I went to Chinatown this morning after running four miles along the River. It seemed like the right thing to do. A Sunday dim sum brunch is a fitting mid Spring event. Years ago when I first came to Boston as a graduate student, we would all go to Chinatown because, in fact, not only was it the cheapest food in town, it was also the ONLY place grad students could count on to be open past midnight. That is still largely the case, although the eateries in Allston are starting to give Chinatown a run for its money.... if not in quality, then at least in the diversity of its offerings.
In the seventies (which, if you are counting, is when I was a graduate student), the offerings were much slimmer, but to me, coming from the Mountain West where the only Chinese cuisine was, you know, chow mein and something that looked like scrambled eggs with gravy, the fare was very exotic. Walking through Chinatown one night on my way home in South End, I peered into a basement restaurant and saw that EVERYBODY had a giant communal bowl of clams on their table. The next weekend, all of us were there having, for most of us, our first taste of the local mollusk, wok-fried, in a sauce made from fermented black beans and diced peppers. Life has not been the same since.
My relationship to Boston's Chinatown has been spotty at best. As a youngster, I remember going with my parents to San Francisco's Chinatown and being in awe of the place, mostly because of the topography and the huge number of people, a sight for my rural-bred eyes. But it was the energy of the commerce that was so intoxicating. Boston's Chinatown is much smaller, but it has never succumbed to the tourist trade as has its San Francisco counterpart. And now, having spent a lot of time in the Chinatowns of Los Angeles and New York City, I can also proclaim that the food in Boston, pick any restaurant, can beat the best either of those cities has to offer in their commonly-named commercial enclaves.
But Dim Sum is an even narrower niche in the ethnic cuisine. I had actually ventured into the venue a few times as early as graduate school, but it was not until a friend, an ethnic-Chinese woman from Singapore, moved in with us for three years that my education into the finer points of Chinese Restaurant eating began. At that time, we were both working in Harvard Square but we figured out that with a little bit of luck and a lot of hustle, we could take the Red Line to Washington Street and practically run to Chinatown, have dim sum and get back to the office in about one hour and fifteen minutes.... if the T cooperated.
So we did. Again and again.
Ping, which was the woman's name, started by telling me about tea. As soon as we were shown a table, the waiter would mumble something to which Ping would answer: bo-leh. The waiter was asking what kind of tea we wanted, and Ping, mindful of my Western palate, suggested the darker oolong (I think) over the more fragrant and exotic jasmine, which I thought smelled too much like perfume. Ping told me that dim sum meant "touch the heart".... years later a movie of the same name came out but was translated in a subtitle within the title as "a little bit of heart". Hollywood.
Touching the heart was the Chinese way of expressing both the quantity of food that one could order as well as a nod to the concept of a sampler menu. In dim sum there is no set menu, but the food comes around on carts, pushed generally by tiny Chinese women, usually well into their fifties. Why this is so I have never inquired..... it has just always been thus. Each of the women walk slowly through the dining room, quietly chanting, almost whispering, their wares. Years ago, I used to watch Fleischer Brothers' cartoons about getting food at the Automat and I have always lamented that the cartoons were the closest I ever got to it. The Automat was such a natural subject for a cartoon or a Three Stooges set up because of the goofy way of serving food. Dim sum strikes me as being equally as goofy, but let me tell you I have been to a few places purporting to serve dim sum but over-the-counter with no old ladies, and IT IS NOT THE SAME.
Period.
That said, the pacing of the carts is critical. Each cart carries a different grouping, a species or phyla, of food. Some are desserts, jellos with tiny umbrellas like cocktails at a cheap polynesian restaurant bar, but which never failed to draw the attention of my son when he was younger, mysterious balls of dough that look startlingly like Hostess Snowballs, little pies. Some have a kind of built-in heat source and the vendor actually cooks on the cart--I once asked what was cooking and the cart lady said: radish cake. I guess I will pass. Others are huge cauldrons of mysterious things. Most, however, are steamed dishes.... steamed right in their dishes as a matter of fact..... and have little metal covers on them, which the cart-lady lifts for you to see what lies beneath, because it is obvious you are not understanding her Chinese descriptions. Sometimes traffic jams form around your table and you are left bewildered by choice. Other times, there is a drought, and you scan nervously around the whole dining room, ready to pounce on anything that is stainless steel and has wheels.
