According to Wikipedia, A dim sim (or dimmie) is Chinese-inspired meat and vegetable dumpling-style snack food, popular in Australia and to a lesser extent in New Zealand. It was popularized by a Chinese immigrant in Melbourne who originally came from Guangdong, William Chen Wing Young, the father of Australian celebrity chef, author and TV personality Elizabeth Chong. The name derives from the pronunciation diim syiim (點心) in Toisanese, the predominant dialect spoken at the time by Central Melbourne’s Chinese community.

I have eaten dimmies from when I was a little kid. My mother used to drag me to the South Melbourne Market most weekends to get fruit and vegetables mainly, but also to visit Shosana to buy clothes (Shosh loved a haggle, as did my mum, we went to her stall for years and years). Despite being bored with the drudgery of shopping, I was always happy once the shopping was over, as we’d stop at South Melbourne Dim Sims to pick up a few tasty morsels for the trip home. And so my love of dimmies was born.

In the past few years I’ve been pleased to find a community of similarly enthused dimmie lovers, on a Facebook group called Dim Sims 4 Lyfe ✊️. Boasting some 38,000 members, the group uses it’s collective power to source out the very best home made dim sims in Australia (mainly Melbourne). They also share dim sim recipes, discuss different soy and other sauce toppings, all as part of a surprisingly well run and supportive group.

Some of my favourite dimmie places

Dim Sims are all different, and there is a wide variety of different flavours. Some are pork based, others have more cabbage, they’re all different. What I like may not appeal to everyone, but here’s some of my favourite home-made dimmies in and around Melbourne.