All Roads Lead To… Dim Sum Food Truck

At 12h30 on a Tuesday afternoon, the Dim Sum food truck is serving repeat customers.

It’s only been open two weeks. It’s certainly been mistaken for the chicken spot next door, but inside, owner Josephina Mwapangasha works cheerfully over a hot stove where her modest menu of dumplings and noodles have already earned kudos on NamTwitter.

“Ruth Herunga! She posted a photo of my food on Twitter and I’ve definitely had a lot of tweeps,” says Mwapangasha, marvelling at the power of social media as a woman snaps away at a steamer basket “for the ‘gram”.

Herunga’s tweet, amongst others, has sent intrepid foodies to the unassuming little truck on the corner of Berg Street and Nelson Mandela Avenue and I’m one of the hungry horde.

Dim Sum.

It’s the truck’s name for now and describes the bite-sized Chinese eats Mwapangasha carefully places in takeaway packages for the steady stream of customers who blow by oozing excited anticipation.

Ask her why a self-described “Aawambo girl” is so passionate about Cantonese cuisine and Mwapangasha gets a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Since dim sum is of Chinese origin and we are so tired of wearing Chinese clothes, I thought how about we just take their food on the street too?” she laughs and adds: “That’s just a joke!”

The real story is that after starting her business selling vegetarian samosas and pita bread for the Green Market, Mwapangasha wanted to do something less labour-intensive yet befitting of the limited space available in her tiny food truck.

“I was wondering what I could possibly offer in this little space without having so much on my hands, avoiding long queues and quickly meeting demand and, well, I thought… dumplings!”

Freshly made from scratch and available in chicken, beef, vegetable, shrimp or prawn options, Dim Sum dumplings are hearty, moist and served with a crunchy relish of red cabbage, parsley, carrots and a squeeze of a lemon juice while her chicken and beef egg noodles are generously served and tasty.

“Since we are meat eaters here, I would recommend the beef or chicken dumpling,” says Mwapangasha when asked about the good stuff.

“We also cater for the vegetarians. Every week, we have a variety of vegetable dumplings such as spinach with oyster mushrooms or chickpeas with falafel-inspired Chinese spice.”

A welcome addition to Windhoek’s food truck scene, cooked with love and a little bit of mischief, the Dim Sum food truck is up, at it, fresh and friendly.