I'm trying to translate a few short stories from Chinese to English. The problem is that they were originally written in Japanese, so there are a bunch of cultural references that I'm sure have been lost. Right now, there's one phrase in particular that's bothering me.
他像是点心店店员一样歪着头
That would be something like, "He tilted his head like a snack shop clerk."
Is there a better way to translate 点心店, like "bakery" or "confectionery", perhaps? Or would that be inaccurate? 点心 is also dim sum, but that doesn't seem right in this context, as I don't think a Japanese author would be using a dim sum analogy. The character has just asked a question and he's tilting his head in curiosity at another man while waiting for a response. I assume that the description was meant to invoke the image of a store clerk tilting his/her head while waiting for a customer's order, but I'm not sure.