Dim sum & yum cha (饮茶)
a morning at the source

This is the dish locals use to judge whether a tea house really knows what it's doing. The wrapper is made from wheat starch and tapioca, kneaded until it turns translucent enough to show the pink shrimp inside, then pleated into the classic twelve folds. The filling should be whole, snappy shrimp, never a paste. The skin has to be thin enough to lift with chopsticks without tearing, yet not collapse into mush. If a kitchen's har gow has thick skin or tired shrimp, that's your cue to eat elsewhere.

Cantonese siu mai looks a little different from the version you may know — wrapped in a thin pale-yellow skin, left open at the top, filled with minced pork mixed with chopped shrimp. Many places crown each one with orange flying-fish roe or a little grated carrot. The filling is dense and bouncy, naturally sweet from the pork and prawn, releasing a burst of savory juice as you bite. It's the constant companion to har gow — Cantonese diners say the two names in one breath, "har gow siu mai", as if they were a single thing.

The charm of a Cantonese barbecue-pork bun is in the split. A good one steams up so light and fluffy that the top bursts open into three petals like a blooming flower, flashing the red pork filling inside. That filling is char siu — honey-glazed barbecue pork — diced and tossed in a thick, glossy sauce that runs sweet then savory. The bun is soft and slightly chewy, the filling juicy, and the first bite delivers both the sweetness of the sauce and the smokiness of the roast. Children love it and adults order it every single time. Some houses also do a baked version (叉烧餐包) with a shiny golden-brown crust.

The Cantonese egg tart is the most classic way to end a yum cha meal. The shell comes in two styles — some kitchens use flaky puff pastry, others a crumbly shortcrust — and inside sits a golden egg custard, smooth and only lightly sweet, served warm from the oven with the scent of egg and butter. Guangzhou Restaurant is particularly famous for its egg tarts; plenty of people order a box to take home. Bite into one while it's still warm and the custard is at its softest, wobbling at the centre.

Don't pull a face — chicken feet, poetically called "phoenix claws" in Cantonese, are one of the most loved things on a Guangzhou yum cha table. The feet are deep-fried first, then steamed and braised for a long time in fermented black-bean sauce, garlic and chilli until the skin and tendon turn meltingly soft and slip easily off the bone. The flavour is salty-sweet with a gentle warmth, and working the soft meat off the little bones is a skill Cantonese people master as children. Order one basket and you'll understand why it's an eternal favourite.

Cheung fun are sheets of steamed rice batter, thin and slippery, rolled around a filling and dressed with Guangzhou's special lightly sweetened soy sauce. The popular fillings are shrimp (虾肠), char siu barbecue pork (叉烧肠) or beef (牛肉肠). The rice sheet is so soft it almost dissolves on the tongue, the delicate sweet soy cutting cleanly against the filling. Guangzhou has both the tea-house version and "la cheung fun" (拉肠粉) made fresh at street stalls in the morning — the batter steamed on a tray, then scraped off piping hot. It's a breakfast locals eat almost every day.