I would have called it dim sum (“name of the Chinese cuisine involving a light meal or brunch served with Chinese tea“) but Dh and I had a long discussion about the meaning of yum cha (“custom of eating small servings of different foods while sipping Chinese tea“) versus dim sum. So I will now call it by the correct name since wikipedia backs up his statement ) . Interesting translation: “Dim Sum is a Cantonese phrase (點心), literally “touch the heart” (order to your heart’s content) but meaning “morsel/snack”. It may be derived from yat dim sum yi (一點心意), meaning “a little token”.” And the meaning of yum cha is exactly what Dh said, literally means drinking tea. When I asked him why people call it dim sum, he said he thinks it’s because americans probably wouldn’t get “drink tea” so I guess it’s the americanization of a chinese tradition. I try to think of what my parents called it when I was young and I think they did call it yum cha but ironically I always thought that was the mandarin way of calling it versus dim sum which I thought was the cantonese way to say it. How little I knew.

Anyway, we wanted to try out a yum cha place we’ve never been to. I told Dh about Russell’s Seafood Palace which he then recognized as a place his friend Walter had once recommended. I read that this place wasn’t all that crowded compared to China Garden and Sam Woo’s. Those lines can be insane on a Sunday morning so I didn’t want to bother trying for yum cha there. This place opens at 11am and it was more crowded than I thought so it’s not the isolated dive in the wall that I had envisioned. Lots of Asians. I think word of mouth really DOES count for a lot if this place was more crowded than I thought. My in-laws thought the food was pretty decent although they did send back one dish (thought it went bad) and they thought another one was bad too but didn’t send it back. I tried those dishes myself and I thought it was fine. He must have some refined palate. He made the manager try it and they thought it was fine too. I wonder if maybe he’s losing his sense of taste like that father from “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman“. Loved that movie. Anyway, bottom line, this restaurant is a definitely “must come back” place. The lack of long wait time is a huge factor.

Afterwards, we made our way up to Huntington Library. We were taking advantage of the BOA free museum passes in May. These places can get very very pricey. This was a beautiful place, lots of foliage and garden themes. They even had a Japanese garden which included a zen garden and bonsai trees, koi pond and bridges. It was very cool. Anyplace that has a rose named “Jocelyn” rates an “A” in my book )

Today was a very nice way to spend Mother’s Day.