The Hong Kong government recently relaxed restrictions imposed on restaurants to curb the spread of coronavirus; diners can now eat until 10pm, and in groups of up to four, instead of just two. This is a huge relief for the food and drink industry, and in particular Chinese restaurants, which were probably most affected by the restrictions. With many cuisines, each person orders dishes for themselves – typically, a starter, main course and dessert. But in Chinese restaurants, dishes are shared among a group, unless you’re at a place that specialises in rice plates or noodles, where each person eats their own food. Eating dim sum with just one other person is difficult, because how many dishes can you order? I don’t know about you, but I can manage about 12 pieces, although I have been known to eat more. Some high-end restaurants sell dim sum per piece, but how often do you go to those? At traditional restaurants, classic dim sum dishes come in different numbers: har gau (prawn dumplings) usually come three to an order, while siu mai (pork dumplings) is four dumplings in a steamer basket. (Why is that, I wonder?) If you and your dining companion also order other classics including steamed cheung fun (rice paper rolls, three rolls to an order, but cut into nine pieces), char siu bao (barbecue pork steamed buns, two or three to an order), and egg tarts (three to five), and supplement these with other items such as steamed chicken feet and spare ribs with black bean sauce, that’s your meal right there. How poon choi went from communal feast to gourmet takeaway But what about all the other dishes you can’t order? Char siu soh ! Ham sui gok ! Wu gok ! Chiu Chow fun guo (barbecue pork in puff pastry, fried glutinous rice flour dumplings, crispy taro puffs, Chiu Chow steamed dumplings)! If you have more people to share these dishes with, you’ll have only one piece of each and you can order a wider variety. You can always take the leftovers for takeaway, I suppose, but reheated dim sum is never as delicious. And what about eating linner (lunch-dinner), since we had to finish by 6pm? Imagine how Chinese restaurants suffered when each table was limited to two. If you’re being thrifty and ordering just enough to eat that one meal, that’s probably just two dishes, plus vegetables and rice. It means you can’t order a whole (or even half) suckling pig, or a whole roast chicken or duck – items that are so important to the business of Cantonese restaurants. Many places adapted by creating set menus for two, but it’s not quite the same as getting to choose whatever you want. One of the reasons poon choi ( a “basin meal” of different cooked ingredients ) was so popular this year for Christmas and Lunar New Year is that families wanted to gather in groups larger than two, so they ate at home instead of going out to celebrate. Poon choi feeds a lot of people, so the cook of the family needed only to prepare a few more dishes, and that was one feast taken care of. Poon choi can actually stretch to two meals, because if there are leftovers and you add water or broth, it’s a flavourful base for a hotpot meal – just lay out an array of raw meats, seafood and vegetables and the a variety of ingredients for mix-your-own dipping sauce. Going out for a Chinese dinnertime feast is something that many of us have missed. Not only can the chefs prepare better food than most of us can cook at home, but we also don’t have to worry about washing the dishes or cleaning up.