – that was for us to put our purses on!

Eventually the busboy (or tea person?) came by, wiped off the table (sort of) and brought us tea. In this case what you get are two mini tea pots and tea cups. He also brought us each a large bowl. First we put our chopsticks, our tea cups and our eating bowls and spoons in the large bowl one by one, and poured hot tea water over each item. This was to make sure they were more-or-less sterilized and clean. Lee had already told me about this tradition, so I wasn’t surprised or confused by it. Then the busboy cleared away the large bowl and brought us fresh tea.

To order you either went over to a trolley and started lifting the lids to see what was there, or waited for one to come by and then did the same. Sandy made me go over to a trolley and choose some things to eat. I went, but NOTHING looked familiar! I had NO idea what any of the stuff was in the bamboo baskets! I went back to her and said I didn’t recognize anything, but she said “oh it’s all very cheap! Just pick some things; you don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to!” So back I went and chose two items at random.

When I brought them back to her she nodded approvingly at one of them – “ah beef balls, very good” and laughed at the other one. “Do you know what this is?” I didn’t. “Chicken feet!” HA! This is a Chinese “delicacy” that Lee had told me about. His opinion was that they were too much work for what you got. The beef balls WERE good, and guess what? Except for the fact that I kind of felt like I was eating little hands, the chicken feet were pretty good too!

Chinese don’t gnaw on bones and take them out of their mouths with their hands. They stick the whole thing, bone and all in their mouth, and then spit the bones out on the table. I tried to imitate Sandy (she said to bite the feet off at the joints) but my attempts at spitting out the bones were pretty feeble. I had everyone at the table laughing at me. Sandy finally took pity on me and removed the poor foot, but not until I had eaten several chicken toes!

It was Sandy’s turn to order next. Shrimp dumplings (very good), chicken/veggie dumplings (also excellent), and then a combination of fish, chicken and beef rolled up in bok choi. The weird ingredient in this last one was….FISH STOMACH! I DID take a bite, but it didn’t strike my fancy. The nice Chinese couple that was sharing our table told Sandy (in Cantonese of course) “she doesn’t like the best part!” Oh well.

We also had a piece of Malaysian cake with lotus nut, which pretty much tasted like your standard sweet muffin to me. We were too full to eat anything else.

I think I could take Lee there sometime. I’m not sure that I would take anyone else Western that I know. I’d have to be sure they knew what they were getting into. I think even the expat ladies I’ve met that have lived here for years have never experienced anything like that! I was the only Westerner in the place, but Sandy said that sometimes she sees a few of us wander in. I think I could bring my Cantonese phrase book in order to order tea at the beginning, and the rest is just point and cross your fingers!

On the way back Sandy pointed out another good Dim Sum restaurant, and also a good Vietnamese restaurant to try sometime. AND we did something that I’ve been dieing to do. There is a little tea stand in Central that does a brisk business. He sells different types of tea in paper cups. The cups have little metal lids on them. Sandy got a type that was good for warding off the flu (she wasn’t feeling well). She told me to try the type that cools you down after a hot meal. It was strange-tasting tea, to say the least. Sweet and bitter at the same time, with an odd melony aftertaste. It was medicinal and Sandy said people drank it for their health, not for the taste. But there is always a line at that stand when I’ve passed it before. I’m not sure I’ll try it again, maybe if I get a chance to learn more about Chinese medicine or something.

I really feel fortunate to have met Sandy, and that she is willing to take me out in Hong Kong. I even spoke a few garbled sentences to the people sitting at our table; and they understood me! Knowing that we’re going to go out again is a great motivator for me to keep practicing and trying to remember how to say something in Cantonese.