John and I waited for Carl and Peggy in a wide marble lobby on East Broadway in Chinatown. A few floors above us, contented diners were lifting steamed roasted pork buns to their mouths with smooth wooden chopsticks. Waiters pushed trolleys through a bustling dining room, ferrying buns as well as items less recognizable to the non-Chinese visitor, like steamed bean curd skin rolls, pan fried taro and turnip cakes, and sticky rice with chicken in a lotus leaf. Spirits were high and so was the noise level. This was the culinary experience of dim sum.

Photograph by Jessica Wright

A Cantonese term meaning “to touch the heart,” dim sum involves small individual portions of food such as a variety of dumplings and steamed dishes, usually served in a small steamer basket or on a small plate. The roots of dim sum are linked with the older Chinese tradition of drinking tea. Rural farmers in southern China exhausted from a day in the fields, as well as travelers on the ancient Silk Road looking for a place to rest, would stop at teahouses along the roadside for a relaxing cup of tea. In time, teahouse owners began offering various snacks with the tea, which was found to aid in digestion. Over centuries, the culinary art of dim sum was transformed from a tradition of relaxing respite to a boisterous and happy dining experience.

For John and me, our first dim sum experience was going to be at the Golden Unicorn Restaurant at 11.30 in the morning, where we were to meet John’s co-worker, Carl, and his girlfriend, Peggy, at 11:30 in the morning. But our bike ride into Manhattan from Brooklyn had been unusually quick and so we wandered into a little apothecary at another end of the lobby. The store was a little odd, or maybe just a little unfamiliar to us. The shelves were filled with various dried teas and herbal supplements all claiming to boost this and aid that, to improve parts of us we never even knew could be better or worse for wear.

I picked up a bottle and held it out to show John just as he held one out to show me. “Lamb Placenta,” I read from the label of my find. (A quick Google search conducted at a later date describes lamb placenta as a supplement “used in China for over 1400 years,” and having a “wide range of health benefits including enhancing body energy, skin complexion and stopping aging process.” Source: www.vitadigest.com/vitamins-supplements-lamb-placenta.) “Meal In A Glass,” read John from his bottle. (Per Google searching at a later date, this is a “metabolically balanced weight control meal replacement. Superior taste with added flax seed. Includes a balance of fiber for proper gastrointestinal function.” ) Probably not a big-seller for a place downstairs from a dim sum restaurant, I thought.

Carl and Peggy appeared through the door of the lobby. We greeted one another and were corralled into an elevator by a woman whose job this seemed to be. We arrived at the third floor, where the doors opened to reveal a large dining room lined with red curtains. Giant golden dragons were mounted to the back walls. The crowded room was filled with a mostly Chinese crowd, and we followed behind our host to a large round table.

Traditionally, tables order dim sum dishes family-style. Trolleys loaded with food items are wheeled around by servers, and once a desired item is in sight, the diner will flag down the server and point out what he or she wants for the table. The idea is that diners choose various dishes throughout the meal, rather than having the food served all at one time. The cost is calculated at the end by plate tallies or stamps the server has noted on the bill as each dish is ordered throughout the meal.

Peggy is Chinese, and an old hat at navigating the unfamiliar wilds of the dim sum trolley, intimidating territory for the American novice. Thus, we left ourselves in Peggy’s hands as she ordered dishes filled with pork and prawns, vegetable rice noodle rolls, steamed meatballs, various dumplings, and something called “phoenix talons”—chicken feet, deep-fried, boiled, and marinated in a black bean sauce. I didn’t try the chicken feet (“strange consistency,” warned Carl, who is not Chinese), but I did have more than my share of sweet egg tarts—soft baked dough with an egg custard filling.

The “art of collective dining” is something somewhat new to those of us who grew up in an individualist Western culture, and one could argue that there is hardly a city in the U.S. more individualist than New York. Our dim sum outing at the Golden Unicorn was an interesting foray into the dining experience of a collectivist culture. We resisted the temptation to eat only what was familiar and to be suspicious of dishes containing odd or unusual ingredients. We took advantage of the experience and knowledge of others.
We paid the bill, split equally amongst us, and rose from the table to leave. “Quite a bit better than Meal In a Glass,” said John, and I certainly agreed.