rev:text
| - Another foray into the world of dim sum was at hand, and since Orchid Gardens was a place we've wanted to try for a long time, we decided to give it a try. We came here for an early dinner, 4:30ish, so we figured we were either going to get the fresh stuff they began preparing for dinner, or the bottom-of-the-barrel leftover from the lunch crowd. Well, either they continuously make them or we got the first dinner batch, because everything was fresh.
After the somewhat frustrating experience at Ping Pang Pong with not enough of what I wanted, I was not-so-secretly hoping the menu would be more to my liking. I was not disappointed. Plenty of shu mai, dumplings, and har gows to satisfy my cravings. The pork and shrimp based pieces were fresh and tasty, with a couple of complaints; 1) the rice wrappings on the har gow and rice noodle rolls had too much flour-y taste to them, and 2) the rice noodle rolls had too much of the rice noodles for the amount of shrimp. Not sure there should be flour taste in rice noodles... But otherwise, the shu mais and dumplings were great, and the pimento stuffed with shrimp dim sum was fantastic. And the sweet cream buns were yummy too.
Clean setting, fresh and mostly delish dim sums, and timeliness all add up to a satisfying experience. Service is typically terse for dim sum joints, although there were spots of smiles and courtesy here and there. We might also want to try some regular menus here, although I'm not sure how we'd resist the temptation of the rolling carts!
Table-for-1 Factor: They also have regular Chinese menu here, but being that carts are rolling around all over and large groups abound, I don't know if you'd feel entirely comfortable sitting alone...
|