Dam Sum — Restaurant in Ixelles - Elsene

It's probably the most decent dimsum place I have been to in this neighborhood. A lot of the "Chinese" restaurants by the city center are actually Vietnamese in nature. Most also serve steamed frozen dimsum. If I wanted frozen dimsum, I'd get bags of them for cheap at the grocery then just steam them at home, saving me both time and money.

Anyway, the restaurant has a limited menu, which is great! It's not trying to overreach by serving Thai curries and other Asian dishes that are not exactly Chinese. The beef noodle soup has a decent amount of meat in it and the broth tastes great! Xiao long bao is good, with the required scalding soup within a steaming bun. The skin on it is too thick and they are quite small, but otherwise, it's good. Siu Mai and Hakaw are on point. There are only 3 pieces of dimsum per dish, which isn't a lot.

It's quite expensive for ordinary, not-quite-mind-blowing dimsum, but considering this is Europe, I guess this is the most decent place I can get, both price and taste-wise. Personally, I wouldn't go out of my way to eat here, but if you're around the neighborhood, why not give it a try?

P.S. Do not come here on Wednesday nights if you are hungry. It will be filled with people with a wait time of 30 minutes to an hour. It is better to come as soon as they open. If not, you can while away your time at the nearby Chatelain market, maybe get a waffle, so you don't start turning into a raging hungry person. Additional bonus of not being so hungry that you over-order and get a...

Absolutely overpriced culinary disappointment. If you like authentic dim sum, DO NOT GO THERE! Their list of available dim sum is extremely small. A lot if the typical dim sum dishes are not even offered! To add to this, their portions and pieces are miniscule, barely have any taste, and to make matters worse, they don't even come piping hot! For a place that toutes its own horn to be a dim sum place that makes dishes on site, the xiao long bao was COLD inside. The shu mai tasted worse than the bought ones and had no bite or texture inside, the har gao was ridiculously small, and everything else we ordered was neither authentic nor satisfying. And the worst thing was: for getting such miniature pieces, it was ridiculously OVERPRICED. Five dim sum dishes for 35 euros, barely filled half my friend's and my stomach. Absolute shame and disappointment. As a Chinese, I left the restaurant with a sour and disappointed mood. The only positive thing about this restaurant was the staff. They were nice and friendly. Sadly, this does not change that this restaurant is a pretentious, overpriced, and disappointing pseudo dim sum restaurant that will disappoint anyone who wants an authentic...

My partner and I wanted a quick bite to eat and ordered three dishes (two dumpling dishes and a big wonton soup) to share because we were not super hungry. We had two Spritz as drinks. Our first dish took 15min to arrive, it was three dumplings... After that, the soup took over 20 min after our first dish. 🤦‍♀️ They had realised half way that the order didn't go through to the kitchen. Post soup, they realised that our three crispy shrimp dumplings were also not ordered yet in the kitchen. To which we said: "Never mind we will not be eating those. We waited too long" . The dumplings were ok, as was the soup. But I personally do not see what all the hype is about this place. I was disappointed and will not be going back. Also noticed that the manager (a bit of an attitude there) and another waiter were fighting in the restaurant... I am putting two stars because our waitress was very nice to us. For the rest... It's a...