Dim Sum

Dim Sum (I forget what the actual translation is) is a really cool meal. My family used to travel up to Chicago from Indianapolis on occasion, and we’d eat at a place called The Three Happiness. For Dim Sum, there’s not any one main course; it’s composed of a TON of little dishes, a combination of fried/steamed pastries. And when I say pastries – I mean breaded dishes that have meat/shrimp/tofu. Dim Sum is greasy as shit, but man… is it good. Everytime I have Dim Sum, I drink a ton of tea. I’m not a big fan of tea, but something about the greasy food makes tea even better.

The other really cool thing about Dim Sum is that there’s not a menu. People in carts are constantly walking around the dining area, and they yell out what they have to offer. It’s like having the entire kitchen floating around your table, the entire meal!

I was able to stutter through in Chinese to them, and all I asked was mainly "What’s this?" and "What’s inside this?" Each cart will have about 3 or 4 items on it, and each item typically has about three or four "pieces." If you want anything, you nod or point, and they place it on your table. Each table has a small gridded ticket, which the cart server then "stamps." When you’re done eating, they base your bill on how many stamps you have.

Melissa and I went to Phoenix, and here’s a glimpse of what we had: