TimWah Chinese Dim Sum Restaurant — Restaurant in Jacksonville

This was definitely some of the best dim sum I've ever had in Jacksonville. Probably some of the best dim sum I've ever had in Florida. We ordered the taro cat bun, the red bean piggy bun, the (tofu) bean curd roll, the turnip cake, the stuffed eggplant, the shrimp shumai, the baby bok choi, and the mango mochi. All soooo good.

You know how at lower quality dim sum, the food can taste oily and greasy? Not here. Everything tasted fresh. The baby bok choi was nice and tender. The bean curd roll had a great depth to it. The shrimp shumai was tender too (and a great alternative for my pescatarian girlfriend). I never order turnip cakes at dim sum, but we did and it was yummy!

The taro cat and red bean piggy buns were the real stars of the show. As you can see in the pics, they look hilariously cute and they were so very delicious. The taro was my favorite of the two. If you're not familiar with taro, it shows up in food as a purple paste that tastes kinda like "cookies and cream". And as a bun here, it tasted almost like a cookies and cream flavored pancake like you'd make for breakfast. Delightful and amazing.

For desert we had the mango mochi which was legitimately transcendent. Mochi is a sweet rice dough that, as a desert, is stuffed with awesomeness. I've usually had it stuffed with ice cream. Here, it was stuffed with chunks of actual mango and then dusted with coconut flakes. Categorically the best mochi I've ever had.

I want to acknowledge that I've only had New York dim sum once and have never been to China. So my "best X I've ever had" complements should be taken with a grain of salt. All that said, I really loved the food and definitely recommend.

One last note about the business model here. Traditional dim sum is usually a sit down restaurant where the servers bring the food around in carts that you can select from. Here, it's actually more like a greasy spoon Chinese takeout restaurant, where the bulk of the business is take out but they have a couple tables on the off chance that you want to sit and eat. I mention it because, as you can see from the pictures, when the food came out, it was all packaged "to go". We ate it there and then threw the packaging in a communal garbage can. Slightly jarring at first, but when I realized what was happening, it actually felt smart and...

Before I start with any negativity, I want to say that the food it great. Better than some of the dimsums I had in big cities around the country. But that's pretty much the only good thing I have to say about the place. I've been to this restaurant twice so far. The restaurant doesn't have a working host stand to direct walking customers. So the front entrance gets very crowded with people trying to get seated. First visit, we were sat within 40 minutes...mind you, I have a toddler and a infant (with stroller). The dining room is not that big. I don't recommend bringing stroller. We got lucky and got sat on a corner table where there was some wiggle room to push in my stroller. They were very busy and understaffed. I totally understand any slow service. But being lied to is another thing. I asked for some hoisin sauce from our server but 15 minutes later, i still didn't get it. I asked another server is she could get us some hoisin sauce and she flat out said "we are out". What kind of asian restaurant runs out of Hoisin sauce??? 2 minutes later, our original server brought out the hoisin sauce which confirmed that she just lied to my face. On our second visit a week later around 6:40pm, we were again quoted 30-40 minutes wait time. We were 2nd team waiting in line. Right after we were quoted, number of groups showed up and proceeded to waiting lines too. 1 hours goes by, I started seeing other groups that arrived after us started being seated. First I thought I missed something. But then another group got seated and the team right behind me asked me "didn't you arrive before them?". The same girl who lied to my face about the hoisin sauce lied to me again that they arrived before us. There were 2 other 2-top tables empty and I asked if we could be sat there with just 1 extra chair. She said she will and kept us waiting again. by the time we got sat after being cut off our waiting line by 2 other groups, it was 8:45pm and they close at 9pm. We literally waited for 2 hours. I felt so sorry for my kids. Table was barely wiped down. I had to clean up again using wet wipes...

Be warn, the young lady is rude and condescending...they also don't tell you if something is not available. Look closely to your bill. Avoid weekend dinner rush...

We wanted to find a great Dim Sum place and Timwah does not disappoint! Everything we ordered came hot and delicious with authentic flavor and utter satisfaction.

You are presented with a picture menu and a paper menu with checkboxes for you to select your order with. The paper will be returned to you after payment so can note what you enjoyed and didn't enjoy for next time--and there will be a next time!

Pricing is based on the size of the dim sum item. A small costs $4.25, a medium costs $4.75, etc. up through "FR" which are $10.99 and full size orders from the kitchen. Overall, the prices are extremely reasonable for the quality and taste.

Some items are steamed, others baked or fried, and are in separate columns on the paper menu. There is also hot tea, which was quite good. They also have bottled beer on the menu, Kirin Ichiban and Asahi.

The dim sum plates were excellent, but we also ordered the Salt and Pepper shrimp and BBQ Pork Stir fry rice noodle, and let me say they were both superb! Reminded me of Chinatown in Manhattan. We also ordered the steamed bok choi for a veggie option and they were steamed very well served with a flavorful dipping sauce, but not seasoned on their own.

Pro tips: Pick up the soup dumplings by hand to avoid tearing a hole in the bottom as they may stick to the paper.

Order the fried shrimp ball but cut it apart with a fork (they will provide plastic upon request) then eat with your chopsticks. The insides are extremely hot and biting into one hole could burn your mouth. But the flavor is insane, so don't miss out!

Pros: Great taste! Great prices! Very clean inside. Friendly service.

Cons: Service a tiny bit lacking. No one came by after we ordered to check on us for more water or tea. Empty steam trays stacked on side of table were not removed.

Restaurant is not huge. By about 11:30 on a Saturday morning all tables were full. Tables could be flipped quicker if they returned to table to check on you, as we had to ask for take home boxes and the check after waiting quite a while. Not a problem since we were so full and happy to just sit and chat, but a thought for the restaurant to seat...