Dim Sum: A Survival Guide is roughly half as useful as its author intended, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not useful. As a basic overview of popular dim sum dishes, bracketed with some supplementary historical and other content, it’s a great introduction to the topic. Where it falls down is in the commentary the author and a few of her friends provide on the dishes in question.
Short, lavishly illustrated with color photographs of dim sum dishes, and designed to slip easily into a pocket, the physical design of the book makes it appealing to folks who want to take a guide with them to a restaurant without risking smudges on their iPad touchsceens after close encounters with red bean paste sesame balls.
After a brief introduction to the topic – history and etiquette, mostly – the book breaks out int o examinations of individual dishes, separated by category. Vegetables, Desserts, Baked/Roasted, etc. serve as the groupings/ Each dish gets its own page, gorgeously photographed and marked with a handy guide to the dish’s contents. Unfortunately, each page also has commentary from the author and some of her friends about the dish in question, and this commentary ranges from the fatuous to the ridiculous with only brief stops at “pertinent” along the way.
Most of it would seem to be specific to the particular restaurant they were eating at, referring to particular spicing, preparation, etc. Ignore the commentary and the pages are useful; read it and hilarity may ensue. Interspersed between the sections are short pieces about the art of creating dim sum – an interview with a chef, an exploration of a dim sum kitchen, and so on. These are informative and well-written, providing a great deal of content in a relatively small space. The book then ends with a quick pronunciation guide to ordering dim sum, and an index breaking down dishes by ingredients (i.e. peanut-safe dishes, vegetarian dishes, pork- free dishes, etc.).
In summation, Dim Sum: A Survival Guide is a useful, easy guide for the beginner. More experienced dim sum devotees may find the quick reference to dish ingredients useful, but otherwise they’ll leave the need for it behind rapidly. And nobody needs to read the dish by dish commentary.
(Blacksmith Books, 2010)
