I decided to venture to other locally claimed best yum cha restaurant in Guangzhou. After some snooping around, I found myself in front of Guangzhou's infamous Water Snake Village aka "Shui She Chun" in Mandarin.
Inside the "village" (or food court centre), you can sit in the open air or the enclosed where aircond will bless you from the merciless heat outside (considering it was June when I went). Next to you you will find a teapot waiting to be filled with your selected tea.
They don't have my favourite Osmanthus tea ("Gui Hua Cha") so I have to settle for Chrysanthemum.
"It's ok~~" though much to my dismay I couldn't enjoy my favourite tea break with my favourite tea. Tea is a big thing in China afterall, and it has somehow incorporated part of that culture into me.
There was a long list of dim sum and other yum cha dishes I could choose from, which was difficult, as when you're in another country, the price of the dish is no longer your main concern but rather the taste of it.
I decided, for the sake of my food and diet blog and the sake of experience, to go for more dishes that I could normally handle, of course without the intention to actually finsih all of them.
I started off with the not-so-conventional dish. (Because yum cha don't start till 2:30pm in Guangzhou, so if you want to yum cha or have dim sum, you have to wait)
The century eggs, one of the favourite food around. In fact I even bought some to store in my Bangkok apartment, not just because the eggs are pink in color, but I do love some century egging every now and then. You'll never know when you'll have an emergency craving.
This dish, was superb! The green yolk was soft to the brink, it smelt, no doubht, like most good centurty eggs do, and it was good. Usually with ginger slices to pair with, but in this case, the wonderfully cooked and grilled sweet capsicum slices were brilliant, I wished I could live in Guangzhou just so I could try this dish every fortnight.
Then I opted for some typical usual dim sum dish.
Ha Gao
Not bad, prawns were big, nothing to shout about though.
Siew Pao
or, Sweetened Pork Bun. A bit fatty, (I prefer my pork lean), but not too bad.
Steamed Spring Roll
Oh yes! This one hit the spot! The only dish I finished on the table. It was pretty good. In fact I wanted to order another plate and decided against it as I have too many leftovers. I remembered it was some minced pork and vege slices inside.
Sometimes I wish they have one serving dim sum so I can try more, you know, instead of three pieces of everything in each plate, you can choose one piece to each plate, it would be my heaven then.
In the Water Snake Village, how it works is (when you want to yum cha that is), the moment it hits 2:30pm, you get up and head out to the back there you see piles of steamer baskets aligned together for your pick up.
You pass them your order form given to you and they will give you a stamp.
Take whatever you wish, and pay for the bill when you're done. Easy as that.
People in Guangzhou aren't very patient, especially when you're a Chinese, be it local or foreign, so it's better to know rather than to ask.
On my way out, I saw the main dish of the "village" swimming in front of me.
Yes, swimming.
Like its title. Water Snake Village's signature dish is...
Water Snakes!
And if it's not for 70+ yuan per fried snake, I would have ordered one myself.
