Reading Chinese Menus: It's dim sum month!

[kake]

[Image: Three pieces of dim sum in a bamboo steamer basket: siu mai (燒賣) and har gow (蝦餃) in the foreground, and cha siu bao (叉燒包) in the background.]

Hello! I've finished moving house and so am back to blogging again. That means it's dim sum time! As previously mentioned, throughout August I'll be posting on two dim sum dishes per week, along with my regular character posts (concept posts are temporarily suspended and will return in September).

Dim sum month is not just for reading and writing about dim sum, though — it's also about eating dim sum. I already have lunches lined up with various people, but if you're not among those people, and you'd like to eat dim sum with me in London this month, please let me know! There's still room in my calendar.

For a quick refresher on how dim sum works, see my dim sum post from last year; and for a list of dim sum dishes I've already posted about, see my dish index.

Characters mentioned in this post:

• 包/bāo (bun/package/bundle)

Other related posts:

• dim sum (點心/diǎn xīn)

If you have any questions or corrections, please leave a comment (here's how) and let me know (or email me at kake@earth.li). See my introductory post to the Chinese menu project for what these posts are all about.

Comments

[kerrypolka]

I would be extremely keen to eat dim sum with you sometime (or multiple times!) this month, provided it is (a) somewhere I can get to and back within an hour (I work on top of Mansion House station, basically) and (b) not on a Thursday!

[kake]

Dim sum in the City is a bit tricky — there are some places, but they're not any good. The closest reasonable one is probably Tuli near London Bridge station — JourneyPlanner reckons it's a 20-minute walk. So maybe plausible if you walked quickly and/or could negotiate an extra 10 minutes on your lunch hour?

[cxcvi]

I'm half-tempted by the idea of having dim sum with an expert. Although I do wonder if London is a bit far to travel for that...

Also, yes, I know I owe you an e-mail. Sending it now...

[kake]

Aw, I wouldn't say I'm exactly an expert :) But I would love to have dim sum with you — have just replied to your message.

[serene]

Want dim sum. NOW.

[kake]

Me too!

[pseudomonas]

I'm extremely intrigued by dim sum, but I think being vegetarian would make it annoying for me at a place that wasn't explicitly vegetarian-friendly.

[kake]

There are a couple of explicitly vegetarian-friendly dim sum places in London! I will email you about this at some point this weekend.

[thenaturalstone.blogspot.com]

Welcome back. Hope the move went well.

God I love dim sum so looking forward to this month. Having dim sum for lunch tomorrow.

[kake]

Thanks! The move went very smoothly. (Also, I've seen your message and will reply soon.)