WHAT IS DIM SUM?

While heading down Jackson Street the other day I overheard a woman asking her companion "what is dim sum?" She was staring at Dick Lee's, which promises the very best dim sum a tourist could ever wish for.
I felt like answering her question, but didn't do so.
Life is too short for random education.

Dim sum is a way of waking up.  Dim sum is an attitude and a way of life. Dim sum is what you do when there are several of you with different tastes and body humours. Dim sum is snack, tea, conversation, and entertainment.


WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST?

Dim sum is a selection of tasty things, mostly savoury, and easy on the digestion, served in a frenetic atmosphere where everyone is getting whacked on tea. An endless parade of carts go past, with offerings that look yummy and enchanting. Frantic gesticulation greets the servers, and people from two or three tables away might even plaintively cry "leave some for me!"
They fear that the cart will be empty by the time it reaches them.
It has been so long, so very long, since they've eaten!
Despite the abundant evidence on their table.


"Oh please leave some for me!"


Dim sum is retired gentlemen bringing their pet birds in elaborate cages to an upstairs restaurant at early morning near Flower Market Road. The birds are hung from rods that span the space above the tables, and while snacking and swilling tea the elderly gentlemen will compare prize specimens, admire plumage, and encourage their pets to preen and vocalize.
Dim sum is a rangy looking fellow with one foot hurked up on his chair reading today's edition of The Star, while abstractedly reaching out with his chopsticks for the chilipepper and fermented bean-paste pork balls.
Dim sum is Cantonese people trying to explain in English what these things are to native speakers of Hokkien, while everyone else is thinking " oh just have some, and then you will know".
Dim sum is several elderly aunties giddy on life, yummy snackipoos, bucket after bucket of Pu-Erh and Chrysanthemum tea, and the sheer wonderful liberating absence of their husbands for several hours, my heavens you never saw such happy girls!
Dim sum is children stabbing each other under the table with their chopsticks after the eating has slowed down, while their elders are deep in conversation over the last of the siu mai and hargau, not noticing what the little brats are up to.


WHAT IS DIM SUM?

Dim sum is a messy crowded place with wonderful snackie things, and little pastries, and plates of spare ribs, and comforting sheet noodle, and perhaps a bowl of jook.

Dim sum is what you eat when you don't want to deal with serious German ladies visiting San Francisco for the first time, who are dressed for all the world like street people, and cannot have meat, gluten, or peanuts.

Dim sum is what you had before heading down to Hotaling Alley to enjoy a quiet smoke by yourself, dreaming of what might be, and observing birds and the occasional pedestrian through fragrant whisps of tobacco.
Essex Brown Flake in a Hardcastle bent bulldog.
Dim sum is delicious.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================