My friends Richard and Ayanna, Jonathan and I went to a local Chinese restaurant to have dim sum, a wide range of small dishes served alongside tea. With few Chinese restaurants serving dim sum in my area, the line was long but this cultural experience was worth the wait.

Dim sum originated from the Cantonese culture, which is found mainly in China’s southern provinces of Guandong and Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau. In these areas, teahouses were popular rest stops for travelers and farmers who wanted to take a break, drink tea and have a small snack. This custom grew over time and is still popular in the Chinese dining culture. In the east, Dim sum is served in the morning; however, Chinese immigrants in western countries enjoy dim sum for brunch on weekends.

Because there are so many varieties of dim sum, the experience is recommended for groups so one has the opportunity to sample everything instead of filling up on a few items. Dim sum is served in a small steamer basket or on a small plate. Many of the dishes are made of steamed buns, dumplings or rice noodle rolls, filled with beef, chicken, pork, prawns and/or vegetables and then steamed or deep-fried.

To select the dim sum, you choose from an assortment of dishes that servers push around on carts. However, they move around quickly so you must be ready to make a decision. Our selections were mostly traditional such as shrimp and pork dumplings, sweat buns stuffed with pudding and spring rolls. However, we missed out on other popular dishes such as steamed pork buns, beef balls and pan-fried squid with spicy salt. At the end, our bill was only $10 per person, a real bargain for all that we ate.