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Nick Dent revels in the debauchery of dim sum.
If western kids grow up a bit uptight about food, it’s hardly surprising. After all, we’re taught to eat through a process of intimidation. Bullied and admonished, we learn to sit quietly at the table. We learn what each utensil is for, when to use it, and when not to. We learn to ask politely for the salt, the mashed potatoes, to be excused. And most of all, we learn to eat what is put in front of us – no arguments.
But when we sit down to yum cha, all that hard work fine-tuning our superegos goes out the window, and the id rules the day. It’s as if the kids have taken over the kitchen; the deeds to the china shop handed over to a consortium of raging bulls.
In this Lord of the Flies world, food is all about instant gratification. It comes as dumplings, buns, steaming piles of noodles; as deep-fried pastries and sticky, sloppy rice noodle rolls. The kinds of things toddlers are warned not to put in their mouths are chopped up, fried up and served up – feet, legs, tentacles, claws, shells, crayons, gravel, Lego.
It all comes to your table in a helter-skelter parade, for you to grab at hungrily or dismiss petulantly. Knives and forks? Fuck that grown-up shit! Here, use these sticks!
Sea Treasure, in Crows Nest, is one of the city’s best yum chas, and one certainly worth the trip over the bridge to what my friend Snow Pea calls ‘The Dark Side’. I ventured there on a Sunday recently, with Snow Pea and a nice young straight couple, the proud parents of twin hangovers. There was nothing for it but to indulge in all of the above.
We were also hungering for something that was, until very recently, scuttling across floors of silent seas. Sea Treasure is famous for its aquaria crammed with live fish, crab, lobster, pippies and prawns. If it’s any consolation, the critters’ cramped accommodations don’t last long – this 260-seater has a furious turnover. At dinner, you can select your food live from the tank.
We lunged at a waiter hurtling past and relieved him of a plate of salt and pepper lobster, then fought like seagulls over the spoils. My hands got coated in salty batter as I sucked and slurped white flesh from red chunks of exoskeleton. My grandmother would have hung her head in shame.
We scoffed our dim sum. We drank tea and Tsing Tao beers. We barked orders at the staff and the staff muttered back in Cantonese.
We paid $35 a head.
I love yum cha. It’s a Mad Hatter’s tea party. A mardi gras, if you will.
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