The delights of dim sum! Numerous trolley carts of bamboo steamers with bao, dumplings, and other dishes are pushed around the room, and you simply point at the dishes you want. Sometimes you order off a menu, selecting from a long list of intriguing choices. You might have your own favorite dim sum spot in Chinatown, or maybe elsewhere.
When did dim sum first come to the U.S.? What was the first dim sum restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown? Its origins in the U.S. are murky, with little hard evidence supporting some of the historical claims.
It’s alleged that the first dim sum restaurant in the U.S. was the Hang Ah Tea Room in San Francisco, which opened in 1920, closely followed later that same year by the Nom Wah Tea Parlor in New York City. Both of these restaurants are still open. However, there were not any newspaper references about dim sum at these spots during the 1920s and ’30s. It is possible that dim sum was initially something available primarily to the Chinese community, so they did not advertise to non-Chinese people.
The earliest newspaper reference I found to dim sum was in The San Francisco Examiner on Dec. 2, 1939. The advertisement, shown above, noted that Fong In featured famous “dim sum” Chinese tiffin. Tiffin is an older word which referred to a “light meal.”
During the 1940s, it seems that many people thought dim sum was a specific food item, not a type of meal. For example, the Knoxville News-Sentinel on Oct. 20, 1946 discussed the Nom Wah Tea Parlor in New York City, stating one of items served was “dim sum, a yellow cup made of egg noodle filled with chopped pork and Chinese vegetables.”
During the early 1950s, dim sum restaurants in New York City started to gain publicity, though they also acquired a nickname that lasted into the early 1960s. The Daily News in New York on March 11, 1951 had a request from a reader interested in “finding an authentic Chinese ‘blob’ joint.” The newspaper then noted that “a blob meal consists of an endless series of differently stuffed dumplings.” The newspaper answered the question a few weeks later, noting that blob joints were also called Sim Dum, dim sum, or Dem Sem.
The New Yorker Magazine on August 30, 1958 wrote about the Nom Wah Tea Parlor, mentioning that it was “a so-called ‘blob joint,’ which serves blobs, or balls, or meat, fish, vegetables, and dough, prepared in the Nom Wah Bakery, next door.”
With the advent of the 1970s, dim sum gained popularity with non-Chinese people and gained much more press, usually very positive. It wasn’t until this time that information on dim sum in Boston started appearing. The Boston Globe on Jan. 29, 1971 published a review of a new restaurant, Shanghai Low at 21 Hudson St., noting “Chinese pasteries (dim sum) are served Saturdays and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.” Then, on Feb. 7 that same year, the Globe, noted that Peking on the Mystic, in Medford, served “…Chinese ‘pasteries’ or dumplings called dim sum in Cantonese and dian hsing in the Mandarin tongue. They may be steamed or fried.”
The Globe on January 11, 1979 stated, “The Chinatown of Boston has a very few restaurants which serve a limited selection of Chinese pastries daily 9 a.m.-3 p.m.” The writer visited three restaurants that served dim sum, including the Seventy Restaurant, Moon Villa, and King Wah. He concluded, “Most of all, I found the Chinese pastries at these three restaurants ordinary in preparation, limited in variety, and overpriced at 80 cents to $1 per dish. None of the three offered fried food, and at all of these, the baked foods were served cold instead of warm off a serving cart.”
The Boston Herald presented a lengthy article on April 4, 1979, stating, “Dim sum, or Chinese tea lunch, is the Cantonese equivalent of American brunch. Literally, dim sum means “tiny hearts,” but its poetic interpretation is ‘tiny snacks to delight the heart. Traditionally, dim sum is an extensive array of bite-size dumplings, steamed or fried and filled with meat, fish or sweet bean paste.” Three restaurant recommendations were provided, including King Wah, Seventy Restaurant, and Peking Garden in Lexington.
Dim sum was presented with more positivity in the Globe’s April 22 issue that year, which began, “Chinese dim sum might take its place next to pizza as one of America’s favorite foods.” It continued, “The beauty of dim sum is that one doesn’t need a menu to enjoy it.” For the first time, there was also mention of the differences in regional dim sum dishes. “There are basically two styles of dim sum, northern and southern. In the northern style, there are regional variations such as Szechuan, Pekingese and Shanghai. In southern style, there is basically just Cantonese,” the article said.
Finally, there was a claim about the first Chinatown restaurant to serve dim sim. “In the 1930s, dim sum was served at Yee Hung Guey by the first generation of the family that now operates the restaurant.” However, I have been unable to locate any supporting evidence to verify this claim.
So, the first dim sum restaurants in the U.S. likely originated in the 1920s, and it’s possible the first one in Boston’s Chinatown started in the 1930s, though the evidence is lacking in that regard. There is more evidence that dim sum had its start in Chinatown in the 1970s. Whatever its origins, dim sum is a great way to enjoy a meal with family and friends.
For more information, you may read Richard Auffrey’s lengthier article on this topic at https://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/2020/03/blob-joints-history-of-dim-sum-in-us.html
To read this article in Chinese (Traditional), please click here.
