Hong Kong dim sum tips: Don't expect a restaurant experience

It's a mistake to think of dim sum as a restaurant experience. You'll only end up frustrated at the service and noise levels and endless small dishes that turn up at seemingly random moments.

Think of it more in terms of a tapas bar or beer garden, except in the mornings. And with tea instead of wine or beer. Dim sum is a lingering meal designed for gossip and conviviality, with little of the formulaic progress of a restaurant meal. Give into its freeform energy, and enjoy.

Best turn up with as many friends or family members as possible. In Hong Kong, Sunday morning dim sum is for socialising and catching up on the news. You lurch from one conversation to another, take time out to slurp tea or read a newspaper, then start up again.

In between, you eat. Or snack. Those expecting a balanced meal are doomed to disappointment. Dim sum got its start as small accompaniments to tea and, though the food has moved to the fore, the snack concept remains. Pick whatever catches your eye as trolleys are wheeled past.

The Cantonese food you get in Hong Kong is sparing in its use of spice and oil, and focuses on the subtle flavours of fresh ingredients. Marinated and roast meats are eaten hot or cold, with slow simmering in soy sauce and rice wine a common cooking method.

Expect such delights as spring rolls, sticky rice, steamed buns, spare ribs, crabs, congee and blanched bitter green leaves served in oyster sauce. Steamed prawn dumplings have wrappings so translucent that the prawn's pink flesh shows through.

You could overdose on cha siu bau, a Cantonese bun steamed or baked with a brown glaze and filled with barbecued pork in a sweet, almost caramelised sauce with a slightly smoky flavour that will have you licking your lips.

Save room, though, for a warm dessert soup, flavoured with red bean or black sesame and containing sweet potato, fruit or glutinous rice balls.

You can certainly go fancy in Hong Kong, and have dumplings flecked with gold leaf and dishes such as cod steamed in wine, or lotus root stuffed with beef and water chestnut.

But I reckon you should forego the tablecloth and suffer rough service for the real dim sum experience in a neighbourhood restaurant the size of an airport hangar and as loud as a pachinko parlour with conversation.

Brilliant.