Inkwatu

Two very good articles detailing the history and basics of dim sum are the About.com article, “Delicious Dim Sum - Chinese Brunch” and the Wikipedia “Dim Sum” entry. In a nutshell, dim sum are little snacks served with tea in the late morning through late lunchtime. Eating dim sum is very much a social occasion, with groups of friends and/or family usually gathered around a large round table with a giant lazy-suzan in the middle upon which the various dishes are placed and from which people select morsels to put on their own plates to eat. There are some fairly traditional selections and these are listed nicely in the Wikipedia article above.

The characters for dim sum are (simplified) and (traditional). You see the traditional form in the above picture of the electronic sign in the window of St. Petersburg’s Halong Bay Vietnamese Cuisine and Dim Sum restaurant. In Cantonese, a form of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Macau, the pronunciation is “dim sum;” in Mandarin, which is spoken on mainland China and Taiwan, the pronunciation is diǎnxīn (dien-shin). You can hear the pronunciations in both Cantonese and Mandarin at this brief Wikipedia page for .

The following, which I quote, highly abbreviated, from the main Wikipedia dim sum article states: “The Cantonese phrase dim sum…means literally “touch the heart” or “order to your heart’s content”. It may be derived from yat dim sum yi…meaning “a little token”. (”A Touch of Heart” is perhaps the more poetic translation.) … the word “Dim sum” is often mistakenly used as the name for Yum cha. In fact, in Cantonese, Dim sum…is just a phrase for wide range of light dishes where Yum cha…“drink tea”, is the process.”

Books on Chinese Food Names and Characters

That’s starting to sound a little pedantic, but a far more enjoyable informative experience for absolutely anyone—not just a student of the Chinese language—is the book, “Swallowing Clouds” by A. Zee, who is professor of physics at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara. His hobbies, fortunately for us, are Chinese cooking and the etymology of Chinese characters. This book is entertaining and is worth reading just to enjoy the author’s humor and style. You can order it at the Amazon link immediately below. Another book on Chinese names for food, unfortunately nowhere nearly as much fun as “Swallowing Clouds,” but nonetheless of interest to a serious student of Chinese language or cooking is “The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters” by James D. McCawley, also available through an Amazon link below.

The Poetry of Chinese Characters

There is a profound beauty in the Chinese language. I’m very much a beginner student of it and have come to accept that I will never be able to communicate in Mandarin anywhere above the level of a sea slug, but there is something about the Chinese language, especially its characters, that has charmed me all of my life. A couple of examples: a good friend, a Beijinger, counseled me once when I had become prey to the anger of a personal, perceived injustice that the Chinese character for the word for anger, “kài,” contains two parts. One part is related to the sign for “heart,” (xīn) and the other part to the word for energy (qì)—in this case, a destructive energy, and, I would assume, destructive to the heart in all its meanings. His point was well taken.

A lighter example, also using the word, “qì,” (energy) is the Chinese word for “weather,” tiānqì which combines the word for day or heaven (tiān) and for energy (qì). Makes sense, doesn’t it!? If you enjoy that, I highly recommend this free little widget (or just go to the website, http://zhongwen.com.

Every few moments it gives a new Chinese word, its meaning and the meaning of the characters that represent it. Some of the meanings are incredibly poetic. For instance: “feet going separate ways=path” or, “move in opposition=defy,” or, perhaps my absolute favorite, “xián,” (leisure or tranquility) which the pictographic nature of the character perfectly depicts: the moon (yuè) through an open gate (mén).

Another fun widget is this one, which gives you a word of the day, complete with clickable pronunciation.

Halong Bay Restaurant

Which brings me, finally, to the topic of this post, the Halong Bay Vietnamese Cuisine and Dim Sum restaurant (5944 34th St. N St., Petersburg, FL 33714; 727-522-9988). In a previous post, I mentioned that I was eating my way down the length of 34th Street. I really wasn’t joking. Halong Bay is one of those 34th Street restaurants. It’s been taunting me for months while it’s been in construction. Finally, less than three weeks ago, it opened. The tantalizing words, “dim sum” on its sign called to my heart for I truly love dim sum!

