Atlantica - 01.01.2006, Page 45

AT L A N T I CA 43
red drapes, not white walls. I wanted women screaming Pork! at me until
I took their basket of food or told them to leave me alone.
THIRD COURSE – PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
Three blocks across Chinatown we found Ping’s. I knew I was in the
right place when I saw one of the ubiquitous lucky kitty cats giving me a
mechanized wave. Any dim sum place worth its salt needs a lucky cat.
Ping’s was packed with multigenerational families and groups of
friends feeding their hangovers. “You were so wasted, man!” a twenty
something Chinese American man yelled to one of his friends. Their table
was littered with empty steam baskets and cans of diet coke. John and I
sat down at their table (in typical communal dim sum fashion) and waited
for the trolleys to come.
The first one that stopped by was careening under the weight of cov-
ered baskets. I asked the waitress what she was carrying and she said
fried noodles. I looked at the airy brown noodles that were full of what
appeared to be ground beef or pork. They looked more like puffy egg rolls
than noodles. I had to see what they were about. I motioned that we wanted
the noodles and said “Xie Xie” – thank you.
She placed the plate on our table and we dug in. The noodles were
crunchy, savory and wonderfully greasy – and I am sure full of loads of fat.
But that’s what the tea is for. We drank the tea and let it do its work cleans-
ing our systems. Soon more plates landed on our table, fried shrimp balls, a
little too greasy, and some steamed pork dumplings, the classic Siu Ma.
There was a couple sitting next to us, a white man and an Asian woman.
I couldn’t help but hear that he was ordering everything in Chinese.
“Do you speak Mandarin or Cantonese?” I asked.
“Both,” said Spencer Barrows, a muscular white lawyer who I soon
learned was from Vancouver. He seemed like a legit dim sum expert so I
asked what advice he would pass on to my readers, not thinking I could
learn too much from him myself. First question. Which way to go – the
menu option or the trolley service?
“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.”
DIM SUM a
DIM SUM a
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