One Chance at Dim Sum

I love Dim Sum. I love the little dishes with little treats in them. Dim Sum is a kin tapas. There are a lot of different flavors to be had. I have been to great Dim Sum in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. As you notice, these are all really big cities in the USA. Here in Nashville, we don't have any on most any normal day.

custard tarts

But, one day a week ago, two organizations offered an evening of dim sum at Fulin's. Fulin's doesn't normally offer dim sum, so they made a special buffet table for the social event. The organizations are the National Association of Asian American Professionals, and the Tennessee Asian and Pacific American Bar Association which organized this outing. As long as I have lived in Nashville, I have met less than a handful of Asian Americans until I was introduced NAAAP. I have never met any Asian American attorneys in Nashville until this Dim Sum dinner and mixer. The people were great and I met a bunch of new people that I had not met before.

shrimp dumplings

NAAAP and TAPABA were created by young professionals who craved to build a professional community of like minded people. One of the creators of NAAAP moved here 2 years ago, and like me, never saw an Asian person at work or in his neighborhood. He knew there had to be Asian professionals in Nashville, but how do you find them? So he started the Nashville Chapter of NAAAP, and worked to look for members to join in. The organization is open to anyone, and part of the mission are to connect accomplished professionals for mutual professional success. Social events like this certainly helps connect people. I got to connect with a lot of new people. I met one who loves to play tennis, and another who just moved here from Memphis. Memphis told me there are a few places in Memphis that serves real dim sum. I gotta keep that email and get the names and addresses of the restaurants next time I am in Memphis. I met another who has lived here in Nashville for most of his life, and recommended a new Korean restaurant to me. I met some others who are married now, but met on a blind date. They are definitely thankful for their friend who set them up. I met another who looks like a surfer-dude, but don't let the Jeff Spicoli looks fool you, he is quite bright and managed to get a free ride to both undergrad and MBA.

bread (top) and rice (bottom) dim sum

Yeah, I am not really blogging about the food. The deal was Fulin's got a lot of frozen dim sum style food, and heated them up for us. There really wasn't any food to write home about. But, that isn't really why I went. I just wanted to meet nice people, and find out a little about them. OK NAAAP and TAPABA, when are we meeting again?