Halong Bay is a very attractive restaurant with a fountain near the entrance that is a large pane of etched glass with water sheeting down its surface. In keeping with dim sum tradition, they’re open for an early lunch and it fills up early, even on a weekday (traditionally, Sunday brunch is the big dim sum time in Chinese communities). There are tables for 2 to 4, but also plenty of the round tables with lazy-suzans for much larger parties. Wait staff bring by the various carts of fried and steamed and sweet dishes for you to select from which they record on a card at your table. This is the dangerous part because you are charged for each dish. It’s too easy to let your eyes do all the choosing instead of your inner-accountant. However, the prices at Halong Bay are very reasonable, and a friend and I ate there this week, and left stuffed for under $30, total, including tip. It was definitely worth it.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Another feature of the restaurant is its collection of very large, quite good, original paintings of the main geographical feature of Halong Bay, Vietnam (literally, Bay of the Descending Dragon): eerie, monolithic islets of limestone that rise above the water forming a barrier against invaders from the sea. An image search of Halong Bay on Google reveals many stunning photographs of these geological formations.

Chinese in Vietnam

Probably some of you have been unconsciously scratching a mental itch at an incongruity in this article, asking yourself, What’s all this talk about Chinese characters in the context of a Vietnamese restaurant?!

There could be any number of logical explanations—which may even be true for all I know. For instance, although it is absolutely true that dim sum is a Chinese tradition, as a Wikipedia article on this topic describes, there are a number of ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam, such as the “Hoa, Chinese who immigrated to Vietnam during the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China period,” the “Ngái, rural-dwelling Chinese speakers, counted separately from the Hoa,” the “San Diu, the so-called “Mountain Chinese”, who speak an archaic dialect of Cantonese,” and “Republic of China nationals in Vietnam.”

Elsewhere, I’ve seen a discussion of a “Vietnamese style dim sum,” so it’s even conceivable that there is a Vietnamese tradition of its own akin to the Chinese tradition, but not coming directly from Chinese expats. (I doubt this, however. If anyone knows for sure, please comment!)

More likely, however, are two facts: in contemporary America, many, if not most, shops and commercial establishments in various big city “Chinatowns,” are increasingly owned and operated by Vietnamese, not Chinese! This was certainly true in Honolulu. And, in my opinion, the Vietnamese owned and operated Chinese restaurants served splendid Chinese food! Such things are not uncommon. A case in point, for many years the owner and cook of the best Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia was the uncle of a Jewish friend of mine. So, ethnic alignment is not a prerequisite for appropriate culinary skill. More examples: both my favorite sushi places in St. Pete (Hook’s and Ichiban’s) are owned and operated by Thai’s.

The other fact, that facilitates the above trend, is, sadly, the typical Caucasian’s insensitivity to the differences among Asian ethnic groups. There are simply too many to list, but Caucasians who haven’t lived in a community where Asians are the majority, haven’t learned to distinguish features typical of different ethnic groups. (The sad part is that too many do not care that they can’t!) This results in some curious hiring practices: must all sushi preparers in grocery stores be Asian, even if they’re Vietnamese and not Japanese? Racism or just ignorance?

Other Dim Sum Restaurants

When visiting a friend in Beijing, I was fortunate to have really good dim sum at an upscale restaurant there–it was spicier than dim sum I’ve had from Cantonese places, and I think I prefer the spicier style. Of course, on visits to San Francisco and New York City, I’ve had great Cantonese style dim sum. While living in Honolulu, there were simply too many dim sum restaurants to count, but one of my favorites was Legends (seen here in a video by another blogger).

My favorite dim sum in the Tampabay area is still China Yuan over on the Tampa side, which I will be writing about soon. But, mainly, I’m just grateful that there is now a dim sum restaurant on this side of the bay. I will be returning, soon, to Halong Bay. Their chicken’s feet are a perfect texture. I haven’t yet tried the tripe, but will next time. But, every time, I must have my favorite: daikon radish cake (also called turnip cake)…so mild, so delicious. See you there!

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