Dim Sum – "Yum Cha"

Dim sum is a Cantonese term referring to a variety of small Chinese dishes, that are served in restaurants for brunch or tea. It's a light meal of small, savoury or sweet dishes like dumplings, and pastries commonly enjoyed with tea. However, nowadays, people also use the term to mean a light snack.

The practice of having tea with dim sum evolved into the modern "yum cha", which literally means ‘drink tea’. Tea helps in food digestion and also cancels off the fats – or so it is believed. Anyhow, ‘yum cha’ is an occasion to socialise and catch up with each other, to share information and news – or just to gossip among friends.

Dim sum restaurants typically have a wide variety of dishes. Traditionally, they have staff going around the restaurant with dim sum dishes on carts. As they approach, you order what you need from them. Some restaurants still do that here, but most have the dim sum items listed on menus and you order from the menu.

Most dim sum dishes are made of seafood, meats, or vegetables wrapped in dough or thin wrappings and steamed, deep-fried, or pan-fried. Other dishes are steamed green vegetables, stuffed eggplant, stuffed green peppers, roasted meats, congee and soups. Nowadays, most Chinese restaurants have a small section of dim sum items on their regular menus. Customers can order dim sum as a side dish to go with their meals.

I am not a big fan of dim sum dishes. I find them too rich and filling. However, I do enjoy the occasional meal of dim sum. Recently, some friends suggested we go for dim sum. I went along gladly since it has been a while since I had dim sum.

We went to the ‘Peach Garden’ Chinese restaurant. It is one of those upper mid-end kinds of restaurants – if you know what I mean. The food was okay. Typical dim sum fare.

Dim sum dishes are not served together. They are served as and when they are ready. Normally, people would start off with a few dishes, and order more as they go along. This way, the food will be hot and the table would not be cluttered.

All these and more for a group of five. It was too much food. Someone in the group over-ordered. It was a good lunch, catching up with friends I haven’t seen for a long time while slowly going through the dishes.

You can click on the picture for a better view.

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