Yum Yum Dim Sum!!
We met up with some friends and hopped in a cab down to 88 Palace which is located in the mall directly under the Manhattan bridge. This is my favorite part of Chinatown. When you're more west, you see a lot of tourists and get some spillover from Little Italy. Down here there's none of that. This is the heart of Chinatown.
In order to get to 88 Palace you take a huge escalator up to the top where the restaurant takes over the entire floor.
In case you didn't know, for dim sum the food is wheeled around on a trolley by servers. As the servers pass they tell you what they have and then stamp your card once you take something. You're never quite sure what's coming next which makes it kind of an exciting way to eat!
We walked in, got our card and were ready to go! As we sat down, our friend said "Okay, we gotta remember to pace ourselves".
About three minutes later there were already five different plates in front of us. Pacing is not an option here!
The first cart came around and we grabbed some steamed Bok Choy. I love Bok Choy and this was perfect. Nice and crispy with a very light sauce.
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In the background you can see the next two things we grabbed the beef noodle and shrimp noodle. I was NOT a fan of these at all. I have a thing with different textures. Some things just kind of creep me out and the texture of these noodles did just that. Ewww....they were slimy and gross.
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Next up was some kind of beef dish. I have no idea what this actually was since the woman didn't speak any English but it was good. It had the same kind of sauce you'd usually find on a beef and broccoli dish but better.
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When this next dish first came around I thought it was a turnip cake but it turned out to be shrimp toast. This also had a weird texture but it was good. It reminded me of some sort of shrimp frittata.
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The next dumplings were my favorite dish of the brunch. Again I have no idea what they were but they had different kinds of vegetables inside and something else we couldn't quite decipher but they were amazing!!
After these dumplings we had a bunch of other stuff. Some fantastic shumai with whole shrimp inside, not that minced up stuff you get from delivery guys; some roasted pork buns and beef and pork dumplings.
We were getting pretty full at this point and decided we would get 2 more dishes and some dessert. There were egg custards on some of the carts that I had been eyeing all morning and I couldn't wait to get some.
As soon as we heard the woman describe the next dish we jumped on it immediately.
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This is a bacon wrapped shrimp dumpling.
Wow it's basically a large shrimp wrapped in bacon, covered in dough and deep fried! Okay, not exactly healthy- but awesome. It was really rich so one was more than enough for each of us.
We had one more dish to get and decided to go out and try something a little different. We had passed up on a bunch of the more exotic things as they had been going around like the tripe, etc. But hey- we're in Chinatown so we decided to go a little out of our comfort zone order this:
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Yes- that is a chicken's foot. I have to tell you that just looking at them I felt a little queasy. Once I bit into it I was surprised that it was basically all bone! Just skin and bone and that's it! I was NOT a fan of these at all. No one really was. Oh well at least we had tried them out.
Unfortunately the egg custards never came back around so we decided to just settle up and grab some outside. The total bill for all of this food? Roughly $10 a person. What a fantastic deal!
Almost everything we ordered came with 4 pieces so everyone had a bite and we had tons of food left over that we couldn't even finish. I will definitely be heading back here for brunch again soon. When we left it was about 12:30 and there wasn't an empty table in the house. I have to say this is one of the best deals in the city by far.
In order to get to 88 Palace you take a huge escalator up to the top where the restaurant takes over the entire floor.
In case you didn't know, for dim sum the food is wheeled around on a trolley by servers. As the servers pass they tell you what they have and then stamp your card once you take something. You're never quite sure what's coming next which makes it kind of an exciting way to eat!
We walked in, got our card and were ready to go! As we sat down, our friend said "Okay, we gotta remember to pace ourselves".
About three minutes later there were already five different plates in front of us. Pacing is not an option here!
The first cart came around and we grabbed some steamed Bok Choy. I love Bok Choy and this was perfect. Nice and crispy with a very light sauce.
.jpg)
In the background you can see the next two things we grabbed the beef noodle and shrimp noodle. I was NOT a fan of these at all. I have a thing with different textures. Some things just kind of creep me out and the texture of these noodles did just that. Ewww....they were slimy and gross.
.jpg)
Next up was some kind of beef dish. I have no idea what this actually was since the woman didn't speak any English but it was good. It had the same kind of sauce you'd usually find on a beef and broccoli dish but better.
.jpg)
When this next dish first came around I thought it was a turnip cake but it turned out to be shrimp toast. This also had a weird texture but it was good. It reminded me of some sort of shrimp frittata.
.jpg)
The next dumplings were my favorite dish of the brunch. Again I have no idea what they were but they had different kinds of vegetables inside and something else we couldn't quite decipher but they were amazing!!
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After these dumplings we had a bunch of other stuff. Some fantastic shumai with whole shrimp inside, not that minced up stuff you get from delivery guys; some roasted pork buns and beef and pork dumplings.
We were getting pretty full at this point and decided we would get 2 more dishes and some dessert. There were egg custards on some of the carts that I had been eyeing all morning and I couldn't wait to get some.
As soon as we heard the woman describe the next dish we jumped on it immediately.
.jpg)
This is a bacon wrapped shrimp dumpling.
Wow it's basically a large shrimp wrapped in bacon, covered in dough and deep fried! Okay, not exactly healthy- but awesome. It was really rich so one was more than enough for each of us.
We had one more dish to get and decided to go out and try something a little different. We had passed up on a bunch of the more exotic things as they had been going around like the tripe, etc. But hey- we're in Chinatown so we decided to go a little out of our comfort zone order this:
.jpg)
Yes- that is a chicken's foot. I have to tell you that just looking at them I felt a little queasy. Once I bit into it I was surprised that it was basically all bone! Just skin and bone and that's it! I was NOT a fan of these at all. No one really was. Oh well at least we had tried them out.
Unfortunately the egg custards never came back around so we decided to just settle up and grab some outside. The total bill for all of this food? Roughly $10 a person. What a fantastic deal!
Almost everything we ordered came with 4 pieces so everyone had a bite and we had tons of food left over that we couldn't even finish. I will definitely be heading back here for brunch again soon. When we left it was about 12:30 and there wasn't an empty table in the house. I have to say this is one of the best deals in the city by far.
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