Ever since visiting Hong Kong a few years ago and hearing about Dim Sum, I’ve been curious about experiencing an authentic Dim Sum meal.  Ironically, I didn’t get to taste Dim Sum in Hong Kong, but a visit to Johannesburg’s China Town recently was the perfect opportunity to find out just what we were missing out on.

Like most cities, Johannesburg has a “China Town”, which is situated on Derrick Avenue in Cyrildene.  Filled with Chinese restaurants, supermarkets, greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers, it provides visitors with a diverse array of sights, sounds and smells.

Literally translated Dim Sum means “touch the heart” and at lunch-time on a Sunday, our favourite China Town restaurant, Shun Duk, is awash with Chinese locals, dipping into baskets of steaming hot dumplings, fluffy bau buns and rice noodle rolls, to name but a few.

A wide array of steaming bamboo baskets and plates of delicious looking titbits had us a little wide-eyed and confused, but we were lucky enough to share a table with a Taiwanese lady and her husband who very kindly explained many of the fillings to us!

Steamed Dimsum in Johannesburg China Town

After soothing our throats with delicious jasmine tea, we choose not to sample the “Phoenix talons” (that’s chicken feet to us), but instead dived straight into delicious steamed dumplings filled with a combinations of pork, prawns, celery, coriander and carrot.  Hot and steamy, these were the perfect appetiser on a cold winter day.

There were steamed Bau, fluffy buns filled with a choice of barbeque pork or red bean paste; lotus leaf rice parcels; turnip cake; congee; steamed rice noodle rolls; sesame seed balls and egg custard tarts (can we say “Yummy”?) to name just a few of the Dim Sum to choose from.  You can try a few of them, or you can try all of them, it’s up to you!

Dim Sum dessert

Prices on each dish vary, depending on the size of the dish and the type of the dish.  When you sit down and help yourself to each Dim Sum plate or basket, your waitress will stamp your receipt for each plate and tally up the total at the end of the meal.  Never fear though, eating in China Town is always great value for money and you will leave with both a full stomach and a full purse!

See you on Sunday for Dim Sum at Shun Duk!