TLDR: Excellent dim sum and great service! They have all your classic dim sum choices as well as a few exotic options (hello black truffle dumplings). Dim sum is available to order anytime, but go to the weekend morning push cart service for the full experience.
Vibe: 5/5. Located right of rt. 40 in the Lotte shopping center, Dim Sum Garden took over the old Foodbao location, and did a fully renovation to the space. The restaurant is well laid out, with ample 2-4 top seating as well as a handful of large party circular tables complete with lazy Susans in the center. They also have 2 private rooms in the back for the extra large parties. The tables are intuitively laid out so the dim sum push carts can easily navigate down the center aisle between table rows. Wait time can vary, especially on weekends, but during our visit my party of 2 came at 11:30am on a Sunday and were seated immediately. We watched a line queve up closer to noon, but all were seated in less than 15 minutes. Tables are clean and adorned with your own personal jar of chili oil and soy sauce.
Service: 5/5. The staff at dim sum palace were friendly and efficient at getting us our beloved dim. As mentioned before, the host seated us immediately and as soon as we sat down, we started ordering off the carts. Our waitress brought out hot tea upon request and did a great job keeping both the tea and water topped off. The dim sum cart staff did a fantastic job at doing their rounds and keeping the carts full. One thing I particularly appreciated was when you picked out an item, the cart staff would give you a fresh one from the center of the stack vs the exposed one on the top. This guaranteed us hot items each time.
Food: 4/5. A very solid entry in the Maryland dim sum scene, with this being one of the best in the Baltimore area. Typically for this calibre of dim sum you need to travel down to NOVA or Rockville/Bethesda. They have all your classic favorites such as hargow, shumai, rice rolls, taro puffs, custard buns etc, but they also offer a few oddities that were fun to try. The black truffle shrimp dumpling is the perfect example. The truffle flavor from the black wrapper worked so nicely with the meaty shrimp filling that we ordered multiple orders. Another fun option was the salted egg custard bun, which had a black and gold bun and oozed custardy filling. My only gripe is the premium you pay for this dim sum experience. Our table of 2 ordered around 10 items and our bill came out to just under $100 before tip. Typically we spend on average closer to $60-70 at comparable places closer to DC where there's more competition. This makes this place from a frequent casual weekend spot to a once in awhile treat yoself. Overall, highly recommend Dim Sum Palace if you have that dumpling itch that...
Read moreI actually was invited here to a lunar new years Taiwanese event, since my wife is from Taiwan, so the whole place was packed with a Taiwanese group. It was fun, love the energy the food was good! I’ve had my fair share of Sichuan cuisine and Asian cuisine. We started off with some appetizers, shrimp balls, which I feel didn’t have much shrimp in them since they were so ground it up you couldn’t really tell. The flavor was OK. But I wish there were chunky bits of shrimp in there. Then there was the red beef, some pickled veggies and another meat, which I think was duck? I can’t remember, and I will have to see if my wife still has the menu so I can update this lol! We got some whole shrimp. Yes with the head on, and some people eat the whole shrimp skin and all. Because these were fried, so you could eat the skin and wouldn’t notice the difference. They were good! We also got a whole steamed chicken cut up. Not a big fan of this style of chicken. Depending on who makes it will also depend on how good it is. Although it was cooked perfectly juicy, it was very bland in flavor. So when you get something like this, the next best thing is to make sure you have some sauce to dip it in. And a lot of Asian dishes the flavor is more in the sauce than anything else. And then we got rice, which was seasoned with meat, egg, and other things that went by pretty quickly. And we got some Chinese, broccoli, and crab styled soup, which is similar and texture to egg drop soup. We also had a large whole fried fish which was pretty tasty… But when they come Whole, you have to deal with bones. And if you’re not a fan of that, this might not be for you. But Asians love whole Fish. Because we didn’t order here and try foods, we like… I’m just doing this review on my experience with the food that was served for the event. If I do find out the names of the dishes, I will write them down. There was a lot of people at this event, and Foued came out rather quickly and...
Read moreCelebrated the Chinese New Year with my students. The reservation was to start at 5 pm. I had to bring the cake in earlier. We'll to my surprise the doors were locked. It was apparent that it was rest time for staff. There was 1 person from the kitchen that caught my eye and asked him to open the door. He laughed and didn't bother to help. The celebration was to start at 5 pm but nothing was done to prepare tables in advance. They started to set up at 515. My students and friends started to come in. They wanted water and cups for beer wine. But it had to be addressed multiple times with me getting involved. Staff was unprepared for a large party. Food was a joke. There were 10 people and the portions were so small that my students felt they only could have 1 piece of each dish. The sad part was the soup. They didn't have enough soup. They had to make another batch to get 1 soup for one of my students. The Fried rice was so small it wasn't enough to feed 10 people. Most times a banquet dinner has so much food left that take home dishes would be the norm. Not this night. Very disappointed. When the cake was next, the waiter staff hadn't ti n e to cut the cake. I had t do it myself. Now Sam is the manager for this place but he wasn't there that night. I will never go to this place for a meal or dinner. Maybe for dim sum but will look for alternative places in the meantime. Felt taken advantage of because how I was treated along with my guests was simply terrible. At 5 pm and how I was treated reflected the whole evening. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being excellent I give dim sum palace a negative 100!!!!!!!!!
Not having a manager there allows for Kaos and poor poor service. I'm giving the next event to another establishment that treats...
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