Dimsum house — Restaurant in Champaign

We had a quarter of a dim sum meal for a full dim sum price… and it took over 40 minutes to receive our first dish. The food was good when we finally got it.

If you’re familiar with Cantonese dim sum, it’s supposed to be affordable small, steamed plates which are cooked and ready to go. The traditional way to have dim sum is with carts, there’s no waiting other than the cart coming by your table so you can select from it. These plates were the same size (small, 4 pieces of steamed food) but cost almost double what I would have expected.

I took particular offense to the scallion pancake, which is quick fried and comes with 6 pieces, but is cut from a pancake that clearly cuts into4 pieces. Just give me the other two pieces for the price they’re charging!!

And again, it took 40 minutes to get our first single food item, and then one item at a time in 5-10 minute intervals. This restaurant needs to get their prep and service process together. It was busy, but not overwhelmingly so. Dim sum can be made affordably and in bulk so there’s no excuse for such slow service.

The restaurant was beautifully decorated and my best guess would be the exorbitant prices are trying to pay off custom labeling all the plates and steamer baskets… I’ll give them one more try in...

Pretty good dim sum. Especially for being on a college campus. The chive and shrimp was the best with a nice crispy exterior as well as good flavor. The siu mai was a bit overcooked and the har gao filling was a bit spongy. But was better with the soy sauce and vinegar. All of the dim sum had nice chewy wrappings. There was chili oil provided as well. The bean curd rolls and lotus leaf wraps were great flavor and texture wise. The CHICKEN FRIED RICE was very good! The rice was cooked well, with a nice chew, the chicken didn’t have any hard pieces, and there was plenty of it and other fillings. Our waiter was very nice and came by several times to refill water and ask if everything was good. The dim sum was timed very well, by the time we were almost done with one, the next would be served so that was nice. All of the food was served very fresh and steaming. The pricing was a bit high but is pretty typical for most dim sum places. The decor and noise level made the atmosphere also nice. Overall...

I’ve been wanting to try this place for a while and overall I thought the food was good but not great and it is a bit pricy for portions and quality. They have a combo of dim sum dishes and entres. We really enjoyed the cucumber salad and garlic green beans. We also liked the chicken congee. We had never had it and were pleasantly surprised by the ginger flavor. We found the soup dumplings and soy sauce chicken to be bland.

The atmosphere was quite stressful as well. The restaurant is like a galley kitchen with the central serving station close to many of the tables so it is hectic. Also they use disposable cups and chopsticks which is just wasteful and for me personally not a reason to return. I prefer places that are less hectic and more intimate. While I found the food decent I think there are Chinese restaurants in town with better food...