It is now commonplace for restaurants to serve dim sum at dinner and sell various dim sum items à la carte for takeout. Dim sum restaurants have a unique serving method where servers offer dishes to customers from steam-heated carts. Many Cantonese restaurants serve dim sum as early as five in the morning, while more traditional restaurants typically serve dim sum until mid-afternoon.

The tea is very important, just as important as the food. ĭim sum restaurants typically have a wide variety of dishes, usually totaling several dozen. Some estimates claim that there are at least two thousand types of dim sum in total across China, and about forty to fifty types are commonly sold outside of China. But that is not the case with Cantonese dim sum, which has developed into a separate branch of cuisine. In fact, the cookbooks of most Chinese food cultures tend to lump their own variations on dim sum dishes with other local snacks.

There are over one thousand dim sum dishes originating from Guangdong alone, a total that no other area in China comes even close to matching. Cantonese dim sum has a very broad range of flavors, textures, cooking styles, and ingredients, and can be classified into regular items, seasonal offerings, weekly specials, banquet dishes, holiday dishes, house signature dishes, travel-friendly items, as well as breakfast or lunch foods and late-night snacks. As dim sum continued to develop, chefs introduced influences and traditions from other regions of China. Cantonese dim sum was originally based on local foods. Cantonese dim sum culture developed rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century in Guangzhou. The practice of having tea with dim sum eventually evolved into the modern ' yum cha'. Teahouse owners gradually added various snacks called dim sum to their offerings. The second is dim sum, which translates literally to 'touch the heart', the term used to designate the small food items that accompanied the tea. This refers to the custom of serving teahouse customers two delicately made food items, savory or sweet, to complement their tea. The first is ' jat zung loeng gin' ( Chinese: 一盅兩件), which translates literally as 'one cup, two pieces'. ' Yum cha' includes two related concepts. In the tenth century, when the city of Canton ( Guangzhou) began to experience an increase in commercial travel, many frequented teahouses for small-portion meals with tea called ' yum cha' ( brunch). Most modern dim sum dishes are commonly associated with Cantonese cuisine, although dim sum dishes also exist in other Chinese cuisines. Dim sum ( traditional Chinese: 點心 simplified Chinese: 点心 pinyin: diǎn xīn Jyutping: dim2 sam1) is a large range of small Cantonese dishes that are traditionally enjoyed in restaurants for brunch.

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