Dim Sims | Melbourne Icon

The Dim Sim was developed in Melbourne by Chinese chef William Wing Young for his restaurant "Wing Lee" around 1945.

A dim sim is a Chinese-inspired meat dumpling-style snack that consists of pork or other meat, cabbage and flavourings, encased in a wrapper similar to a traditional dumpling.

Dim sims are deep-fried or steamed* and differ from typical Chinese dumplings in that they are much larger and have a thicker skin. It should not be confused with the authentic dim sum, although the Australian version's name, ingredients and portions were undoubtedly inspired by its Oriental heritage.

Everyone remembers the best dim sims were made and sold by Ken (Kuen) Cheng at the South Melbourne Market. Since his death in 2006, the dim sims have not tasted as good and the outlet that continued selling the dim sims was charged with health and safety issues in 2007.

* Poor ol' Ken would be turning in his grave... his dim sims were never (ever) fried and they tasted amazing. Do not be fooled, today's dim sims are nothing but a poor imitation and trading purely on a good name.

Australian's refer to a dim sim as a "dimmy" (or dimmies = plural).

Re Picture at top: We searched everywhere for a photo of an authentic Ken dim sim to no avail. There were plenty of fried dim sims, the odd thick skinned dim sim found in many fish & chip shops, but not the large roundish dim sims that Ken made. The photo shown is Ken Cheng and a dim sim as close as we could find..

South Melbourne Market Dim Sims

In the source links below is a link to: South Melbourne business aims to honour its founder. It reports that Ken's sons plan to open a new shop in the CBD.

The new shop will duplicate the original one in the new location, with its products using the same secret recipe introduced by Ken, and now guarded by his son, Edward. Edward and his brother, Phillip, took over the business in the 1980s and hope to serve thousands of happy customers every day as of August, when it plans to open its doors.

Web Links

Dim Sims | Melbourne Icon

Dim sim - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aussie Dim Sim

Chicken dim sims recipe

Melbourne Chinese Restaurants

South Melbourne market

Elizabeth Chong - Author and teacher

Market loses its dim sim master | TheAge

South Melbourne business aims to honour its founder

Also See...

Big Dim Sim

View all (4) Comments

Colin writes:
Posted on 1:21 AM April 11, 2013

I have been in Scotland since 1976 and the thing I miss most about oz is dim sims.

Steamed writes:
Posted on 9:06 AM March 31, 2013

If you bought 'fried' dimmies John, they weren't from Ken and most likely not the 'famous' South Melbourne market dim sims.. put simply.. Ken's shop didn't own a frier.

John Fielder writes:
Posted on 8:24 AM March 31, 2013

The comment above about the Dim Sims never being fried is incorrect. I bought and ate dim sims from the South Melbourne Market back in the 60's and they were fried.. Still very nice now.

Dim Sim King writes:
Posted on 1:15 PM August 8, 2012

I could not agree more.. poor Ken! His dim sims were marvellous. Plus, not everyone could buy them.. if you wanted more than 3, Ken would ask for a password (secret) and if you didn't know it, he would say they were out of them. Whisper the password to him, and he would ask "how many". There was nothing quite like his steamed dim sims with soy sauce on a cold Melbourne day!

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South Melbourne Market Dim Sims

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