The All-You-Can-Eat Dim Sum Spot That's Trending Around New York
A newish chain offers AYCE at some locations - and it's good
The dining realm known as All You Can Eat, or AYCE, was nearly decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially Indian buffets and Brazilian churrascarias. Korean all-you-can-eat barbecues suffered, too.
Now all those have returned and more. What is the appeal of these places? Well, dining voluminously can be a bargain, with less money paid per pound of food. After dining here you’re actually full, in contrast to your walking away still hungry, which is often the case in many new expensive restaurants. And events like the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest have led customers to approach AYCEs like competitive eaters.
So, when a friend who is a devotee of Vegas buffets called to ask if I’d ever been to any branches of Dao Dim Sum, a chain of five restaurants around New York City that offer AYCE dim sum, I initially said no. In fact, I’d never heard of dim sum served this way, and he quickly suggested we check the chain out. But not just any branch: Most had limited lists of dim sum, but one in particular offered a full AYCE roster. So our party of three was soon crawling up Roosevelt Avenue toward Flushing,headed toward Dim Sum Garden, at 135-05 40th Road, near Prince Street. (Other locations reside in Midtown East, the Upper East Side, another in Flushing, one on Madison Avenue, and more on the way.)
Passing through a darkened block, we reached a boxy, well-lit room with luscious pictures of dim sum plates in the windows. Inside is like a motel lobby, with fake exposed brickwork, artificial arched windows, pillars decorated with plastic foliage, small square tables with white tablecloths, and a giant video screen showing kung fu flicks. The place, holding perhaps 80, was a quarter full at 6 p.m., and an hour later it was nearly full.
The rules
You are encouraged to linger for no more than 90 minutes, and it is suggested you order no more than four to five plates per person for each round (as if eating were a boxing match). There is a penalty for each unfinished plate, which is added to your tab at the end of the meal, and no takeout is permitted. Monday through Friday the cost is $19.99 cash, $21.99 credit; weekends and holidays are $23.99 cash, $25.99 credit.
The menu
The menu is a single sheet of paper with boxes to check or fill in with a number. There are 58 dishes in total, most with two to five items per plate or steamer. All dishes fall into six categories: steamed dim sum; pan-fried dim sum; soup and noodles; bun, rice, and congee; fried rice and noodles; and desserts.
Our attack
Altogether, we ordered 30 plates in two rounds, comprising nearly 100 individual items. We could barely finish to avoid the penalty. We hid partly-eaten turnip cakes under a leaf leftover from a plate of steamed lettuce, and the staff kindly ignored it. Note that several selections on the menu represent entire plates or bowls of food, so you may want to stick with the dumpling-type dishes to try the maximum number of things.
The highlights
It makes sense that an AYCE dim sum place would make dumplings a little bigger than usual: These massive har gow are good examples. Next up, in the second photo, it’s fried stuffed peppers: Underneath the breading and the black bean goo are a couple of wonderful fresh green chiles. This is the kind of “stuffed” where the stuffing is on the outside. In the third shot, the crispy roasted duck rolls are absolutely superb — jammed with roast duck, skin and all. But what’s that on top? Duck sauce — the kind that used to come in plastic packets with your neighborhood Chinese takeout.
Past the Chinese greens in the second row lies sweet osmanthus. Studded with goji berries, this is the Jell-O you wish they’d served in elementary school. In the next shot, beef chow fun is a richly flavored and textured bowl of noodles, but watch out with the fried rice and noodle dishes in this section, since they tend to be voluminous and will take up a lot of space in your stomach.
In the last row, the chao zhou dumplings are crystalline pouches that can be attributed to the Teochew people, a group that spread out across Southeast Asia from Guangdong. The dumplings are stuffed with scallions, water chestnuts, pork, and other ingredients, and are immensely satisfying. Next, the soy sauce chicken feet have been so extensively (and I might add, flavorfully) braised that the flesh slides easily off the tiny bones, making them easier to eat than most. In the last shot, the black truffle with mushroom dumplings are black, the result of charcoal (said to reduce flatulence), which has no effect on flavor. These dumplings taste juicy and woodsy — and this is a must-order dish at Dim Sum Garden.
Finish with a soothing bowl of congee, with its mild gingery and green-onion flavors, and gravel of ground pork — with century eggs thrown in.
When you manage to rise from the table after you’ve split the bill, you’ll get to keep this record of the dishes you consumed.