Six Rules for Eating Dim Sum Like a Pro

A New Yorker going to Hong Kong for an authentic dim sum experience may walk away a little deflated: Largely gone are the traditional carts, loaded with delicately flavored bite-size dishes, that diners flag down as they pass by in many U.S. eateries. In the home of the cuisine, they’ve largely been relegated to history and replaced with à la carte menus.

What you’re guaranteed to see in both cities, however, are such traditional dishes as steamed buns stuffed with sticky-sweet pork, xiao long bao dumplings filled with scalding soup, and chewy chicken feet that will test the carnivorous mettle of the more timid meat-eaters. Sweet sits alongside savory, often in the same bite-size dish, washed down with plenty of jasmine tea.