Follow Albertina Sisulu Road westwards long enough and you end up in Johannesburg's first Chinatown, along the city's Fordsburg rim.
Chinatown sprang up during the city's mining heyday in the late 1800s, but over the last 10 or 15 years this Chinatown has become the understudy of the Chinatown in Cyrildene. New migrants arriving from the mid-1990s settled there.
Back in the first Chinatown, under the gaze of the infamous monolith of Johannesburg Central cop station, is a dim sum restaurant that's becoming a good enough reason to head downtown again.
Dim sum are taster-sized southern Chinese-style brunch dishes. In Cantonese the words literally mean to "touch the heart".
Husband and wife team Yue Kok Wai and Annie work hard to stir up foodie emotion in their converted corner cafe that is the tiny, unpretentious Ming Woo restaurant.
When Cantonese speakers have dim sum they say they're going for "yum cha", which means to drink tea. And while the obligatory tea is always served, the hero of the meal is the array of dishes ordered to share.
The most requested item on Ming Woo's yum cha menu is the stir-fried rice noodle with beef made from cheong fun - steamed rolled rice pancakes cut into thick strips and transformed in a wok into fried noodles.
A generous portion arrives well-flavoured with still crunchy sprouts in the mix - thumbs up from our table.
Chef Wai hit the mark with his har gao (steamed prawn dumplings), chung yow beang (spring onion pancake) and daan taart (egg custard tart). The har gao were plump, whole prawn parcels packed with flavour. The steaming glutinous rice-flour casings were translucent and glossy. The chung yow beang had fragrance and heat from the spring onion and a good flaky crisp without being oily or chewy. The daan taart to end the meal had a rich and flaky pastry with a smooth, sweet and light egg custard.
As our yum cha meal came to an end, the lunch-time crowd filtered through. It was a mix of Chinatown locals and nearby office workers. They didn't appear fussed that there's no decor or ambience to speak of. Patrons were more focused on the food.
They ordered over-sized bowls of wonton soup (R45) and crispy-skin chicken (R110) with sauteed Chinese greens, dishes from the standard menu.
But it is yum cha that has injected fresh interest, so much so that booking is now essential at weekends.
Dim sum from R15 to R48. Ming Woo is at 4A Albertina Sisulu Street, 011-833-5924
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