Monday, October 20, 2008

Yum Cha = Chinese food?

Yum Cha is such a big thing here, as demonstrate below:

1. All the Chinese restaurants here will offer yum cha for lunch in the weekend, where the waiter will cater by pushing a cart around with dim-sum, when you order something from the cart, the waiter will stamp a small, medium, large, or special dish on a card. And we pay based on the items on the card, usually, medium is about 3-5 dollars, large is <10 dollars and special is >10 dollars per item, and we rarely get items categorized as small.

2. In one of the annual parade (Chinese New Year) in one of the Aussie city, the Chinese demonstrate their culture by having yum-cha waitresses parading in their yum-cha customs. (Picture courtesy of a friend)

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3. In a carnival, overheard one of the local from Caucasian background asking another to take yum cha, and pointing to a chinese food stall that don't offer yum cha. What he means is he want chinese food, but he thought chinese food = yum cha.

To make things clear, here's a glossary:
Yum cha - drink tea in Cantonese literally, but generally mean enjoying tea with plates of dimsum.
Dim sum - tidbits in cooked/hot version, it can be steamed, fried, stewed, etc. Some common dim sum are bbq pork bao, chicken feet in soya beans, prawn dumpling, siewmai, egg-tart, etc.

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