Ming Dynasty — Restaurant in Albuquerque

Just ate here, and it was quite the experience. For one, Ming, the owner is one of the kindest, happiest souls in this world, and you cannot help but smile. On a personal note, he remembered my mother, from 28 years ago, before my parent's even got together. My mother took a while, but soon recognized him from a previous restaurant she used to eat at. This guy alone makes the restaurant worth visiting. For two, the food selection of the menu is vast, and amazing, and the price is worth every penny, and is far less pricey than most establishments in Albuquerque. This restaurant's pricing may be on the cheap side, but the food is far beyond that of any other restaurant of that price range, and exceeds my expectations of other chinese cuisine. The service was THE BEST of ANY restaurant I had ever visited in my culinary career. Ming makes up 100% of our service, and every moment seeing his smile just made my day so much brighter. We split some pork dim sum (#9 on the menu) and some crispy pot stickers ($42 on the menu) and the pork was simply amazing with the chile sauce that it was paired with, having a texture like a high quality meatball, but of pork, and with some hidden unique yet simple flavors I could not quite figure out completely. The simplistic approach to cooking somehow leaves me tasting deeper flavors that are not there, but are still tasted. The pot stickers had a lovely sauce paired with them as well, and their texture also was of the utmost quality. I was surprised they were less than $5 on the menu ($3-4 for the items we chose). I also ordered a chicken dish (muu ghu gaipan, sorry if I misspell that) which had a lovely chicken stock base, but it wasn't a "rich" chicken stock, it was light, so light, and so carefully balanced with sweetness I thought it was a white fish stock, or possibly flavored with clam or something. It was thickened with corn starch, not kudzu starch, or any other emulsifier or thickening agent like a roux, and yet made the broccoli in this dish simply divine. Yes, divine. I had to close my eyes to focus on the perfect texture, and the creamy soft flavors that the florets absorbed. With the extra sauces, we mixed in some white rice, of which the texture was unmatched by most rice standards. The light chicken sauce made the rice even more rich, and better textured, and heavenly. The Potsticker sauce, (I suspect soy sauce, and possibly some oyster sauce or something mixed in) went together wonderfully with the rice, and was not overly salty like your average soy sauce, and was wonderfully fresh. The flavors here are simple, comforting, and deep. The food is very nutritious, and appetizing. If you are feeling like chinese food, this is the place to be. There are still a few other chinese restaurants in the area I have not yet tried, but I do feel like no other can top this restaurant. Even this restaurant knows it is the only one in New Mexico that currently sells authentic chinese Dim Sum. If Ming is reading this, I wish him and his family well. He is a hardworking gentleman, and deserves the best fruits of life, and nothing less. This experience was quite a treat. I expected the total ticket to come to $30-40 for everything we got, but it turned out to be only $24 roughly. A bargain by any standard. I hope this review helps you with your dining options, I enjoyed writing every word of it as I hoped you...

I don't understand how this place has so many positive reviews it is truly awful. Clearly locals know not to eat here because the place was absolutely dead at dinner time on a Friday night. Half of the lights were off inside, probably in order to save money in the huge empty dining room. The dining room looks and feels as though it has not been updated since 1995, dated dingy and falling apart. My husband's chair back fell off during service. The food was inedible. Literally the worst food I have ever eaten in my life. We got the orange chicken and general Tso chicken. It was just lumps of fried matter. The chicken tasted as though it had been frozen a minimum of a year, it was stale, tough, chewey and flavorless. The only flavor that came though was staleness. Even the rice somehow tasted stale. Gross, inedible disgusting food. Their practices were odd too. When the waitress was bussing a table she wheeled a giant cart out that was full of dirty dishes and stacked the dishes from the table onto it. Why not just take the dishes to the back? Why does the whole cart of dirty dishes need to come out while people are eating? Very unappetizing. Aside from the odd table bussing procedures the staff was sweet and kind. I feel terrible for them. They can't be making a living wage in an...

It's probably unfair for me to write this, since this is Albuquerque after all. Who would be looking for dim sum out there? Sure, Ming Dynasty serves its purpose in providing some diversity to New Mexico, but I can't honestly say it's good.

Ha Gow (Shrimp Dumplings) - This is the staple. If a dim sum place can't make good ha gow, it's like a steakhouse that can't make good steak. Skins were actually pretty decent. They weren't too thick and had a smooth, chewy consistency, although some broke when I tried to pick them up. The shrimp stuffing was not so good. There was no binder, seasoning, or young bamboo. It was just two separate pieces of stale, fishy tasting shrimp.

Siu Mai - Typically, siu mai is a harmonious blend of ground pork, sweet shrimp, and earthy, umami packed shiitake. These were hard, bland pork golf balls.

Steamed Tripe - Probably the best thing I tried. It was missing green onions and white pepper, but at least there's a good amount of ginger to give it a kick of flavor.

I guess it's pretty obvious that the quality of dim sum here wouldn't have been great, but you gotta try it to really...