Dimsum Dinner

Much as I'm enjoying Harbin food, and despite the proliferation of hotpot restaurants (a class of cuisine originating in China's south), I didn't realise to what extent I'd grown up on southern food until I had my first taste of dimsum since arriving in the Ice City.

Like all manner of terrible restaurants in London's Chinatown, the dimsum at this place comes carted around on little metal trolleys. Despite the small selection, all the familiar favourites were represented - ha gau, siu mai, cha siu bao...

Unlike in Chinatown, a separate trolley stacked with cold dishes also toured the restaurant. We ordered seaweed, and a beef salad.

While northern cuisine also has 粥 (normally translated as 'porridge'), it's often a tepid watery affair, made from corn rather than rice. Southern 粥 is a heavy, warming affair, at its best made using chicken stock, and boiling the rice until it's soft enough to melt in the mouth.

While it's a substantial meal in its own right, a lasting memory, and favourite tradition of mine, will always be snacking on turkey 粥 on Christmas Day, late in the evening after the heavy lunch has started to wear off, and preferably after a nice nap. In that case, it's often topped with onions fried to a crispy deep-brown, sprinkled with finely chopped spring onion, and filled with coarse chunks of leftover turkey meat.

This was pretty good too - 皮蛋瘦肉 (Thousand-year egg, lean meat) flavour. Rough pieces of pungent egg and slivers of pork, in a hearty mix of rice and soup.