Dim sum on sunday, reccomendations please?

[hillsgal]

Interesting to see the comments about the female manager at Dim Sum on London Road. I went there recently with some friends for my birthday - I'd never been before but I'd heard a lot of good things about the food and I thought it'd be a good thing to do as a group. The food was reasonably good (I've had better - Wong Ting & Zing Vaa both do better dim sum in my opinion) but although most of the staff were very nice, the manager was very unfriendly and spent a lot of time making comments to the other staff about us. Unfortunately for her, one of the friends who was with us grew up in China and speaks both Cantonese & Mandarin and understood everything she said! Just goes to show that just because someone looks and sounds British, don't assume they don't speak any other languages...

My friend kept this quiet and did some whispered interpreting for us, and then at the end of the meal called the manager over and in Chinese asked for the bill & said something along the lines of "nice food, nice waiters, shame about the management". The look on her face was priceless when she realised that we all knew what she'd been saying!

[chinaski]

"nice food, nice waiters, shame about the management". The look on her face was priceless when she realised that we all knew what she'd been saying!

 

Classic! I spend a lot of my time in these restaraunts wishing I could speak the lingo. I always wondered if she had a problem with the English or if she just had a slapped arse for a face in general.

 

 

Anyway, on the dim sum note, we went to Wong Ting on Sunday lunchtime and was very impressed. The dim sum was great - a lot more selection than Dim Sums and on the comparable dishes I'd say Wong Tings has the edge. Only sour note was when we went in at 12 the place was already starting to fill up with Chinese/ oriental folk and the manager had a word with a waiter and they led us to a far corner of the restaraunt that was empty. Now, I don't want to turn this into one of those tedious "racist" threads that cover the forum, but you can't help but think if the place was frequented by white Europeans and an Asian or black family came in and was led to an empty place around the corner there would be uproar all around.

 

Well, it won't put me off going back. There was a real family atmosphere amongst the Chinese there and I suppose they were trying to maintain that as much as possible. Or maybe they'd heard about my table manners.

[hillsgal]

I've been to Wong Ting a few times and we've never particularly felt like we're being stuck in a corner, so maybe that was just an odd one-off. In fact we went there for my birthday (a group of ten 20-somethings) and we were on a big table right in the middle of the restaurant, we got the £15 unlimited banquet menu (which is as far from the terrible all you can eat Chinese buffets as it's possible for a meal to be!) and the food was fantastic, the staff were really helpful and everyone had a really good time. I shall go and try the dim sum sometime!