THE RESTAURANT BABY

Conventional thinking would have you believe Dim Sum is only served in the afternoon in the UK. But for a golden period not so long ago, the 'Mayflower' in Bristol served it until 3 in the morning and some of us regulars could almost believe we were enjoying'Chungking' nights a la Wong Kar Wai, or at busier times John Woo's 'The Killer' in the subterranean underpass of 5a Haymarket Walk.

But when I think of the abundant feasting of those mostly hot summer nights with my HK brother and sister I can now think of only one thing.

The Restaurant Baby.

He usually came down around 2am after he'd been attending the rowdy Mahjong event upstairs above the restaurant and waddled round our table like he was a health and safety inspector. The contented chubby little boy (closer to a baby than a child) we instantly named 'Restaurant Baby' and you could see, even in his infancy, he had all the makings of a great manager. In some ways, it appeared he already was to be handed the lineage of the Mayflower as a birthright inheritance and in his entitled arrogance seemed to know it only too well. We didn't begrudge him, though. Restaurant Baby was born to the nocturnal world of clattering plates and spilt jasmine tea on disposable white paper table cloths like a Peking duck to water.

Even with semi-rowdy drunks calling in to grab a late night takeaway, the baby seemed to pacify them as if by some invisible sorcery; his mere presence was somehow enough to maintain order at what can often be a volatile and unpredictable time of night in the city.

Having recently re-acquainted myself with Bertolicci's 1987 movie 'The Last Emperor' about Puyi, I found there to be an uncanny resemblance between our very own Restaurant Baby and the young actor playing the role of the child emperor and not because of some lazy racial generalisation of mine but because Richard Vuu struck that exact same look of inherent imperiousness that I remembered when I nodded at Baby when looking for someone to refill our pot of tea.

I suggested at the time of first seeing our little friend that every restaurant should have a restaurant baby. Better than any beefy bouncer, the subtle presence of a child appears to pacifiy the general public in ways that still remain mysterious to me.

Just as China believes in paying respect to its elders, I felt back then I should pay respect to my youngers.

And of course, the Dim Sum was amazing. It tastes even better in the early hours of the morning than it does in the middle of the day. Maybe Baby knew that too as often I'd seem him in the corner enjoying some chicken and sweetcorn soup siphoned off from a large tub with half a pork bun in his mouth as reward for all his hard work commandeering the floor.

For as Laozi once said : "It is the child that sees the primordial secret in Nature and it is the child of ourselves we return to. The child within us is simple and daring enough to live the Secret."