Hello readers.  Do you happen to work close to City Hall?  Although I love so many things about working from my home, I must confess that I miss the days of having an office in the Old Market Square area of Winnipeg, where we had our pick of excellent dim sum restaurants.  The literal meaning of dim sum is “touch the heart” as it was never intended as a main meal but as a snack, to satisfy a yearning (appease the heart).  Dim Sum is also unique because of the manner in which the food is served: towers of steamed baskets all containing wrappers or dumplings of savoury food are wheeled around the restaurant on carts for the customers to choose their selections while seated at their tables. Since you can dictate your own pace, this proves to be handy if you are in a hurry, as we happened to be on this day, with only a designated half hour for lunch.

We started our lunch at Kum Koon Garden (257 King St.) with sticky rice-a compact little package of rice that is stuck together with a meaty shiitake mushroom and ground meat which has all been steamed inside a lotus leaf.  Some versions at other Winnipeg restaurants include a piece of Chinese sausage.  I prefer Kum Koon’s version.

We also tucked into two varieties of shrimp dumplings: one was full of plump shrimp and lots of chopped ginger and the other blended the shrimp with chopped spinach.

Each was different enough tasting, so as not to be redundant.  I enjoy my dim sum dumplings with just a dribble or two of soy sauce but Chinese hot sauce is also on the table and I know more adventurous eaters that love it dolloped on.

Although my lunch date was content to let me do the selecting, I saw his eyes light up when little pieces of gingered beef were being paraded around.

We offset the sweetness of the dish with another: Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) which was perfectly prepared and literally bursting with flavour.  Without the inclusion of a dish like this one, dim sum can be a bit off-balanced as far as all the food groups are concerned.  Loose Chinese tea had been poured to warm us up.

The birthday boy that I was treating to lunch that day, enjoyed the novelty of dim sum.  In my opinion, Kum Koon Garden has the most appealing décor.  Winnipeg has a bevy of Asian restaurants to choose from, but for some reason the locations that serve dim sum are congregated downtown.  If you have a favourite dim sum spot in the suburbs I would love to hear from you, so that I can visit.  Leave me a message in the comment section.

Kath’s quote: “You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent their making a nest in your hair. “ -Chinese Proverb

Love-that is all.

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