Yum cha and friends…

This weekend I had yum cha with a group of friends from work.

We got there at midday and we ate a lot. I possibly ate more than everyone else. I know I ate more chickens feet than anyone else. I also know that I have to remember they are taro rectangles, not turnip.

For some stupid reason I keep thinking of those little rectangles of mashed taro as turnip. I don’t know why, maybe they looked like something on a cooking show that was made of turnip, maybe I misheard the first time. Who really knows why.

The one thing I do know, don’t play the game what will Bren eat. Especially at yum cha, because I will eat the lot. Once it was established that I would eat pretty much anything, the eating began.

I honestly can’t remember everything I ate. Ok that is kind of a lie, let’s change that to can’t be arsed writing about everything I ate.

I shall write about the things I really enjoyed about the whole thing.

Firstly, there were six of us, seven including someone’s baby daughter. This made a huge difference as everyone grabbing a few plates of things meant a much larger variety of food could be had. Secondly, there was a bigger variety to choose from than when I do this stuff alone.

It was amazing, there were bbq pork buns, chickens feet, pork bones and a whole range of dumplings. And what seemed like an endless supply of green tea.

I started with the chickens feet, of course, while we were waiting for the last ones to arrive. My favourite chickens feet were from Garden City yum cha, but these were pretty good too.

The place was pretty busy, which is what you want for a yum cha place, because it means nothing is sitting on the trolleys very long. It was long before our table was filled with small baskets of deliciousness.

The pork bones and the chickens feet were amongst my favourite parts of the meal, but to be honest there wasn’t anything I didn’t like.

The bbq pork steam buns were good. I usually get a couple of these if I am wandering through South Bank, from the Asian street food place near the South Bank markets. The downside though is when you get them fresh it is like someone decided to force a whole bunch of steam into a bun. Even though the bun can be very hot, I still stupidly bite into fresh ones and burn my mouth a little. These were sitting on our table long enough to have cooled to an edible temperature, so the surface of Venus instead of the Sun.

There were a few things I have had before there, that I didn’t know the name of. Still don’t know the name of I should say.

There was a thing that was like a prawn filling on a big piece of mushroom. I asked what it was, and got told it was a prawn filling on a big piece of mushroom. Looks like mushroom, tastes like mushroom, is it… oh a mushroom ok.

Another thing, that i liked, tasted a little like a boiled wonton skin draped over some vegetables and a prawn. This thing is usually about three regular person bites long. When you get it they cut it in three pieces, per piece and you get a plate of small bite sized pieces. I am not sure if there is any etiquette about this, but from now on I shall refer to this portion size as fun size, like the confectionary companies do.

So, for reference, a prawn crepe drape (the wonton skin thing) is fun size, while a chickens foot is two fun sizes long, or if you are lucky, two and a half, and the bbq pork steam bun was three fun size parts in total.

There were a few prawn dumplings and pork dumplings on the table, all fun size. These are pretty much the same in most places. Little steamed packages of pork and prawn, pork or prawn , or even tofu. You can pop them in your mouth in one hit. Well I can, hence fun size.

There were also these deep fried dessert bun/pastry things that were pretty good, and I am going to keep my eye open for them next time at yum cha. They were light and crunchy, coated in sugar and almost as good as a fresh doughnut.

Almost.

Ok, keeping this short tonight, have fun everyone.

One more place to go .