The doors swing open. Lo and behold, the beautiful smells that tease my nostrils. My lips turn moist, unknowingly, in anticipation of what is to come.
I plomp myself onto a plush chair. My sister to my right says, “Jie, it’s been so long, ya?” I merely smile, already looking away, my eyes flirting with the many boys pushing their trolleys full of glorious food. Ah, flirting with the food, the food! Them boys will have to wait.
“What would you like to drink?”, one of them trolley-pushing boys ask. “Tea would be fine”, so says my mum. Ah, for sure tea is fine. It helps with the oil, someone had told me. But surely, tea is as important as the food itself. For what else do you serve with dimsum, if not Chinese tea?
But me, I am busy. “Give me that, and that, and that”, pointing at the different loongs of different contents. I think not to be unfair, they all deserve their time on the table, MY table. They deserve every bit of attention. And so I give it to them.
I fish my camera out of my bag. “Ah, look,” someone whispers to her partner, “you’ve got a mate who likes to take photos too!”.
It’s time to dig in. Such instinctive hunger, such lust. My mouth waters, even as the chopsticks wander in search of the privileged first.
Halfway through this fantastical feast, my sister asks, “Jie, why do dimsum always come in threes?”
I think for an answer, after all they say that two’s a company and three’s a crowd. But she seems disinterested already. There’s new food on the table. We hunger for more.
They say last but definitely not least. And so it is. What better way to end the meal, than to rinse down with some desert? Ah, but what a surprise! Never have I seen such dainty little balls of frozen milk and cream, pristine white, refreshingly cool. I shriek in delight, to my sister’s feigned horror.
The melt-in-your-mouth vanilla flavour is to die for.
