Dimsum Asian Bistro — Restaurant in Durham

I read all the reviews before deciding to go and give this Dim Sum Asian Bistro a shot. I should have heeded the majority opinion that service is not good. They're just not set up or don't care to focus on the front to the house.

We arrived with a bit of a wait. Not a problem and it was expected for a Sunday at about 1p. We put in our name with the hostess with the clipboard (note, no hostess stand to go to, you need to get past the crowd of people in the door to the hostess with the clipboard to get on the wait list). We took a seat outside at some seats that I believe were for the beer den next door. After a short wait, the hostess came outside to call for us.

Not sure about during the week, but they have dim sum cart service w/add'l ordering by menu if you wish. Problem was that they did not provide menus. No problem. Carts it is.

We did take the advice to order all your drinks up front. Because once you're seated and make your initial order... Don't expect the wait staff to come back and address empty glasses or really anything.

We ordered ice water and a pot of hot jasmine tea. Water came... Tea was noted on our bill but never came. No problem, water it is.

Food was hot. Smallish dishes compared to other dim sum restaurants we've tried over the years but they were okay. The shrimp rice noodle (ha cheung 腸粉), had generously sized shrimp but they were ruined by major overcooking and a noodle that was tough as well. That was disappointing. The turnip cakes were well made and pan fried. The highlight of the meal. The tofu skin wrapped rolls were nice too.

However, I truly have never had worse baked roast pork buns. Tough, no filling, tasteless. Chinese hardtack. Yikes.

I'd say overall, the food was 3 stars. But the service was not good. The table next to me did get their pot of tea, but they had to flag someone down after a long wait... So they could get cups from which to pour and drink their hot tea. Other tables were asking for refills. We waited 5 mins to get the attention of someone to total and bring the bill. We approached the hostess only to hear... "It will be 5 mins before someone can come". We assumed that was an exaggeration. It was not. But she should have elaborated that it was 5 mins for someone to come and take the bill away, and another 4-5 for them to bring it back to sign. 15 from the end of the meal just to get the bill back to sign. Yikes. They need to work on staffing.

By the way, we were curious about one other reviewer's comment that the service was adorable. And one comment about an elementary school child wandering around.

She is adorable. And likely now in middle school. :)

2 out of 5 total. 1 of 5...

The choices for dim sum is getting better the last few years, and the addition of this restaurant to the dim sum scene is very welcome. Remember the days (25 years ago) when Hong Kong in Durham was pretty much the only game in town for anything close to NY or SF. Then you had the “pretenders” like Neo China, which was actually terrible. Then came China One (on 55 just north of 54) that gave Hong Kong a run for its money before it disappeared.

We now have many choices for dim sum, and the two best ones are East Coast and Silk Road. Some parts are the same, like push cart on weekends, but other parts are very different.

East Coast offers much nicer interior, like the owner actually thought about decorating for a pleasant atmosphere. The place is smaller, so more intimate and just feels a little more upscale.

Silk Road is in a much larger location, but the interior had no thought and is a mish-mash of what was left over from its buffet days. On weekends, it feels chaotic, somewhat like big dim sum restaurants in NYC. Some like it like this, others want something more intimate.

East Coast offers smaller portions for smaller price than Silk Road. I happen to like that better because it allows me to get more variety when dining with fewer people. If you have larger group, then you are probably better off with larger portions.

The tea is better at East Coast. We had pu-er and that was very good. Silk Road (the last time I went) had tea bags!! Not very Chinese like.

The food is comparable. They are both fresh, and does not feel like the frozen variety coming out of a box.

Taro was just OK because the skin was not very crispy Shrimp and beef crep were pretty good, especially the shrimp. Turnip cake needs a bit more flavor, and should have been served with oyster sauce, which it was not. Fried curlers wrapped in crep was just OK. The fried curlers should have been more crispy. The congee with egg was excellent. It was flavorful and had nice texture (believe it or not in a congee) in the “bites” because of the little pieces of fish and other things in it.

The service was friendly. There were some obviously new people who are still learning but that will get better over time.

Why not 5 stars? Because it’s not yet NYC or HK quality. Some dishes should be more flavorful. There were some paper signs in the windows that just doesn’t look professional. I hope the owners take more of a professional approach and make this a nice restaurant instead of the mom/pop variety.

The place has promise and is a welcome addition to the “traditional Chinese food scene” in...

I have been to this restaurant three times for Dim Sum at the weekends. The food there was average. Some of the food was apparently heated frozen food, not freshly prepared. And I am surprised, more and more food falls in that category. Despite the mediocre food, I still go there since there are not many choices in the RTP area for Dim Sum. However, the latest visit to this restaurant made me determined that I would not come back here. Everything was OK that morning until we ordered a bowl of fish congee. It tasted like the congee that has been left overnight at room temperature and started to go bad. I had sip of it before I realized that this wasn't right. I called the waitress, which, by the way, was a girl that looked like she was under 10. There were three girls running this place, busily serving the tables. They looked like 8-14 yr old to me. I complained to the little girl and would like to return the congee. At first, she said she was sorry and took the congee away. But then she came back and said, according to the cook, nobody complained about the congee and they have sold a lot of this that morning. So it obviously was my problem, not the congee. The restaurant opens at 11 AM and we were there at around 11:30AM. To order the congee, you have to wait for at least 15 minutes, not to mention there was no menu. I don't see how it is possible that they could have sold a lot of it that morning. Anyway, the poor little girl kept running back and forth between us and the owner, to confront with us and convey that message that we need to pay it no matter what. She was apparently under a lot of stress and felt sorry about it, but she had to do what she was told to by the owner, a middle aged lady. I told her that she shouldn't be doing this, and I would like to talk to the owner directly. Then she fetched the owner to talk to us. Before we started to say anything, the owner jumped to an abrupt conclusion that it was our problem thinking the congee was bad. And it's OK if we wouldn't come again. But we still need to pay the congee anyway. Then she left without giving me any chance to say anything. We were so shocked by the way she treated us, like we were intentionally picking a fight. After being insulted, we paid the check and left the restaurant, determined that we would never come back again. Also we felt sorry for the girls, for the pressure she had to put up with at her age. The owner didn't treat her own kids with care. How could we expect any fair treatment from them...