I still vividly remember the first time I completely ruined a basket of har gow. I was eight years old, sitting at a loud, clattering round table with my grandfather in Chinatown. When the bamboo lid was lifted, a cloud of steam rolled across the glass turntable, revealing three perfect, translucent dumplings.
The restaurant was loud in the way yum cha restaurants always are. Cups knocked softly against saucers. Steam drifted out from bamboo baskets as servers moved quickly between crowded tables.
Before you even cross the threshold, the teahouse announces itself. It begins as a low, steady hum vibrating through the hallway, a beautiful collision of overlapping conversations and the rhythmic clatter of heavy porcelain.
The dining room is a familiar symphony of clattering porcelain, scraping wooden chairs, and lively conversation.
The bamboo steamers hold the same delicate shrimp dumplings and the porcelain pots pour the same amber pu-erh, yet the soul of the meal shifts entirely depending on when you sit at the table.
The dining room is a symphony of ambient noise and movement.
We sit across from each other as the first pot of jasmine tea arrives, trailing a delicate, floral ribbon of steam into the cool air of the dining room.
Long before the first bamboo steamer lands on the table at a Singapore yum cha restaurant