Dim Sum House by Jane G's - University City — Restaurant in Philadelphia

So it pains me to write this review. The ambience and atmosphere is beautiful and the food was good. I could have easily given this place 5 stars solely based on that. However, food and atmosphere does not speak to the experience as a whole when trying something new. The bf and I had a craving for dim sum. Originally we were gonna go to Chinatown, but I did some searching and found Dim Sum House, I was excited because they had a happy hour which for me was a perfect way to try a new place without investing a lot of money in case the meal wasn't enjoyable. We arrived at 5, which was perfect they were empty so we also got a chance to gauge service. We sat at the bar. The bartender was nice, not personable but nice. What initially upset me was the fact he was giving taste tests of our drinks (dipping straws and squirting in their mouths) to other servers right in front of us. I almost got up and walked out, but my bf convinced me otherwise. So as mentioned before we went for Happy hour. The bartender never provided us with a happy hour menu nor did he share any specials with us. I'm not one to sit there and ask what you're offering that's your job. So we continued ordering different dumplings, it wasn't about us not being able to afford the meal but it is the principle of it. As more people continued to fill the restaurant I noticed they were given a different menu, so I asked someone seated next to me and voila HH menu that we weren't offered. My bf did ask about HH drinks, the bartender was very reluctant to share the info. So $130 after tip we left. I was upset, not about spending that type of money, we weren't offered the same service as others. As stated before, everything we ordered was amazing. But I can't in good conscience spend my money some where that treats me differently. I would rather travel farther to go to Chinatown with average decor and BYOB. What makes this hard is I love Jane G's but since this is part of that organization I won't recommend either place anymore. I took a lot of pictures but I'm not going to share them bc they speak to the beauty of the food and not the...

I went here for University City Dining Days with my girlfriend, which means 2 apps, 1 entree, and 1 dessert each for $25 per person. The deal was barely worth it, but I was happy to try many different things. We had pretty high expectations for the food because we're fans of Jane G's original restaurant in Rittenhouse. When we were seated, however, it took us 10 - 15 minutes of waiting plus my girlfriend having to flag down a random server in order to get our server to finally address us for the first time (with no apology, by the way). After that, he would check in on us so often that it actually became bothersome rather than helpful. With that said, we want to give him the benefit of the doubt: we might not have been one of his tables to begin with, and it might be possible that he just took the initiative when he noticed us asking for our waiter.

As for the food, everything was super delicious as expected. I ordered the pork soup dumplings while my girlfriend had the crystal shrimp dumplings. We got two orders of vegetable dumplings. The pork soup was fatty but in the best way possible, and the veggie dumplings were fully stuffed. For entrees, I got pork fried rice and she got the mapo tofu. The fried rice was just fried rice (but still good), but the tofu is definitely recommended, even if you don't like tofu. Our desserts were ice cream made by Zsa's: matcha for her and black sesame for me. Both weird, but both totally worth it!

I would consider coming back here maybe one more time to: try the drinks, get many more dumplings, and give the service one more chance because this was literally the worst service we've...

overall rating: 4/5

atmosphere/aesthetic: 4/5 there’s bar seating, booths, and tables. there are a couple tv’s. nice vibe/atmosphere

service: 4/5 this is our second time coming here for HH and there’s never been a wait for a table food comes out as it’s ready and you order using one of their paper sheets (we did struggle with finding a couple of the items lol)

pricing + menu: 4/5 all of the appetizers are $5-6. we got 4 items shared among the two of us (so about $12/pp for food) and it was pretty filling if you compare the normal pricing with the HH pricing, you’re only saving like $1 on each item so not a great deal (except the chicken wings which are normally $15, but this is normally an entree item so not sure how many wings they normally come with) i got the tiger lily cocktail and it was $7 and a pretty decent size! we did the shot flight (**if you tag them on instagram and leave a review you can get a free shot!). you don’t save any money by ordering the shot flight vs individual shots

food recs: 5/5 (drink) tiger lily: if you like your drinks on the sweeter/fruiter side (which i do lol), this drink is SO GOOD pork and shrimp shumai: classic dim sum dish salt & pepper chicken wings (not pictured): so crispy, juicy, seasoned v well panfry chicken dumplings: my bf really liked these! we normally get pork dumplings and these were really good! roasted pork bao: good ratio of bao to meat filling shot flight: loved the green tea and lemon drop shot, not a fan of...