Nothing takes the fun out of a family restaurant meal like a kid in the throes of a bland diet. How many plates of plain noodles and plain chicken with a side of ketchup can a parent order up without feeling like she’s giving in to her offspring’s worst culinary impulses?
Enter dim sum: steamed Cantonese tea snacks served from early morning to late afternoon, in parlors both tiny and huge in any urban Chinatown. Yes, it’s highly unlikely that your white-bread-loving tyke will agree to sample from a bowl of chicken feet (yet). But the profusion of steam-shiny treats for him to choose from — all pushed around on piled-high carts — adds a dash of excitement to lunchtime.
For the extra-intractable, you can forgo the carts and turn instead to the comparative safety of menu ordering. New York’s Dim Sum Go Go, for example, lets you tick off choices on order cards, as many times as you want.
Even amid the strange looking, strongly flavored dim sum offerings, there’s a good assortment of nibbles that are both appetizing looking and mild on the palate. Below, our top 5 picks, with commentary from Ada, our resident kid food critic.
1. Steamed pork buns (Cha siu bao)
These soft, fluffy white buns have a yeast dough exterior not unlike a loaf of brioche, and a dollop of barbecue pork filling. “I like these because they’re soft and sweet,” says Ada. “They’re also easy to eat—you don’t need a fork or chopsticks because you can hold them in your hand.”
2. Beef meatballs (Shan zhu): 
Photo by Soatiarumlea of Tak Hing Yuen Group Seafood Restaurant
Tiny meatballs are great for spearing onto the end of a chopstick, and also for popping right in your mouth. Almost every kid loves meatballs, and these tender morsels should be no exception. “Seriously, who’s not a fan of meatballs?” asks our kid critic.
3. Sticky rice in a lotus leaf (Lo mai gai)
Photo: avlxyz
Any Miyazaki-movie-loving child will happily note the resemblance between this tidy packet of super-soft, chicken-spiked rice and the little bundle of acorns the king of the forest, Totoro, gifts his two human friends. “What’s good about this is how salty and mushy it is,” says our kid critic. “Kind of bland, but also kind of special. Really delicious.”
4. Pork and chive dumplings (Jiaozi)
The classic take-out dumplings (pictured at top) are actually a marvel of dainty engineering when they’re put together by a master dim sum chef, with not-too-stiff meat filling folded into a paper thin wheat wrappers. Done right, they practically melt in your mouth. Says Ada: “These are simple in a good way. And by that I mean the flavor isn’t complicated, but they’re also not boring.”
5. Almond cookie
Photo by Stacy Spensely
Your average dim sum parlor usually has at least a couple of other desserts on offer, but most of them feature custard, which can be a hard sell, texture-wise, to a picky eater. So, the almond cookie. “No kid in his right mind will complain about eating a cookie,” says our kid critic.
Lela Nargi is a cookbook author and freelance journalist who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Find her at lelanargi.com