Dim Sum

Yesterday at around lunch time, I was taken on a little bit of a dining adventure. I went to what is known as Dim Sum. A friend of mine, Brian who is of Chinese descent, took myself and two others down to Toronto's China Town. We took the streetcar down from Spadina station and got off pretty much right in the middle of China Town. Every sign as Chinese and some had english titles underneath, but not many. He took us into a medium sized shopping mall with all sorts of things in it, and up an elevator to the very top floor. Although, we did not get to the top floor before the eccentric elevator with a voice chip (it spoke in English) took us all the way to the basement and then up again.

When we got to the top, my friend was walking ahead of us at a pretty fast pace and we hurried after him, feeling quite out of place already. Entering the restaurant he spoke to the doorman and got us a table for four. Quickly, multiple servers came by and put down various things on our table - small plates, small bowls, chopsticks, a strange spoon each, and an even smaller bowl that turned out to be for the tea in the pot that was given to us. Almost before we could get settled servers were coming by with carts of various dishes. Brian ordered us a wide selection of various thing in Cantonese (it didn't seem like the servers could speak English) and they put them on the table. Each time they made a mark on a little card on the table that showed what we had taken. These carts were always going by with their servers calling out what I took to be the names of the dishes throughout the whole meal. Sometimes my friend would call out for something and then explain what it was after he ordered it, while other times he told us that we wouldn't like it. Looking around the restaurant we found that I and my other two friends were the only people there who were not Asian.

The various foods were really interesting and quite good tasting. Much to my surprise I actually enjoyed almost every dish we had. In the past, I have found myself to be a somewhat picky eater, so I was not expecting to really enjoy this meal. The dishes are served in small portions and the plates put in the middle of the table for us all to take what we wanted, so we had many different dishes. Almost every single thing had meat in it. If you were a vegetarian you would be lost there. There was a lot of pork and shrimp in particular. One of my favorites was a semi-sweet bun with pork inside in a spicy sauce. The tastes contrasted nicely. We also had a couple shrimp things which were quite good. There were a lot of purees-like items and things reminiscent of egg roles. I said that I liked 'almost" every dish we had. I had to say almost because there was one that Brian ordered which I could not make myself try - chicken's feet. They looked somewhat like chicken wings, but I didn't want to push my tastes too much and ruin the so-far excellent meal.

After we were done they tallied up the bill and we paid. It was only $33 (Canadian dollars for any Americans reading) for the four of us. Considering the amount and selection of food, it was rather inexpensive.. Overall, it was a great experience, that opened my eyes, or rather my mouth, to different foods. I would definitely have Dim Sum again, but I don't know about the chicken's feet.