Atlantica - 01.01.2006, Side 44

42 AT L A N T I CA
The tradition has origins in mercantile China. Traders traveling the
Silk Road were in need of a place to sleep, so teahouses and inns started
to spring up along the route. Rural farmers worn out from working in
the fields would also stop by for an afternoon cup of tea. At first, tea and
food were usually not served together, but soon people realized that tea
helped with digestion and small snacks began to be served in these bur-
geoning hotels. Hundreds of years later, these roadside teahouses have
evolved into large urban salons that can hold up to three hundred people,
including grandmothers, parents and screaming children. On any given
weekend, in dim sum restaurants from Hong Kong to London to the west
coast of North America, you can find people wading through the crowds
for their favorite meal of the week.
SECOND COURSE – OLD STANDBYS
When I decided to write this user’s guide to dim sum, I figured I would
just retrace many of my old ordering patterns – stuffed crab claw, Siu Ma
pork dumplings, fried taro root (a delicious tuber stuffed with meat or
vegetables and fried into a crunchy ball) and the granddaddy of them all,
Ha Gow, or shrimp dumplings.
My first stop in New York was Dim Sum Go Go, located on East
Broadway in the shadow of New York’s massive City Hall. Unlike a tradi-
tional dim sum house where they push trolleys to and fro, this place was
full of mainly white people sitting against white walls while they marked
up paper menus with their choices rather than waiting for carts to pass by.
They have all the basics, shrimp and pork dumplings, sweet fried sesame
balls and lots of vegetarian options too. I particularly liked the gelatinous
turnip cake that was full of small pork pieces. But nothing was really
spectacular. My friend John, fresh from a year living in Singapore eating
all kinds of exotic Asian food, was pretty unimpressed.
“Yeah, this is alright, but no big deal,” he said.
Full of dim sum hubris, I paid my bill and we went in search of an
earthier joint. I wanted the sights and sounds of true dim sum. I wanted
DIM SUMa
042-45 DimsumATL106.indd 42 16.12.2005 12:39:35