Yum Yum Dim Sum

I love Dim Sum or at least the Filipinized version here. Dim Sum means "touch the heart" in Chinese and I don't mean "touch the heart" via sodium and cholesterol clogging your arteries. It refers to delicious little snacks to cheer you up or something like that while you drink tea. Now, Dim Sum is a cuisine in it's own and not just about tiny snacks.

Whenever I feel hungry and absolutely cannot wait, I just go to a Dim Sum restaurant, sit down and eat. It's fast. That's one of the things I like best about it. Dim Sum is the Chinese equivalent of an American Diner where people could just sit down and start shoveling food down their throat holes quickly and efficiently.

When I sit down in my favorite Dim Sum place, I feel like a king. You got these carts of food lining up for you to choose dishes. You got the cart with the rice, the cart with the steamed dishes and that weird misfit third cart with the chicken feet. A dessert cart even shows up later. It's like the cooks made all of this stuff JUST FOR YOU. You are the customer and you're spoiled for choice and you're always right, damn right. I like having to choose among dishes right in front of me. Isn't that refreshing? Instead of the obviously doctored photographs the infidel fast food places, who I suspect are injecting horse steroids in burger patties, are using, I actually get to see and smell things in front of me.

There's this new Dim Sum restaurant in the fancy ass "entertainment center" part of the mall that features a conveyor belt that just brings the food around and around and keeps it coming. Well, hallelujah. The restaurant has a conveyor belt section, and a sit-down "dine in" section which I find completely preposterous. Dim Sum is supposed to be fast and efficient. Are you going to sit down and order it from a MENU? You should starve to death if you see nothing wrong with ordering Dim Sum from a menu. Did the first Emperor of China have to order food from a menu and wait? Of course not! I bet when the Emperor got hungry, he just snaps his fingers they just sent him stuff on a conveyor belt and that's the way it should be. It makes sense as a business. Less time waiting and making stupid mandatory small talk means the sooner people can stuff their faces, pay and leave so that more customers can come in to take their place. High turnover rate...more customers served...you see how great Dim Sum is? How do you think the Chinese feed a billion people? You don't even need heavy service, the conveyor belt is self service basically.

Great, now I'm hungry.