Dim Sum Yum Yum

Dim Sum means a little bit of heart (lit: point of the heart). They are a variety of little parcels of steamed (and sometimes fried) happiness. I know that sounds all cheesey but it really does make me so happy!

I haven't had much opportunity to seek out dim sum restaurants here. There is the obvious one  - Ping Pong in Itaim, a franchise westernised restaurant which I wouldn't have bothered even turning my head for in London ... but a girl has to eat (especially a Hong Kong girl). The food is OK, the drinks are good and it's all pretty expensive.

Today we went to check out Wan Wan, Rua Galvao Bueno 555 which are open for breakfast every morning. Yes, we eat dimsum for breakfast as I tried to explain to my empregada today who is making me bolo de milho verde for tomorrow's breakfast (I'm not complaining about cake for breakfast either).  This small restaurant is run by a family of chinese immigrants from Guangzhou. I was testing out how bad my cantonese is still but I couldn't even work out what language I was speaking: just a random mix of cantonese/english/portuguese. But I managed to order a few dishes (my cantonese food vocab is pretty good, of course) while waiting for my friends to arrive. I meant to take a photo for this blog but I was too excited to eat!

For 6 of us the bill was $24 each - pretty cheap by sao Paulo standards.. We had charsiew cheongfan, pork and century egg juk, sticky rice, siu mai, hargow - all standard dimsum fare. It was OK - better than Ping Pong but not as good as the greasy, straight-off-the-steamer like it is in Hong Kong style. I guess I just need to go back to Hong Kong to get a real dose (unless anyone knows of another place to try?!?!). Dimsum is definitely not something I'm going to be bothered learning to make. I've also ordered some Singapore noodles as take away but haven't been hungry enough to dig my chopsticks into it.

Our Italian friend said half way through the meal "You Chinese girls are the same as Italians - always talking about food while you are eating food." I can't help it - food makes me so happy!

*Just an update on dimsum in Sao Paulo. We went to Ping Pong for their "Lazy Sumdays" which is rodizio dimsum. Yes. Seriously. I wouldn't be caught dead in Ping Pong in London but here in Sao Paulo a chinese girl has got to do what a chinese girl has go to do. Opens at noon and it's R75 per person.