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Siu mai ( steamed pork or shrimp dumplings) In my family, we also had the youngest person pour the tea, but I don’t think that follows traditional Chinese tea etiquette.
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A little note on Chinese tea etiquette: if a friend pours tea for you and you’re busy and cannot vocally thank them, tap three fingers on the table to indicate thanks. Make sure to let your tea steep before pouring it. The couple popular ones seem to be jasmine, chrysanthemum, green, and oolong tea. The restaurant usually offers a decent variety of teas in addition to the house tea. Step 1 to dim sum is the tea! I always get chrysanthemum because it has a nice sweet balance to the many salty and greasy meats that I tend to eat with my family. But usually, they will all cover the basics like dumplings, siu mai, stuffed buns, and a variety of meat and vegetable dishes. The dishes served at each restaurant varies, some things will be available at one place but not the other. This means that the dishes are already prepared and nice Chinese ladies walk around pushing the carts while you point at foods you want to try. Hei La Moon and China Pearl both use the serving carts, which are part of the novelty of dim sum.
#Dim sum boston china pearl plus
Another plus for most people is that many of the servers can speak English at those two restaurants. I’ve been to Hei La Moon and China Pearl Restaurant, two of the more popular ones based on food quality, price, and seating capacity. In Boston’s Chinatown, there are at least 5 well known dim sum places. Be sure to bring some friends since it’s all about sharing good food with good friends!įor good, cheap dim sum, go where the Asians go. But don’t let that deter you from dim sum-they have many dishes that are less exotic and good introductory foods for those who had never tried dim sum. I was exposed to the weirder plates like chicken feet and duck tongue at an early age and those are still my favorites. Being from a Chinese family, I started going at a very young and I loved it (and I still do!). Dim sum is a very communal or familial event, and it’s best in groups. It is served starting around 10AM and ends around 3PM. It refers to wide range of small plates eaten with tea, sort of like Spanish tapas mixed with Western morning tea. Dim sum, or yum cha (literally, “drink tea”) in Cantonese, has gained popularity in the States.
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