Dim Sum Places in Cincinnati, OH
Don’t know why, I’ve been in a dim sum mood lately. There are only a few places in Cincinnati that serve dim sum. Quite surprising given that there are a lot of Chinese in the area. There are, of course, over a hundred “Chinese restaurants”, but only these serve dim sum on a regular basis.
Uncle Yip’s Fusion Cuisine/Seafood
7275 Dixie Hwy # A
Fairfield, OH 45014
(513) 942-6512
11:00a.m. – 10:00p.m.Monday – Thursday; 11:00a.m. – 11:00p.m.Friday – Saturday; 11:00a.m. – 9:30p.m.Sunday
Pacific Moon Cafe
8300 Market Place Ln
Cincinnati, OH 45242
(513) 891-0091
11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday.
Grand Oriental Buffet
4800 Fields Ertel Road
Cincinnati, OH 45249
(513) 677-3388
11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday
Just Outside Cincinnati:
Cathay Kitchen
8049 Connector Drive
Florence, KY
(859) 282-0770
11:00 AM to 10:00 PM Monday through Thursday, to 10:30 PM Friday/Saturday, and 9:00 PM Sunday
Of these, our long-time favorite is the award-winning Pacific Moon Cafe, though we haven’t been there since we moved back to the area. It was a ritual we followed on Sundays after Mass — Mass at Good Shepherd on Kemper at 9, getting out around 10, just in time to get to Pacific Moon before the crowd started trickling in at around 11. The place can get pretty crowded, but since there are windows all around and table linens and settings are all in white, there is never a feeling of stuffiness. Get there early and sometimes even owner Alex Chin or manager Michael Ly will make the rounds, talking to customers and offering tea or simply saying hi. There’s also a bar where the singles usually meet, and the kids are always mesmerized with the huge aquarium right by the entrance. We are eagerly awaiting the Chins’ opening of a second Pacific Moon, this time at the Levee in Newport, KY — where the Newport Aquarium is located. Sometime this summer, we hear… (The Chins also own LuLu’s Noodle Shop, another Cincinnati institution, in Springdale.)
In the meantime, I continue my hunt for a dim sum place. My appetite was whetted over the weekend when a friend graciously fed us some char xiu bao from Grand. And I’ve got cousins coming in this weekend, so we’re looking for a place to take them…. dim sum just might be it!
I love dim sum! I have not had it in years. There are a couple of restaurants in Cleveland that serve it. My favorite is Bo Loong. Maybe you can come here sometime for it!
Hello stef, it was wonderful to stumble across your blog this morning! I’m fortunate to live in San Francisco where the dim sum tradition is long and strong. There’s a bit of dim sum lore at this thread on my own website: http://www.eatingchinese.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=246
Gary
Well….everyone knows San fransico is the most well known place for some serious Dim sums….But dont forget Manhattan…they also uncontestable.Long live Dim Sums
Simon
I am new to the Lexington, KY area, we relocated here from the MD/DC area and we love dimsum. Thinking about trying the pacific Moon in Cincinnatti, an hour and a half drive…is it worth it?
Try Jade Palace in Louisville, KY instead. I’m not sure how far that is for you, but I think it may be a shorter drive (although I could be wrong).
I grew up in Singapore and Dim Sum (or Yum Cha, as we call it) was a regular part of the diet. I often drive to Louisville from Northern KY (Cincinnati, OH area) for the Yum Cha instead of going to the Cincinnati place. At least once or twice a month.
Not only is the Yum Cha quite good, they serve during all opening hours, not just on weekends from 11am to 3pm like places here.
In addition to the authentic Yum Cha, they have a more traditional (traditional for America…hehe) buffet and other stuff like Kung Pao Chicken, which I never have.
Finally, they also have an Asian menu of more authentic chinese dishes that I grew up eating.
The Yum Cha is not part of the buffet; it is ala carte.
M
King Wok on Mcmillan has great dim-sum. Sat/Sun 11-3pm. They don’t have cart service, but you order on a check list.Try the meat turnover in glutious rice, the chive dumplings, the curry chicken turnovers…everything is great!
It had been a few months so I grabbed a couple friends to make the dim sum circuit the last couple weeks.
Two weeks ago we went to Uncle Yip’s new location. The prices and service were good. I like the new location on Reading as it’s closer to my house and I can easily combine it with a grocery trip to CAM. The only issue that I had was that the cha siu bao was a little too sweet. Everything else was good.
Last weekend we went to Pacific Moon. This was the first time I had been to Pacific Moon since they moved to the new location in Newport. I’ve always found their food to be over-rated and over-priced and only went there for the Dim Sum. At the old location, the dim sum was always good, the best in the city by my opinion. I found during this trip that the dim sum was still ok but that the service and pricing had gotten worse. The servers were marking all the dim sum dishes up as more expensive than what they were listed on the menu. I ordered jook (congee) and it never came, the servers didn’t seem to know as much as the old servers and we when checking online credit card statements, we came to find that they even wrote in their own increased tip values on the credit card receipts.
I plan to make the trip up to Grand Oriental sometime soon as it’s been a few years since I’ve had their Dim Sum.
I’m personally a fan of Grand Oriental over Pacific Moon. Jade Palace is okay too, and they’re actually about the same distance from Lexington (where I am) with Louisville only slightly closer.
I had a similar experience with the new dim sum at Pacific Moon. Well, not the marked up prices, but the service had definitely gone down hill. There was actually only like three carts, and we had to ask for them to be brought to us several times. The food was not as good as it used to be, and it definitely was not worth the price.