Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Today I went out with the fraternity for Dim Sum brunch at China Pearl. I had never done this before. It shall hereafter be referred to as “Crazy Asian Food Circus.”One may be very disoriented by the mechanics of a Dim Sum brunch. The first question likely to be asked is, “Which one is my waiter?” The answer is all of them. Picture a small army charged with the single task of getting you through your meal. Some of the waiters circulate carts of various delicacies around the enormous dining room, others whisk dirty plates away with the speed of a Dickensian street urchin, and still others replace the plates with equally ninja-like accuracy. Rowan looked down and said, “Where’d my plate go?” As quickly as it had vanished another materialized to replace it. I gentled nudged it toward him. “That’s not my plate,” he said. But at that point he didn’t really care.

As would be expected from a restaurant in Chinatown, the staff’s knowledge of English is limited. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the universal language of Dim Sum is ingeniously simple, involving nothing more than a point of your finger and the words, “What’s that?” Often the response doesn’t matter, as the chopstick-friendly architecture of the foods sells itself.

Ah yes, this is the first meal I have ever successfully consumed from start to finish using nothing but chopsticks. While the waitstaff is happy to bring anyone a fork (by means of teleportation, it seems) this involves a certain amount of shame in the eyes of one’s company, and so Western cutlery is to be avoided at all costs.

Plate upon plate of bite sized, chopstickable food can be obtained from any of the cart girls who continually roll through the restaurant. There’s standard fare like fried rice and egg rolls, as well as a seemingly infinite variety of more exotic foods, such as a bean roll so rich and chewy that I’m sure you could use the recipe to insulate a space shuttle. Just when I think I’m getting full, nauseous, or both, I take a sip of my Jasmine tea, and lo, I am healed, ready for another two plates. Only Buddhism could produce such a miraculously soothing tea.

All of this culinary pandemonium culminates in dessert, which again, is easily flagged down from a passing cart. Most of the desserts are sweet, light, and somewhat gelatanous. Dave pointed himself into obtaining a bright green dessert that is most accuarately described as honey dew pudding. Absolutely delicious.

Your table starts Dim Sum with a blank sheet of paper that somehow represents your bill. Each time the waiter or waitress takes food off his cart for you, the motion is accompanied by an almost imperceptable stamping of your bill with a small insignia. We had a lot of little insignias on our sheet. The nine of us ate for just under $100, and let me tell you, we ate a lot.

According to Rowan, Dim Sum means, “touches the heart.” As the meal went on, we all felt better and better, until ultimately we were all just plain happy to be together. I guess it’s true.