Last Sunday the lovely Choo organized an outing to a dim sum restaurant in the North Lamar China Center. I’ve mentioned dim sum before, and if ever there were a proper way to eat it, it’s with a group of friends at a remote restaurant early on a Sunday morning.
The dim sum banquet hall was on the opulent side. It was suggested that at any moment there could be a John Woo style gunfight or possibly a Bar Mitzvah.
A small army of waiters rolled stainless steel carts from table to table, offering the diners their tasty wares. Each cart had three or four varieties of dish, held on a tiny plate or a steam basket. It was sort of like a Luby’s in reverse. The dishes went on the lazy susan (Susan?) at the center of the table, and the whole team sampled at their leisure.
There were plenty of tasty buns and steamed dumplings, but I’m going to focus on the outer envelope of the food experience here.
For instance, one of the dishes was a pile of spicy jellyfish strips.
Which tasted a little like fish tripe, if there were such a thing as an aquatic ruminant.
A standout in the taste department was the tendon.
It had a slightly gummy mouth feel and an almost bacony greasiness.
And finally I got a picture of chicken feet.
I’m particularly proud that I was able to convince people to eat this delicacy and to give them advice on the proper eating technique: "There is no good way to do it. Just suck between the toes."