Dim Sum

Originally a Cantonese custom, dim sum is inextricably linked to the Chinese tradition of "yum cha" or drinking tea. Literally meaning "to touch your heart," dim sum consists of a variety of dumplings, steamed dishes and other small foods. You'll find everything from steamed pork spareribs and char siu bao (steamed buns with roast pork) to har gao, those wonderful shrimp dumplings with the translucent skin. Deep-fried treats include mini spring rolls and Wu Gok, a type of taro turnover. Custard tarts are a must; you may also have a choice between mango or almond pudding. All of the above are washed down with copious amounts of green tea.

The presentation of the dim sum meal has no equivalent in the West. Servers push carts, loaded with a variety of foods, through the dining room, past the customers, who keep an eye out for appealing dishes. Once a desired item is in sight, the diner flags down the cart and points out what she wants. The dining room bustles with the activity of carts wending among tables, calls for attention, and the clatter of plates. The idea is to choose things continually throughout the meal, rather than to gather all the food at once before eating. Sweet items are interspersed with the savories. When the diners have eaten their fill, the bill is calculated by counting up the number of plates on the table.

Dim sum is a great and inexpensive way to discover and experience new tastes and textures that can be completely foreign to the Western palate, but nonetheless a great experience.

Traditional Dim Sum Items

Meat & Seafood Dim Sum

• Chinese Spareribs (Char Siu)
• Chinese Steamed Spareribs with Black Bean Sauce
• Hai Kim - fried crab claws.
• Shrimp Toast - an example of the ingenuity of the chefs from Hong Kong in adapting Western ingredients to dimsum - toast points spread with a shrimp paste. They are deep fried until crisp; sometimes they have been coated in breadcrumbs prior to deep frying.
• Steamed Beef Balls - typically large beef meatballs that are steamed and served on top of a thin bean-curd skin. They are usually seasoned with a little sugar, sesame oil and orange peel which gives them a unique flavor. If done right, they melt in your mouth as they are extremely tender despite the fact that they are steamed until completely done. NOTE: some restaurants will treat the meat with salt peeter to prevent it from browning. In this case, even though the meat is completely cooked,  it will appear pink.
• Phoenix claws (鳳爪 fung zao): These are chicken feet, deep fried, boiled, marinated in a black bean sauce and then steamed. This results in a texture that is light and fluffy (due to the frying), while moist and tender. Fung zau are typically dark red in color. One may also sometimes find plain steamed chicken feet served with a vinegar dipping sauce. This version is known as "White Cloud Phoenix Claws" (白雲鳳爪, baak wan fung jaau).
• Crispy fried squid (魷魚鬚 yau yu sou) - Similar to fried calamari, the battered squid is deep-fried. A variation of this dish may be prepared with a salt and pepper mix. In some dim sum restaurants, octopus is used instead of squid.
• Curried Cuttlefish - if you like calamari, this is not too big of a step. Tiny little cuttlefish are steamed in a curry sauce. Very enjoyable for the calamari lover.

Steamed, Fried & Boiled Dumplings (Gao / Jiao) - Also see Types of Chinese Dumplings

• Shu Mai - mild tasting steamed dumplings recognizable by their cup or basket shape, with the filling sticking out at the top.
• Ha Yuen - round, crispy shrimp dumplings.
• Har Gau - steamed shrimp dumplings wrapped in a translucent skin.
• Pork Pot Stickers - Northern Chinese style of dumpling (steamed and then pan-fried jiaozi). pork and cabbage dumplings that are pan fried. Sometimes made with shrimp.
• Shanghai Dumplings - somewhat like a large steamed and pan-fried wonton, but better. These guys usually have a yellowish wrapper, are ball shaped, and are stuffed with a mixture of pork, bok choy and spices. Sometimes made with shrimp.
• Taro Dumplings - mashed taro is stuffed with a slightly sweet mixture of diced shiitake mushrooms, pork, shrimp and spices, and will sometimes also include sweet Chinese sausage (lop chong) and depending on the place, may be seasoned with curry powder which is a very nice twist. But it's the outside that takes the cake; taro is similar to potato, but slightly purple. Coated with a crispy batter, it deep fries into a cluster of crispy lacy strands that disappear in your mouth when you take a bite.
• Deep Fried Glutinous Rice Flour Dumpling - a slightly sweet dumpling stuffed with a mixture of pork, shrimp and seasonings. The wrapper is crunchy on the outside and somewhat chewy  just below the crunchy stuff.
• Chive Dumplings - depending on where you get these, they may be wrapped in a har gao (shrimp dumpling) skin, or a tapioca flour skin (stickier than har gao, but almost completely transparent). The filling is like a shrimp dumpling, but with a good measure of chives mixed in.

Bao, Filled Buns - Baked or steamed, these fluffy buns made from wheat flour are filled with food items ranging from meat to vegetables to sweet bean pastes.

• Char Siu Bao - a steamed sweet bun with barbecued pork. One of the more popular buns in the United States.
• Sweet cream buns (奶皇包 naai5 wong4 baau1) - Steamed buns with milk custard filling.
• Other Sweet buns - you can typically find lotus paste and sweet bean paste buns also. These last fillings have a soft peanut-butter like consistency, and are only lightly sweetened. They are not like any Western sweets, but they are good.

Rice Dim Sum

• Lotus leaf rice (糯米雞 lo mai gai): Glutinous rice is wrapped in a lotus leaf into a triangular or rectangular shape. It contains egg yolk, dried scallop, mushroom, water chestnut and meat (usually pork and chicken). These ingredients are steamed with the rice and although the leaf is not eaten, its flavour is infused during the steaming. Lo mai gai is a kind of rice dumpling. A similar but lighter variant is known as "Pearl Chicken" (珍珠雞 jan jyu gai).
• Pearl Balls - a small meat ball of seasoned pork, sometimes with shrimp, coated in sticky rice and steamed. A nice tasty morsel.

Rolls

• Egg Rolls - seasoned diced meat or shrimp and shredded vegetables wrapped in a wheat flour dough made with egg and deep-fried.
• Spring Rolls (Chun Juan) - Made with a thinner rice flour wrapper and deep-fried. Spring rolls are lighter and less filling than egg rolls. A classic spring roll filling consists of dried mushrooms, and shredded meat and carrot or bamboo shoots, seasoned with oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar.
• Steamed Rice Noodles or Rice Noodle Roll - a soft rice noodle sheet roll stuffed with one or more of the following: shrimp, pork, beef, vegetables or tofu served warm and topped with a light and sweet soy sauce based dressing.

Sweets

• Don Tot - an egg custard tart that is a traditional desert item.
• Mango pudding (芒果布甸 mong guo bou din) - A sweet, rich mango-flavoured pudding usually with large chunks of fresh mango; often served with a topping of evaporated milk.
• Longan Tofu - almond-flavoured tofu served with longans, usually cold.
• Jin deui or Matuan (煎堆 or 麻糰) - Especially popular at Chinese New Year, a chewy dough filled with red bean paste, rolled in sesame seeds, and deep fried.

Other

• Scallion Pancakes - basic stuff but if done right, this is a very flakey pastry with built-in green onions that is pan fried until crisp. Served with a dipping sauce.
• Stuffed Eggplant - Purple eggplant is stuffed with a shrimp paste, fried and topped with sauce.