Nom Wah Philadelphia — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I just came here with a friend trying to decide as to whether to go to a straight up authentic traditional old dimsum restaurant in chinatown or something more modern. We decided to come here and honestly regret the $60 I paid for the meal.

Anyone who has also eaten dimsum their whole life would understand why I say to avoid this place.

Almost every single dish I ordered was completely off, tasted dry/chewy/sauce was off/ seasoning was off/ no seasoning/ not the seasoning its supposed to have/ burnt/ and honestly just bluntly careless for how the dish is cooked/presented.

What is really sad is how mediocre the food was and honestly for the first time in a long time, I did not want to tip (but I still did. Service wasn't there either, just all about getting people quickly in and out. No refill on water when we needed it. Tables too close to others. I can reach over to the next person and I'm only 5 feet. I also asked for beef rice roll, which is also a traditional rice noodle roll that is made along side the shrimp rice noodle roll and she pretended like it was not a thing at all and it was too much effort. I'm not docking points for this, but definitely something every dimsum restaurant has and if not when people ask it's always made and shouldn't be cumbersome to do. )

Just a few I took a picture of: Spicy wonton: How mediocre and frozen it looks/ tasteless/ lifeless is exactly how it was when you bit into it. Not only is the filling disgusting, look at how little sauce they spit onto the plate.

Curry Dumplings: The picture is self-explanatory, wow. The oil in their fryer needs to be changed, the casing was extremely hard to bite into and old. The entire thing was oily.

Egg Roll: Cooked in the same old oil as the curry dumplings, inside shell of the casing of the roll is not cooked properly and is rubbery.

Bottom line: Save your appetite/time/money. Look for another...

Most of the food was edible.

We ordered for two people: 2x House Special roast pork bun; 3x Shanghai soup dumpling; 1x Chicken feet; 1x Tofu skin roll; 1x seasonal greens; and for dessert, 1x Fried Sesame balls with lotus paste. We had the Chrysanthemum tea as well.

Pros: ⁃ There seems to be a good range of standard dim sum dishes. ⁃ The tea was good. ⁃ The tofu skin rolls and fried sesame balls were good.

Cons: ⁃ The house special roast pork buns were disgustingly sweet. The sweetness level was similar to the dessert, which actually came out first. The filling was weirdly soupy and the meat chunks were not tender. ⁃ The seasonal greens were steamed to mushiness, and the only seasoning on them was some oyster sauce put on top. ⁃ The Shanghai soup dumplings were abysmal. The wrappings were thin, but they were also leathery and stuck to each other; the filling was almost chalky and not at all flavorful; and there wasn't much soup, on the rare occasion where the wrapping didn't rip. Also, genuine hand-made soup dumplings have a little swirl at the top where the wrapping is pressed together. These soup dumplings were completely symmetrical and identical on top, which to me made them look machine-made. I suspect these soup dumplings are pre-made and frozen. ⁃ The table was sticky, and my water cup had some white-ish dots on the inside that I could scratch away with a fingernail.

There were many other menu items, so there may be dishes that taste pretty good. However, I am deeply disappointed by the house special and the shanghai soup dumplings, which I expect are among the most popular dishes.

I would definitely go elsewhere for a dim sum experience worth your money. The bill came out to $65 before tip, and neither of us were...

Made a quick trip to Philly to get some eats. I had tasked my niece to find a dim sum place to try and it was between Nom Wah and Dim Sum Garden. I had looked at the menu for Dim Sum Garden and thought it didn't have everything we wanted, so we called and made a reservation for Nom Wah.

I should have read the other reviews more carefully and seen the more recent reviews. I also should have looked at the menu more carefully and noted that they didn't have certain things I'd expect to see at a dim sum place. Giving 3 stars, but the more I think about it, it could slide to 2.5. It's a bit expensive for what we got.

The food - some of it was good. Some of it was mediocre. None of it was great. The fried tofu skin was very little tofu skin and it had cheap filler veggies stuffed inside. The siu mai were dense. The pork ribs in black bean sauce was tough and chewy. There was a little bit of that pork taint to it that the black bean couldn't mask.

Shrimp crepe and bread stick crepe were good. The har gow was good. We also had the chicken feet, scallion pancake and bean sheet rolls. Niece said the chicken feet was ok. The scallion pancake was super thin and I've had better with getting the frozen pancakes at the Asian food store and cooking them up at home! Bean sheet rolls were ok. But again, cheap filler veggies inside. There should have been some mushrooms for flavor. The steamed pork bun was one single bun. Large in size. It was good in taste though. The roast pork inside was not too sweet.

Next time I look for dim sum places in other areas, I'll have to make a note to look for...