Maison Chinoise — Restaurant in Dallas

TLDR: Nearby? Swing thru! Otherwise, go to Carrollton, Frisco, Royal China, Bistro B, somewhere else. Probably don’t come if you have the same skin tone as their wait staff (not the hostess).

I honestly felt guilty about writing this review since I was thinking about almost immediately after sitting down. Some context, came in a wrinkly shirt with my parents after they dressed up a little and made a reservation. We were the only non-white people in the restaurant. But the service and atmosphere felt quietly hostile. So here we go.

Food: Style, not substance. Siu Mai -good mouthful, about an ounce in the bite. Topped with roe, had a solid mouth feel. It was also pretty. Unfortunately the table took the bites before I could take a picture, but it had a pleasant bright color to it. -Con, I look for flavor most of the time. The taste was fair, not too overwhelming or stimulating. That said, it’s a dim sum and just couldn’t stand by itself. For 3 pieces, you’d hope it be a little more than a rice filler.

Soup dumplings Firm skin. It’s kinda tough to do but then I realized why. The dumpling itself isn’t brimming with soup which kills the fact it has a balanced oil and salt flavor profile. Again, doesn’t stand up. Of all of them, you’d think this would be the dim sum that would be memorable. Sea bass low heat, with a light saltiness. Had firmness to it and fell apart at the natural segments of the fish. It didn’t have a fishiness to it, a reflection on the preparation. The vegetables carried the flavor and therefore the dish. However, between the 3 of us, we varied in our assessment of its spiciness. Spicy Beef very filling sauce. It was thick without being starchy or spicy. Had more kick and weight than all the other equally rated spicy dish but you could eat the dish with no worries. It wasn’t a vinegar based spice so its low temperature was nice.

Service: Okay, these are more like bullets as I thought of them and felt them. the waiter didn’t introduce himself. Not too weird but he was definitely far more attentive to the business folks beside us. I started doing time stamps and then realized I was being too obvious in between them. -minor complaint but realized it was important. We had 3 different people serve us plates. Two of the servers’ fingers touched the flat part of the plates. Not what you’d expect from a “fancy place”. Also, there was an inconsistency with wearing gloves. Can’t tell which was right or which was optional. -this was kinda the nail in the coffin. Hostess walked the tables, brunette, long straight hair, and wore floral. She greeted all the tables, running the various guests except for us. They’re all white. We wore appropriate clothes, wore nice watches and bangles. But just floated by us, without even the courtesy of a glance. -Now after 45mins, like 15 or so after the first round, she repeated and greeted us with a curt “how’re you”, drifting past before an adequate response or request can be helped.

Atmosphere: Kinda hinted at it earlier, but little hostile to brown people. I’ve eaten in enough spaces and places to feed it but at least the service and food in other spaces negated the feeling. Very loud. Walls are lined with a pretty but veneer like wallpaper but you can’t tell. The lights dimmed and brightened randomly. Similarly, the music was POPPING. And not in a good way. Felt like a running list of top 30 pop songs which didn’t fit the flavor profiles. The folks around us were also loud. It must be nice knowing no one will say anything about your explicit language or your screeching. Yeah, screeching...

I had recently heard of this new restaurant opening in my neighbourhood while reading an Eater article; looking at the menu and reviews, I was excited to have potentially found a local dim sum spot. Alas, I shall not be returning.

Hopefully, this review saves some other curious, intrepid diner the trouble and disappointment. Definitely for the Park Cities crowd; fellow Chinese/Asian Americans (or anyone) with more sense than money can safely skip. This is more chinoiserie than chinoise.

Here's the quick and dirty — Food: 3/5, good quality, bad pricing other than the tea Service: 3/5, initially strong but weakened significantly by the end of the meal Atmosphere: 3/5, not for the hoi polloi unless cockroaches count among us huddling masses (see attached video)

Getting to the restaurant was easy; I biked the 5 minutes on the Katy Trail, exited at Cambrick, and made my way over. No good place to park my bike so not really a ‘neighborhood’ option. The front entrance was not obviously marked. The most conspicuous option was a roped and carpeted private event.

