No Wonder The Population Of China Is So Big!

• Posted on January 4, 2016
• by Jamie Stahl
• in Restaurants
• 2 Comments.

Ever have Dim Sum before?  I have.  Yesterday.  Holy crap that was a scary experience.  Not scary like “walking home in a dark alley hearing footsteps” scary, but more like “fasten your seat-belts, as we are expecting severe turbulence on the aircraft” scary.

My friends and I met in Chinatown at The Golden Unicorn (also known as what I’ve wanted for my birthday for the past twenty-nine years).  We have to take an elevator to the third floor in order to be seated, because this place is THAT huge and THAT busy.  A hostess brings us to the table and before I can unzip my coat, we are being offered various forms of steamed and fried dumplings.

Let me just set this up for you.  I am standing at a table in the process of unzipping my coat as men and women are walking past me pushing what looks like airplane beverage and snack carts.  They are an octave under yelling about shrimp, beef, and pork buns (I think, though it was very hard to tell based on the heavy accents).  Prior to me sitting down, I have an empty water glass and an empty tea cup.  At some point between removing my arms from the coat sleeve and putting it on the back of the chair, I was given both beverages.  Have you ever been so shocked or confused by something that your eyes pop out of your head similarly to a cartoon character?

Beads of sweat the size of dumplings started dripping down my back.  I mean, of all the places for a picky eater to go, I’m pretty sure a place without a menu where they stamp a card at your table written in Chinese each time you are given a new dish isn’t among the top choices.  With that being said, once I settled into the atmosphere I was able to eat a few things that were actually very good.

First I had some kind of pork bun.  It tasted like challah bread dipped in honey stuffed with spare ribs.  I liked that very much.  Then I had some other kind of pork thing that was steamed.  It was more like a spongy dough filled with the same spare rib pork stuff.  I also ate an egg yolk bun.  If you made vanilla custard and baked it into a cake, this is what the egg yolk bun tasted like.  I enjoyed it very much and the outside of the bun was very smooth and shiny.  Reminiscent of an egg, I guess.  The final item I had was dessert.  What I can tell you was that it was a dark and light brown alternating striped rectangle, it was coffee flavored, it was the consistency of Jell-O, and I kept putting more in my mouth even though I said “that’s it” about five times.

After what seemed like five hundred carts passed by the table, we got the check.  We had no idea how much any of this was going to cost, since the stamp card used to keep track of each dish had no English letters or numbers.  Based on the amount of food on the table, I figured it to easily be $50 per person.  I wasn’t even close.  Total, including tip came out to $21 per person.  This was for four people.  Unbelievable.  I’d ask how they stay in business with prices like that, but realize it’s a multiple-story restaurant that was packed inside at 2:30pm on a Sunday.

I can now say that I have had Dim Sum before.  Not that I get asked very often.  And it was real, authentic Dim Sum that caused me to experience a rollercoaster of emotions before even sitting down at the table.  And just when you think the excitement is ending, you’re offered a double helping of pork.  No wonder the population of China is so big!

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