Best Yum Cha in Guang Zhou

Short Note: I am flying to Manado, Indonesia tomorrow. Woo hoo~~ Diving!

Though I think I will be staying in most of the time. It's so cheap there it's only RM30 a night, whole room to myself, I think. But will see how it goes, if I can afford to dive at all. Will be brining my laptop to study and work. T_T


Yum Cha

chinese tea


in China, means drink tea.


Which is also Dim Sum for us.

They don't call it Dim Sum there, that's in Hong Kong. They don't even call it 點心 (I'm referring to Mandarin pronunciation).

They just call it Yum Cha (Guangzhou is Cantonese speaking city).

Yes, I know. Reminds you of midnight supper right?

Here in China, Yum Cha is carried out in mid-afternoon from 2pm to 5pm. That's what everyone do, they drink tea.

drinking tea


And they eat a bit (note: a bit) of Dim Sum.

siew mai dim sum


In Malaysia, we tend to go for Dim Sum really early in the morning, and we also tend to order a lot of dishes, from Siew Mai, Cha Siew Pao, Ha Gao, Sui Jiao (dumpling) to porridge.

Not in China though. They have it in the afternoon, and the main saga is...

to...

drink...

TEA.

(Do I make you sound like retard? lol)


It's a complete culture shock for me. At first I didn't know what to know say when I first arrived in Guangzhou (Guang Zhou, Guangzhou, it's all the same), I asked strangers on the street on where I could find the best "Dim Sum",

they would go: "do you mean Yum Cha?".

And then I would go: "no, no, I dun want tea, I want Dim Sum",

they would then go: "errrr..... that means Yum Cha la"

Me: "no, not tea, food. I want the food"

stranger: "well, I'm not too sure where you can get those, but here (in China) we have it during Yum Cha session'

Me: "Ohh..."



Moving on. I am going to introduce you the best Dim Sum (I mean Yum Cha, or Dim Sum, whatever) Restaurant in Guangzhou. It's called Tao Tao Ju.

tao tao ju entrance


Please read from right.

It's said to be really pricey (by local standard, RM4-5 per dish?), so do what I do and go there after 2:30pm and you will get everything half price. ;)

It's super cheap!

I had a wild time at the restaurant. Ordering everything I could find, not caring if I could finish, and chatting with an uncle whom I happened to share a table with (it's really crowded so if you're alone or with a friend, prepare to share table with strangers).

uncle at the table


I won't publish all the food I've eaten here. But I will introduce some which I found pretty nice. Their egg tarts were pretty nice though.

egg tarts


So were the Cha Sao Su ("Char Siew Sou" in Canto, aka pork in fried dumpling).
I absolutely love anything to do with Char Siew.

cha sao su
These were pretty damn awesome


The rest you can find it in my food blog.

Overall I think my bill didn't even reach RM20.


And finally, the most important thing.

The TEA.

tea bag


RM 4 per pack (50% so it's only RM2).

Can pour over 50 cups. Drink until you siao.

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12 kissed Nicole

  1. Hey Nicole,

    I am also travelling now. I am currently in China too. I have been travelling here for 2weeks and I still have 2 more weeks to go. Afterwhich I will make my way to other country. Where else will you be going? Let see if we can meet up somewhere. I am now in Shangrila, yunnan.

    You can email me at kw_bike@hotmail.com

    or

    call my china number at 15811679784

    Did you get a china sim card?

    Do check out my blog too if you have the time.

    http://zeevincez.blogspot.com/2008/08/cold-journey.html

    Hope to hear from you soon.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Come Yum Cha Malaysian Style - MAMAK . Game girl????

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  3. i'm getting nuts looking at all the food u are eating. they look absolutely heavenly. did u try yum cha while in australia? it is absolutely the 'in' thing there. :)

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  4. Yep, YAM CHA is wat they call it. Even here in NZ.... NZ i mean the kiwis, and all the overseas people over here: HK, China, Taiwanese, n Malaysians...

    but i think we go for the food more than the tea. :)

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  5. Yeah, YUM CHA is definitely for midnight at mamak's. I will surely argue with them until they get sick with me. Its so nice to travel everywhere...ENVY... T_T

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  6. drink the tea until siao .. haha... =D

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  7. that's looks delicious....

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  8. yum cha and dim sum..
    lets go for yum cha then dim sum as worlds of china and hong kong collides. Yummm~~~

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  9. Boss, Hong Kong also call yum cha la, when they say yum cha means go restaurant eat dim sum and drink Chinese tea. yat chung leong kin.

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  10. I begin to have doubts of foods originated china nowadays...

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  11. actually, the best is not tao tao jv..the best one is along the river, called da tong ;) go try, u will be amazed

    HK also calls it yum cha

    ReplyDelete