The reception was friendly and I was seated immediately. Server Lyla was prompt and attentive. Ordered a pot of pu erh tea and xiao long bao as those were the entire reason I came here.

Food and drink arrived quickly but I was terribly disappointed by the quantity of dumplings in my SIXTEEN dollar order — only three? An order of the same price comes with TEN dumplings from Din Tai Fung which is generally considered a pricier dim sum option. I will admit that I was at fault for not performing my due diligence and asking how many were in an order. The dumplings themselves were tasty, good quality items. I would certainly get more of them at a similar calibre and price point from Royal China.

The tea is good value for one person ($4) but they charge per capita. I am unsure if you get more tea if more people order; the pot was a flat, wide tetsubin and contained maybe 4-5 cups of tea.

Undeterred, I asked my (other?) server Marcus from behind the bar how many dumplings were in an order of haa gaau (three for $18 with gold leaf and caviar). And how many were in an order of the wontons? He said it varied but around 10 as the dumplings are small. Great! $15 for 10 dumplings is totally reasonable. Unfortunately, it was actually SIX in an order. I will say that these were superior to the Royal China wontons in the flavour category — excellent mala spice.

At this point I was ready to pay and get out — it was just half past 2100 and the place closed at 0000; maybe they could turn the table. Another two couples had been recently seated near me (one of whom was familiar with a man I presume to be an owning member of the restaurant group that Maison Chinoise is a part of if the jacket with all the different associated logos on the sleeve is anything to go by).

I got the check from Marcus. I presume Lyla had left for the night as I never saw her again, either in passing or elsewhere on the floor. I waited 30 minutes to have the bill collected before flagging down some third, other, random staff person to process it. During this time I spot an uninvited guest crawling along and having a bite of floor scrap to eat (see attached video).

Do appreciate the comedy of a diner waiting for their valet commenting on the bike to a member of her party, ‘Hey look, there’s your ride!’ as...

We're very big fans of several Lombardi restaurants and we're delighted to hear that they were opening a Chinese new restaurant within blocks of our Dallas condo. AND that it was going to be serving dinner late. Uptown desperately needs a good Chinese restaurant and better late night options.

Our first visit was generally favorable. We arrived without a reservation at 11 p.m. on Friday night. the place was very full, a bit to our surprise. They found us a high top table in the bar area. My first observation was that the restaurant was very loud.

When they found out that it was our first visit, our waiter gave us a little talk about the menu. He emphasized twice that the portions were all sized to share, so we elected to split an order of dumplings and an entree. When we ordered the dumplings -- the har gow -- he suggested two orders because each $18 order only had three dumplings. I almost asked what happened to the "sized to share" concept but thought maybe the dumplings were the exception. The dumplings were very good, though not quite the quality of these at Royal Sichuan which I think are the best bar gow in DFW.

But when the kung pao chicken ($28) arrived, it was pretty clear nothing was "sized to share.". The portion of chicken was simply small. Probably a bit less than half the size of a typical (admittedly generous) portion at a normal Chinese restaurant; or somewhere half way between the size of an appetizer and a main at a traditional western restaurant. But whatever the characterization it was decidedly not enough to share. But again, the quality was even better than the very good dumplings. There was a bit of non-traditional basil in the chicken, that struck an off key Thai food note to me, but Liz liked the addition of basil.

The interior is very nice, and service was quite good. My only quibble is the water glasses are quite small, and we're not refilled as frequently as would be ideal. It has the impression of more a place where people are there more for the drinks than the food, but with out the lesser quality of food that all too often accompanies that sort of place.

The two dishes we sampled were both quite good too excellent. I'm generally not one to pay much attention to the cost of dinner, but six dumplings, a smallish entree shared between two of us, and a single bowl of steamed rice, with no drinks other than water for $90 with tip caught even my attention. I suspect we'll be back, but not very often. It is much louder than I tolerate well. And I think even had we each ordered our own entree and just ignored the "sized to share" advice, we'd have both gone home hungry. It's going to take a double appetizer plus a "entree" to fill you up.

We didn’t have wine, but the wine by the glass list is fine, though nothing special. By the bottle is heavy on large producer Champagne, as befits the food, and has some interesting selections, more so in...