The Dot Com Dim Sum
written by John Chow
Normally, Saturday is the weekly Pho Fest. However, we decided to try something completely different to get away from the weekly grind. Instead of going for Pho Lan like we do every week, we went to Sea Harbour Restaurant for the first Dot Com Dim Sum.
Reservations were made for 12:30 but Sea Harbour is always packed because it’s among the best Dim Sum restaurants in the city. Add in the fact that Dim Summers like to take their sweet ass time leaving and the chances of getting your table at reservation time are very slim. My retired friend Wolf got tired of waiting for the people at our table to leave so he went to the table and just stood beside them “Hong Kong” style. Neediness to say, they left shortly after.
Dim Sum, according to Wikipedia, is a Cantonese phrase (點心), literally “touch the heart” (order to your heart’s content) but meaning “morsel/snack”. It may be derived from yat dim sum yi (一點心意), meaning “a little token”. Though the English word “dim sum” refers to the Cantonese variety, the idea of a wide variety of small dishes for lunch also holds for other regions of China.
I was happy to see so many local bloggers were able to make it out for Dim Sum. I originally booked a table for ten but we ended up with 12. Among the blogging faces you may know are Sally Chow, Jeff Kee, Stephen Fung, Ed Lau, Michael Kwan and newly retired Dot Com, Greg Morgan. Greg quit an $80,000 a year job with Yellow Pages to go fulltime on the Net. We were joined by Rainer and his son Matthew, and Gary Jones from BlueFur.com.
We ordered over 40 Dim Sum dishes, including a few that I knew would scare some of the Dim Sum newbies. There’s nothing quite like seeing someone’s reaction to a chicken feet (those are really good BTW). The Dim Sum bill came to about $300 including tips, which is higher than most Dim Sum restaurants, but Sea Harbour justifies its prices because it’s the best.
Gary enjoyed the Dim Sum so much he decided that BlueFur.com would pay for the gathering. That was extremely nice of the blue guy. If you need a web host that can handle a Digg, BlueFur.com is your solution. Use promo code JohnChowRocks and get 15% off any service. Here are some more pictures from our first Dot Com Dim Sum. We look forward to the next one.
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(13 votes, average: 3.62 out of 5)
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Hey John, I am Rainer’s son but I’m not from TRBN. I’m from matthewschmnoll.com. Future dot com mogul. Acknowledge me!
Oh, you’re really out of it today.
You spell Rainer wrong.
In the last paragraph you spelt Gary wrong.
You guys weren’t drinking were you?
Too much Dim Sum!
You have been acknowledge! 
You know what the funny thing is? My wife said I didn’t acknowledged Sally as a blogger either. Had to fix that too.
Despite the fact that I am Asian, that food was all new to me and it was enjoyable.
Now, only if the traffic in Richmond wasn’t so bad..
I know eh? Took 45 minutes to just got a few blocks.
Thanks John.
Finding parking was a nightmare.
Not for me! But then again, I was evil with my parking.
Are you evil with everything???
Yes, he is.
Sally is an excellent blogger
I can’t wait to see what goes up once she’s able to write on her own.
One day I’ll go have Dim Sum! It would be fun.
Hot damn…if only Seoul had some fine Chinese dim sum! I could eat some of that chicken feet right about now!
I’m sure you can find them in Seoul..
When i was in Kwangju there were some chinese places.
“Phoenix Claw”, not chicken feet
[...] I just exchanged blog links with everybody who asked, basically. I had an interesting chat with John Chow today over lunch, and he pointed out a few things to me. When Google gives me a pagerank (which is expected to be [...]
I really admire John Chow’s blog
Toronto has some nice Dim Sum restaurants as well. Also John, your grammar would most likely bring my English teacher to commit suicide.
“However, we decided to try something completely DIFFERENCE to get away from the weekly grind.”
John, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, maybe the grammar slips make you a more real person to your readers. If it is too perfect and polished, it really wouldn’t seem like a blog now would it?
Ya but once I discover a mistake, I can’t help but correct it!
John, is John Hok your mini twin?
Wow 40 dishes, or 40 different kind of dishes?! The most varieties that I ever had with my family were 7. They sure look appetizing!
I hate Chinese brocoli!
That’s actually what we call “Gai Lan” and it’s a delicious (and often actually rather expensive) veggie.
I know it is called, “Gai Lan”, and I really hate it!
mmmm coated in oyster sauce
I’d love to go to a *proper* chinese restaurant (not the westernised stuff), my chinese friend says some of the food is amazing.
[...] we are with another edition of the Saturday Bloggers Lunch. You can read the details at JohnChow.com, . I will fill you in on how we got there. Myself, Gary Jones, and my Son Matthew were on our merry [...]
It looks like a pile of fun John. That’s a pretty cool networking circle
id be a little weary of chicken feet too
Looks like a great time! Still no show from Tyler Cruz? Sheesh.
Tyler who?
Yeah, there’s nothing exciting in Nanaimo! Why the hell does he even stick around there? I was born there, and NEVER want to go back!
Hey John, you gotta quit thinkin things will freak us out. Dim-Sum is far from new to me and most people I know. Chicken feet however were a problem, I am a big boy and really don’t have the patience to sit there picking tiny bits of stuff off of them there little bones.
Some of us really just like to get a good mouthful of food with little or no effort, LOL.
Then that means you’re going to order a #7 at Pho next week!
Why would it mean that I would order a #7? The real question of course is, what is the point of eating something just for the sake of proving you are not grossed out by it? Sure, if you are 9 years old, that might be very important in your social order (I haven’t been 9 in a long long time).
If #7 looks good, I will order it, If I decide #21 looks good at the time I will order that or maybe a #11. Why on earth would I want to pay for something that is not going to be the taste I consider good???
Sorry that I don’t share your fascination with finding a food that is gross, call me weird but I tend to look for food that tastes good.
Looks like Sally is doing some 1337 ninja moves in the bottom picture.
Of course you guys have to pick the rare Staurday that I have to work to meet for Dim Sum (sigh)
Hopefully I’ll be able to make it out to the next one.
*Saturday
Sorry, I speak Chinglish.
Absolutely love Dim Dum too, there’s some really good ones here (Malaysia).
John Chow recommended this dim sum place to my friend and he said it was the best dim sum he ever had! John knows his food!
Geez, that food looks good! Here in Taipei, we often go out for Dimsum. Many of the dishes looked familiar!
Yummy.
Kenneth
[...] a break from what John Chow calls “the weekly grind” of Pho on Saturdays, the Dot Com crew decided to head to Sea Habour in Richmond and get some [...]
mmm….dim sum….maybe I’ll get an invite out to one of these elite dot com lunches one day..
Our Dot Com lunch is rather open and people are welcome to join us although the places we go to are usually rather small and…well, having too many people makes it impossible to get tables.
hmm…well…maybe one day I’ll come out…after, of course, my website gets a bit more established, and school finishes up…only 6 more weeks
No…I’m not excited about that at all 
you vancouver bloggers seem to have it pretty good up there. I’m gonna start to see if there are any bloggers out here in soCal that will like to start doing these kind of get togethers. I know a food bloggers community that gets together and they eat real well over here! If you guys are ever in LA, let me know and I’ll tell you where all the secret spots are around LA.
Man - that almost looks worth it to fly into Vancouver just for lunch with a bunch of evil people. That would certainly be an evil way to spend a few hundred bucks, eh?
What´s the second dish in picture? Is that Gyosa?
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That looks really good. I love Dim Sum!
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I wanted to register the phrase you had in this article 點心 but was sad to see that 點心.com and 點心.net are already taken
I’m a Dim Sum regular. That looks great!
mmmmm, Dim Sum.