粤菜 (Mand: yuè cài; Cant: jyut6 coi3) - Cantonese cuisine (Part Four) - 点心 / 點心 (Mand: diǎn xin; Cant: dim2 sam1)
Note: As many people in this area speak Cantonese, I am giving the pronunciation in both Mandarin and Cantonese. I am also giving names in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters as the latter are still used in Hong Kong and Macao and sometimes in restaurants on the mainland, although that is discouraged. If only one set of characters are shown as in the title of this post, that means the simplified and traditional are the same. On with the show.
I felt obliged to do this.
Dim Sum refers to the food served at 饮茶 / 飲茶 (Mand: yǐn chá; Cant: jam2 caa4), Yum Cha, literally ‘drink tea’ and often referred to in English has ‘morning tea’. It is possible Cantonese cuisine's best known and appreciated contribution to world cuisine.
I can’t stand it! The food is OK, but overrated; the event less so. The yum cha teahouses (茶楼 / 茶樓 – Mand: chá lóu; Cant: caa4 lau4) open as early as 5 or 6 am and are rapidly packed with groups of mainly elderly people screaming at the top of their voices, arguing and debating all of life’s many vicissitudes. I’ve seen old men getting ridiculously drunk at 8 am and taking out their frustrations in hilariously inept fights; women in the men’s facilities because the women’s line is too long; people sleeping, and (just once) people dying; he was carted out and everyone continued as usual. By noon or earlier, the mayhem is all over. The all day dim sum places common in the west are rare here.
Fortunately, I can buy the more common dim sum type food easily away from the restaurants (or make it myself) but I very, very seldom do. So, there is a good chance you know more about it than me! Hence no pictures in this post.
In fact almost anything can be served as dim sum; it’s just small plate eating – tapas with tea. The words dim sum mean ‘touch to the heart’. If your heart is in your mouth or stomach that makes sense.
The Spruce Eats (or, as I call it, The Spruce Sucks) says the cart wielding days have gone, but then they are usually incredibly wrong about Chinese food other than American Chinese. Most of the restaurants here still have carts for the most popular items, but there are also long disposable menus for each table on which you have to tick off what you want and how many (take a pen or pencil).
One place here in Liuzhou is a revolving restaurant at the top of a tower over a hotel. Unfortunately the hotel is now surrounded by higher office blocks, so the view is less than wonderful. The carts revolve in the opposite direction to the restaurant. Popular place but expensive and not that good.
Next I’ll get onto something I actually like. 再见广东 / 再見廣東 / Goodbye Guangdong.
