What's With Dim Sims?

A Country Town in Australia
2nd January 2010

Who in Hong Kong knows what a dim sim is? While Chinese in origin, a dim sim or ‘dimmy’ is very much an Australian dish. I’d assume the name is the corruption of the Chinese ‘dim sum’. These popular snacks are available from takeaway shops, fish n chip joints and Australian Chinese restaurants across the country. So what is a dimmy? Basically it’s a big, nuggetty, think skinned dumpling filled with cabbage and pork or chicken and either deep-fried or steamed. They are traditionally served smothered in soy sauce. Driving back from the beach I called into an average looking take-away joint with the intention of getting Joey’s reaction to a dim sim. Tradition labels poor quality dim sim as being filled with a whole assortment of miscellaneous meat and so I was almost disappointed when the smiling proprietor told us he was from Hong Kong and hand-made all his dim sims. The verdict? Joey was almost laughing when she saw the “monster dumpling” and while there’s nothing dainty about a dimmy, we both enjoyed are little snack of Australian Chinese fusion.

Read about dim sims here.