When they're not lying, stats reassure. Solid, replicable, objective. So, stats first.
Ashfield in Sydney's Inner West has 19 Chinese restaurants in a 1 kilometre stretch of Liverpool Road. Pretty much each of them serves some form of dumplings.
Among the Chinese dumpling varieties: buns, xiao long bao (soup-inside dumplings), won ton, and gow gee.
Their fillings span a spectrum of species and sensibilities: pork and chive; spicy crab; curry crab; wild vegetable and shrimp; beef and basil; poached pork with chili; pork and prawn; string bean and shrimp; pork and Chinese cabbage; cabbage, mushroom and chicken; bamboo, prawn, spinach and pork; prawn egg and pork... It's a bit like all those "infinity point" pictures that get lots of "likes" on Instagram.
And, lots of ways to make them: boiled, steamed, pan-fried, deep fried, and pot-sticker (which are first steamed and then pan-fried).
The stat that I like the most: 6 of the 19 restaurants is fully Shanghai'd. There are two "Taste of Shanghai"; two "Shanghai Nights"; a "New Shanghai", and; a "Shanghai Dumpling".
The two "Tastes" like each other - same owners. The two "Nights" are (some say) bitter rivals; it's apparently lawyers at fifteen chopstick lengths about who is the right "Night".
Until recently, I've always gone to the same place - the original "Night". The same place that was Ashfield's / Little Shanghai's first dumpling house.
The same place I where I came upon Chinese dumplings in the mid-90s, and was convinced (not really) they'd pinched them off my Ukrainian ancestors.
Indeed, the same place where I used to be able to order from a Russian language menu, as it's the same place that used to cater for the ultimate "hyphenated" community, eg, Shanghainese-White Russian-Australians.
And, the same place I'd order the same thing: pan-fried pork and chive dumplings, a plate of beef fried rice, and a Sprite. The three boundaries of my comfort food comfort zone.
Then, one day, I noticed. It actually sucked. I didn't like it anymore. Or, rather, the dumplings of Sydney have over the last 20 years or so just become outta sight better. A bit of half decent dough and pork no longer do. A new dumpling dawn has left my "Night" in the dark.
The joint down the street - or the dozen or so joints down the street - be warned that I am on my way.
Oh, I'll go back to the "Night" with its lady owner who would probably like being described as hard, with its blackened pots stacked in the toilet, and with its under-the-counter VB beer sales... In the same way I'm a Mets fan and a Newtown Jets fan - there are things you pick and stick with. It's my trajectory.
And that's not an easy trick for me. To have that trajectory into the future, but to also have a tactile feel for our daily occurrences. It's not a force of my habit, as many years were spent picking and sticking while putting a line through other possibilities of the soul and the universe. Many years were spent being so certain in my strong-headed ways that the great value of the unknown and the uncertain, the slow and the silent, was never realised.
In some ways, I went with the numbers, the established probabilities of what constitutes success in life, the safety of what most choose, and went away from the mystery. Stats lied.
So, while I still take comfort from counting my eateries and their offerings, I now reckon it's really that one dumpling at a time that counts the most.
(The next blog will be on the very awesome one pictured at the top of the blog that I found at Ashfield's "Shanghai Dumpling" here pictured at the bottom of the blog.)
Nowadays, yum cha is as Sydney as the Opera House. Where Aussie families once went for family meals to "safe-as-houses" Black Stump Restaurants, they now head to suburban yum cha palaces filled with fearsome fish tanks, chaotic cash register counters, and ceaseless stacks of white tablecloths in the corner. The foreign has become the familiar.
Without really trying, I found myself this morning at my third yum cha - or dim sum as Yanks call it - session in less than a couple of weeks.
Session #1: with a mate at Kam Fook in Bondi Junction in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Topic of discussion: how banning the should charge tackle in rugby league makes some people happy and some people unhappy. Which obviously led to: how middle aged guys survive divorce by loving their kids.
Session #2: with my adult daughter for Father's Day at Tingha Palace in the Parramatta Leagues Club in Parramatta, Sydney's booming second CBD. Topic of discussion: the intrigue of old hand-painted advertisements for Bushell's Tea on brick buildings in country towns with names like Gulgong and Canowindra. Which obviously led to: what we would do if we won Lotto and could do anything we wanted to do.
Session #3: with my partner in "dumpling diving" and life at Fortune Palace at our local shopping centre, Carlingford Court, where specialty dried seafood stores and exotic soft drinks have literally replaced the Black Stump and a suburban roller skating rink. Topic of discussion: what's on for this week. Which obviously led to: whether to follow head or heart in deciding to quit a job.
The ladies in blue hospital-like smocks push banged-up metal carts stacked high with brown bamboo steamer baskets. A poster for a political candidate at the entrance continues to fight yesterday's battle. Another white middle-aged couple waves at the cute babies and smiles at the crinkly old ladies at a neighbouring table as big and round as the deck of Star Trek's Enterprise.
And, our conversations move from the mundane to the meaningful. We go from staring at our own lives to sharing them with people we care about.
Maybe, it's cos at yum cha, there is no self-consciousness about menus, who's ordering what, how much it costs... There's only happy and gentle "negotiation by nodding" about this cart's goodies or that one's - or let's just have both. Or, everything.
Prawn and pork dim sims - packing a punch of protein. BBQ pork buns - sweet and crumbly as sunset in an apple orchard. Fried fish balls stacked on eggplant, capsicum and tofu - Cirque du Soliel on a plate. Gow gee with spinach and prawn or scallop - the snappy g'day of a happy God. Sesame prawn rolls - the dish that says "there's really no point at cooking at home in Sydney".
Or maybe we talk good at yum cha cos there's no hard borders, high manners or stolen glances between one set of diners and another, or diners and servers. Rather, it's got all the raucous joy of playing "stacks on" in the school playground.
All-in and all-good makes the chin wag. When we are fundamentally not alone, we are together. At yum cha, we shine as we dine.
As Suzi and I headed back to the car park, I notice a poster for scholastic tutoring on the wall beside the old escalator. I'm sure they do a great job giving the local Asian kids great test scores, but today I'm okay with every kindergarten teacher's lesson. For, sharing is truly caring.
