Aug
24
2009
Yum in Melbourne
Author: Sam“We gotta go to Yum Cha Dragon, what a great name,” said Patty, practically drooling at the thought of Chinese food. How a girl from the Bitter-root Mountains of Idaho developed such a of love of Chinese food, I will never know. Oh wait, I do know. I went back with her to meet her family for the first time in the spring and we had some of the Chinese food in her hometown. I knew we were in trouble when they had ketchup bottles on the table and not a chop stick in site. Plus they served pizza. Maybe now when she get s good Chinese food she can really appreciate it. She apologized for the hometown chopsuey debacle as we like to call it now. I just think it made us stronger. “Sounds good to me,” I said. “But if they have ketchup bottles on the table, I am out of there,” and we both giggled. Patty was fun to travel with, has been all over Europe, and this was the first visit for either of us to Oceania, no less, and Melbourne. We were reluctant to try the luxury hotels Melbourne has seemingly everywhere, and wanted the Chinatown experience.
“Maybe they have Yum Cha T shirts?” said Patty in her flat Midwestern drawl. She had studied economics at the University of Chicago, and after graduating become a well known model, appearing on billboards all over the US. Well since YumCha means drink tea in Cantonese that’s what we ordered straight off as we were seated. We were in time for buffet and had our pick of seafood dumplings as we plodded around the restaurant. The prawns were worth it, and even the usual Chinese themed interior of lanterns and bamboo made us feel happy and at home.