Aberdeen Café — Restaurant in Auburn

Found this place through social media and decided to give it a try. 1st impression - small space with limited seating capacity. Clean and inviting, including a very cute sing unisex restroom. It was quickly apparent to is that the owner runs the place all by herself. Hence, the table hasn't been cleared from the previous customers after 30 minutes of our arrival. The menu was evenly weighted between the dim sum and other alacart dishes. It was wide variety of selections from upon, to teriyaki to spam fried rice. We were impressed.

Lack of staffing also affected the service level somewhat. Order placed about 10 minutes from the time we received the menu. We went with the usual har gaw, siu mai, and bbq buns, but added sunroof a bit different deep fried shrimp rolls, then added wonton soup and shrimp fried rice for good measures.

Food took about another 30 minutes but started trickling in at a good pace after. The dim sum dishes were worth the wait. Both har gaw and siu Mai were piping hot, fresh, plump, and juicy. They all tasted like homemade, little to no fillers like flour or fat compared to other places.

The steamed BBQ buns were my favorite. They were also filled with visible chunks of meat and not fat. Thin skin and pack full of char siu flavor.

Deep fried shrimp rolls were crispy on the outside and juicy on the onside.

Though flavorful, a bit of a miss in the wonton considered they used thick skin jiao zi or gyoza style dumpling instead of the Hong Kong thin skin version. Wonton (swallowing clouds) didn't get a good representation here.

The fried rice also missed out on a few essential key flavors. Lacking in "wok hei," missing the white pepper flavor, and rice weren't as dry as fried rice should be.

Overall, there were things that could have been better. We felt that this place still deserves our 5☆☆☆☆☆s rating.

At the end of our meal, we had the chance to speak to the owner and learned that she is from Hong Kong, reflected in the decoration, and had the place over 9.

We wo be back to try their...

It was ok. For small brunch plates they are very pricey about 7.50-9 a mini plate which is about 4 little portions Soup dumplings were okay. We had the onion pancake & it was not that flavorful. We got the shrimp chop suey. It was ok, the flavor tasted like it had curry in it, I thought it was just me at first but everyone at the table said it was pretty strong tasting of curry. It was basically noodles onions & some peppers no them veggies in it. We order orange chicken which was excellent, probably the best I’ve ever had. We also ordered chicken teriyaki which was not good at all. The chicken was hard & rubbery & was just all around not good. It also came chopped up then covered in sauce. The chicken almost seemed to have been boiled first, I’m not sure but it wasn’t seared like a lot of traditional teriyaki’s are. The atmosphere was small but I think it made it awkward that it was just pure silence. We could hear the other ppl around us basically chewing. I think some nice instrumental music would be nice. We also had only had the menu in hand about 2 minutes but they kept coming over to ask if we were ready over & over only with a minute or two in between. Our table felt rushed to ordered. The owner & I believe it’s her son, they just seemed annoyed we were there from the moment we arrived, even asking for chop sticks when they handed us forks seemed to make the lady annoyed. I wouldn’t go here again personally. I like to come to places were your greeted like they actually want you there & the entire time we were there we were honestly ready to go. Unfortunately. We were really excited to eat here but after our experience we won’t...

Been wanting to try this place for a while but compared to other dim sum places I hesitated because of pricing. I finally got a chance to the other day and it did not disappoint. I got there at 1300 and no waiting. Was greeted promptly and shown a table. Menu provided as well as hot tea. I ordered a few basic items because I knew my kiddos would not forgive me if I went to dim sum with out them. Beef balls, Pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, Sui Mai, sticky rice wrapped in lotus, spare ribs, Char siu Bao. Glancing at the menu they also had main entrees, that will be for another day. I asked for chili oil, they bought over the vinegar also. I asked for rice cake but the sweet owner said they only have sponge cake on the menu… it’s ok, not a deal breaker I was just hoping because I grew up in HAwaii and that is a flash back from my childhood. I needed a dessert so I ordered the bubble drinks for the kiddos. They ran out of the boba but had jelly so jelly it is. Overall there was no left overs and family gave it a thumbs up. The items were fresh not frozen. 1 person taking orders, cooking ,so expect to chill for a bit. It was a nice relaxing experience and I enjoyed every moment knowing I didn’t have to leave Auburn to find dim sum. Thank you...