Ming's Tasty — Restaurant in Oakland

Great food and great prices. Everything is ordered off-menu, so you won't have to compete for any dishes you're particularly interested in. To rank what I tried: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Lotus Rice: sticky rice with deeply savory pork filling. Chinese Broccoli: tender and well seasoned. Thousand Shrimp Ball: basically ideal mini corn dogs. Egg Custard Buns: delicate bao with a sweet, rich, egg yolk custard filling- the only item we ordered twice. So awesome. Taro Coconut Milk Pear Cake: lightly sweet with subtle coconut and taro flavors. ⭐⭐⭐⭐: Durian Puffs: I enjoyed these, but my friends did not. Not overly sulfuric, sort of sweet potato-esque with a crisp pastry exterior. Har Gow: classic and well executed. Shui Mai: large and well composed, with whole shrimp. Turnip Cakes: chewy and glutinous, with tender radish. ⭐⭐⭐: Pan Fried Bao: Average pork and celery filling with a solid bun. Shrimp Rice Noodle Roll: impressed by the whole shrimp, but I don't love the gummy, glutinous texture of the noodles. However, the favorite dish of one friend. ⭐⭐: Chiu Chao Dumplings: overly glutinous wrapper fell apart while lifting the dumplings. Nicely toasted peanuts but fell flat overall.

After everything, there were still 3 or 4 dishes I had hoped to try but didn't! Next time.

Oolong tea was sipped throughout the meal. Service was very friendly and us dumb Americans really appreciated the overall English fluency. Total was $90 after 20% tip, and we left more than satisfied. Lovely experience and I'd...

No wait for a group of 4 on Monday morning around 10:45am. Found paid street parking less than a block away. Felt a little bit safer with multiple police cars patrolling the streets. The storefront looks misleading like other reviewers have noted but the door was open and tables are visible from outside.

Orders are taken using paper menu and pencil, no carts. Choice of tea for the table (don't think there was an extra charge but I'm not sure). Snowy BBQ pork buns came out first quickly then about 10 minutes for the next batch of goodies. Last items to arrive were the wonton noodle soup and stuffed bittermelon on iron plate (about 10 minutes after the 2nd batch). Total about 10 items, only had 1 full container for leftovers.

Overall all items were tasty and arrived fresh. Nothing I wouldn't mind eating again. I wish the sauce that came with the bittermelon covered the bittermelon better instead of almost all on iron plate but it could have just not have stuck on very well. Didn't think iron plate did much for the flavor of the dish, only for the cool factor.

Seating and serving are similar to any other usual Chinatown restaurant (so don't expect first class service), busy and constant yelling between servers. But waiters were attentive and removed completed plates quickly.

Paid $85 including tip. Finished in about an hour. By then the restaurant was packed and there was a short line waiting outside....

This is one of my favorite restaurants in Oakland. Food and kitchen are consistently good, sometimes verging on fantastic. Prices very good. Service very good, but remember some staff may have limited english skills. This is the kind of place where they remember you after you've been there a few times.

I'm not at all surprised some reviewers felt this was the best dimsum they had found outside of Hong Kong.

Portions are large, and they don't skimp. You can tell the quality of the kitchen because prawns are generally nearly perfectly cooked.

Almost everything on menu is very good to excellent. Standouts: iron plate stuffed eggplant. Whatever you do don't leave any of the sauce!

Sort of that perfect sweet spot between price quality and vibe/service only the food is much better than what you might expect from the exterior and interior, which are fairly functional.

I really like the people who work there. I have no idea why any reviewer would complain about bad service. I've come here for years and have never seen them be less than polite and competent so take those reviews with huge...