To me, the core of dim sum cuisine are the dumplings. There are many kinds, but in my humble opinion, the best are those that are shrimp-based. Ping told me some basic Chinese; har means shrimp, gai is chicken, pai is pork. The shrimp dumplings are called har gow, the pink shrimp visible inside translucent steamed pastry, and come four to a serving. Always on the same cart are shu-mai, but I cannot tell you what those are because I never get them. They are yellower and are somewhat open on the top. Both are beautiful.
Another type of noodle dumpling is something called chong fun. They come in beef, shrimp, and--get this--donut fillings. Har chong fun is my absolute favorite. Chong fun is translated as pig-intestine noodle, but that refers to its appearance rather than its origins. Chinese nomenclature can sometimes be somewhat direct in its descriptions. One of the reasons it is my favorite, though, is that it comes with a savory sweetened soy sauce. Unlike most Chinese restaurant fare, dim sum does not have the proclivity to bottles of sauces at the table, so I use the chong fun sauce as kind of a general-purpose dipping sauce for any dishes that I think might benefit from a little more flavor (rarely). That means that chong fun is one of the first things I order if the cart is nearby.
LIke the table sauces, the same goes for rice: there is none in dim sum. I don't know why, and I don't ask. There are some dishes which are called sticky-rice: conglomerations of a special rice with flavors and various add-ins. Kids tend to like it, but not me. And primarily because I am so overwhelmed by the array of offerings at dim sum, that I tend to shy away from things which might be too filling. Greed sculpts my appetite.
There must be over a thousand ways of preparing tofu in Chinese cuisine, and as raw materials, there are several kinds of fresh and dried tofu products. One type is kind of a skin, made, I am told like the skin that forms on scalded milk. These are reconstituted and serve as various types of wrappers for fillings. Another version comes in those cauldrons I mentioned earlier. It is a huge pot of freshly made tofu and the server skims off thin slices into a bowl and tops it with a fruity syrup. Tasty.
Other traditional fare includes gai lok: marinated and braised chicken feet (honest) and tiny spare ribs in a black bean sauce (one of my favorite). I have had the chicken feet in a moment of bravery and I can attest that they are very delicious if you can get by the barnyard imagery.
Over the past several years, I have noticed other types of dim sum creeping into the menu. Today I passed up carts of deep-fried prawns with head and tail and cooked in a sauce of peppers and salt (excellent), and delicately-fried calimari. I passed them up because I was reaching my limit, not because I did not want them. Carts come by now with those same clams in black bean sauce as well as a similar offering of periwinkles. I always try to include a dish of greens, brocolli-like, cooked at your table and served with a light oyster sauce. Mmmmmm.
I think the best number to go to dim sum with you is three (for a total of four). Most of the dishes are easily divisible into four portions and you can order a LOT of different things that way. Two is fine, but you tend to fill up more quickly and are left looking longingly at the carts passing by, thinking of what might have been. And if you go, I suggest Sundays because that is the day that all the families come to Chinatown (from the suburbs, I suspect) and the whole restaurant is like one big party, with lots of kids running around and making noise.
When your food is served, the cart-lady takes your bill which is left on a convenient corner of your table and stamps whether the dish is xiao (small), zhong (medium), dai (big) or special. Those designations refer to price, not quantity. Fear not, though: I have NEVER been to dim sum and paid more than $10 per person. Well maybe once when I went with a wildly inquisitive guy who wanted to try EVERYTHING, even the Special Category.
It has GOT to be the best deal in town.
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