Yes, You Can Eat Alone At A Dim Sum Restaurant, But You Might Be Missing Out
- Dim sum is a traditional Chinese brunch consisting of savory and sweet small plates meant to be shared with friends and family.
Unless you or your friends are food-possessive, sharing your meal is easily one of the best parts of dining out in a group. It's a great way to try many of the dishes a restaurant has to offer without stuffing yourself silly. So while there's nothing wrong with solo dining at a dim sum restaurant, you might feel a little FOMO (fear of missing out) with this traditional Chinese brunch's typical menu filled with savory and sweet small plates that is intended to be a social event. Sharing allows you to try more without over-ordering or breaking the bank.
Believed to be of Cantonese origin, dim sum may have originated over two thousand years ago as a snack served to travelers on the Silk Road, a network of trade routes spanning over 4,000 miles, connecting the Eastern and Western worlds. Today in Guangzhou (also known as Canton), yum cha is a traditional brunch where diners linger over hot tea and dim sum, although now these meals can be enjoyed all over the world. However, is it worth it to go alone?
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Why Dim Sum Is A Social Meal
Often served on push carts rolling seemingly at random through the dining room, dim sum options are many and varied, but they do fall into two general categories: steamed and fried. Steamed appetizers range from broth-filled soup dumplings and BBQ pork bao ( char siu ) to short ribs with black pepper, and ground shrimp and pork-stuffed wonton wrappers called shumai. Fried dim sum includes beef or chicken curry puffs, sweet, custard egg tarts , and spring rolls. With all of these small, tapas-like plates on offer, sharing with friends and family makes for a fun, flavor-filled and affordable brunch.
Although there are hundreds, even thousands of different types of dim sum, most restaurants will only offer a few dozen, but even that's pretty daunting when dining alone. Most importantly, going "out for tea," the Chinese codewords for dim sum, is meant to be a weekly, extended, communal meal where folks take time out to catch up with family and friends. If you're looking for the best way to experience all of these dishes, bringing along a few friends and splitting each option is your best choice to avoid missing out.
Read the original article on Chowhound .
