It's never too late in life to fulfill your ambitions, as food critic-turned-restaurateur Chua Lam found out when he set up his first dim sum eatery in his 70s-and now it's coming to Beijing, Li Yingxue reports.

Food critic Chua Lam loves dim sum and had always dreamed of setting up a restaurant that serves true Hong Kong-style fare-one that was so good it never let him, or his diners, down.

And that's precisely what Chua did, demonstrating that it's never too late in life to try something new. The 78-year-old spent 15 months setting up his first restaurant with chef Cheung Yat-sing, who used to work for a Michelin-starred restaurant focused on dim sum in Singapore. The duo created more than 100 traditional and creative dim sum dishes, but only one-third of them were selected for the menu.

The first Chua Lam's Dim Sum opened in Shenzhen last September, and it immediately drew the attention of local foodies, not simply because of Chua's fame but also because he hired 40 chefs to create just 35 dim sum specialties.

At the beginning of this month, the restaurant opened its doors in Beijing, featuring several exclusive new dishes Cheung created. At five minutes after 5 pm, when the restaurant started to serve its first customers, the number on the waiting list had reached over 50.

"All the dim sum in our restaurant is freshly handmade after it's ordered, and each one takes five to 15 minutes to prepare," says Cheung.

The decor of the Beijing branch borrows from the style of the original Shenzhen eatery. Unlike traditional Hong Kong tea houses, it has an open kitchen and features bright decor, including cartoons of Chua peppered around the restaurant.

The open kitchen takes up half the 400-square-meter two-story restaurant, where 40 chefs cook nine categories of dim sum, including steamed dishes, fried dishes, porridge, vegetables and desserts.

"There are more than 1,000 kinds of dim sum, because they are easy to adapt into new dishes. At our restaurant, 70 percent of our dim sum are traditional, while the rest are creative interpretations," says Cheung.

Their barbecued-pork buns are a must-try. The buns look like small pineapple cakes, but have a sweet, crispy topping and a traditional filling of barbecued pork. To this Cheung adds one more special ingredient: haws.

Cheung boils the berries for more than three hours before adding them to the pork, which helps to release the fattiness of the meat while adding fruity flavor.

Making the bun wrapper is a challenge for the chefs. It has to be thin around the edges and thicker in the middle, and inserting just the right amount of filling is tricky to perfect.

"The topping is made with butter, lard and flour. I'll brush one layer of the mix onto the top of the bun, which flows down to cover the whole bun during steaming to become crispy and tasty," he says.

Cheung's steamed rice rolls pays homage to traditional versions, which are made using handmade ground rice milk. He grinds three batches of rice every day before he steams and serves them as rolls.

"The rice has to be soaked in water for six hours before we grind it slowly, adding the right proportion of water to allow the rice milk to become exquisitely silky," he says.

The secret to steaming rice rolls, Cheung says, is to not be afraid of the heat-the chef has to be skilled enough to make the rice rolls quickly.

Cheung also designed fried spring rolls with egg white, for which he uses his skills in making traditional crab-flavored dishes with fried egg whites, which he then wraps in a spring roll.

His sponge cake is so springy that it seems to "dance" on the plate.

"I don't add brown sugar. I just follow the traditional way of steaming it for long enough so that it turns brown and develops its distinctive taste," says Cheung.

"I don't scrimp on the steaming time of the cake just because it's not an expensive dish."

Cheung believes each dim sum delicacy has the same value no matter the price, and he puts his heart into making every dish he serves.

"Dim sum is all about the taste, and I hope diners will sit down and take the time to carefully enjoy the flavors of each dish," the 51-year-old chef says.

Cheung has been involved with making dim sum since 1983. He is familiar with every dish and all the associated steps and skills required to make them.

He joined the dim sum business in Hong Kong in the 1980s. His first job was to sell the dim sum in the lobby of a restaurant. There, he was spotted by a chef, who asked him to join him in the kitchen.

From cleaning and fetching ingredients to cutting and steaming, Cheung worked in very position in the dim sum kitchen before becoming an executive chef years later.

"The master chefs were quite strict when I was learning how to make steamed barbecued-pork buns in my spare time. They limited me to making three buns each day until I made obvious progress. Then, they allowed me to make four the next day," he recalls.

This tough training proved invaluable to Cheung. He realized the chefs were forcing him to make good use of the limited time available to practice his skills to enable him to learn faster.

"Thirty years ago, there was a card on every table where diners wrote down their orders, and we have carried on this tradition at our restaurant," says Cheung.

They also arrange tables to cater to families, couples and individuals alike. And they carry a single-person set menu.

"Nowadays, more people eat alone, and I hope they will enjoy our food without feeling embarrassed," says Cheung.