11 Dim Sum Chinese Restaurant 11拾一点心粤菜中餐厅 — Restaurant in Howick

this is a very expensive place for standard fare yum char. their prices start at $8.50 but rest assured most of their dishes (typical classic yum char dishes) cost $10 each. imagine a south auckland yum char charging eye-watering prices like the Grand Harbour yum char in CBD. we're not talking bout scallop dumplings or some fancy exquisite special dumpling here. just your normal everyday yum char dishes. they all taste the same everywhere. a fried rice dish cost nearly $30. two active adult kiwis will need to fork some $100 to $120 for a lunch.

years ago, we visited this restaurant and it was packed to the brim, we had to wait 20 minutes for a table bcos we didnt reserve a table. now, this restaurant is half empty on a weekend morning (tables are now re-arranged with heaps more spaces between them). that tells you all you need to know about their prices.

staff handle all enquiries with hardly a smile. in fact, all the staff do not smile (including the caucasian boy). you find more cheer in a graveyard. the owner must pay them minimum wage or something.

gone are the days of trolley pushing where you can select the dishes and try new ones. now, there's a piece of paper on the table for you to order. yum char dishes no longer come in bamboo containers. they use plastic ones that do not require periodic replacement (bamboo containers wear out in a year or two of daily use). this way, the restaurant makes maximum profit. imagine your food getting cooked in super hot steam in plastic containers for 20 minutues. yup, the plastic molecules leech out of these containers straight into your food.

if you fancy paying top dollars and getting cancer, this restaurant is...

11 Dim Sum: Our family loved going to Star Cafe for yum cha n dinner on special occasions. But after this Sundays yum cha experience under the new management 11 Dim Sum, we'll have to find a new place. We had booked and turned up to be told that all tables were taken and maybe 20 plus people were waiting. We were told to wait as a table of 5 is free they'll sit us We waited for about 10mins or so before we got a table. We were asked if we wanted tea we said yes. They got us tea but no cups. Everything is changed, you can't get your own water/glass/cups you have to ask now n then wait. Service is very slow, hardly any staff spoke English or maybe chose not to. We don't eat pork so have to ask as the menu has changed. And everytime we agreed about something, they'll go looking for a staff who sold English. Many things on the menu was not available. We ate 3 dish n got sick of waiting so ordered off the menu. We waited n waited n no food turned up. We decided to just pay n leave. We were asked how we felt about the new place, we said many things need to get changed if they wanted to keep their old customers. We loved the old staff (under star cafe) n their food. *menu says 4 dumplings n you choose your flavor, but only 3 dumplings got served,...

Unfortunately did not have the best experience, waited a long time for each meal to arrive. Each meal took about 15mins, it wasn’t a busy night but there were a couple of big families which could have caused the delay. By the time the next meal came our food became cold or we finished it because we were so hungry.

Some dishes were tasty but definitely overpriced for the portion size. We ordered the sweet and sour pork regular $22 - as shown in the pictures, the bowl was bigger than the portion of food. It was tasty but so disappointing. Very deceiving!!!

The spicy chicken had more chilli than chicken pieces and only skin parts. Again very small portion for the cost.

The crab fried rice was $36 as you can tell from the image the bowl is deceiving. Maybe enough for 2 people. The dimsum was not as tasty as the other spots we have been too! Must say the sweet and sour was very nice. Other meals were average and pricey. Highly recommend the sweet sour and get the larger size even if it’s just 2 people. You’ll probably get about 8 good 8 good pieces with the regular 😂 Guttered we didn’t enjoy it because it’s so close to home and we’re hoping to make it our regular dimsum spot but maybe another time might be...