Royal Seafood Review: Dim sum is all good
In my ten years in New York, I’ve tried just about all the more well-known dim sum places in Manhattan. I’ve been too Golden Bridge, Golden Unicon, Dim Sum Go-Go, Red Egg, Chinatown Brasserie, Mandarin Court, Oriental Garden, Jing Fong, the closed one by Chatham sq, Chatham sq (which is different), 27 Summer, and two places on Mott St north of Canal that I don’t know the name of. One of those is next to Shanghai Cafe and the other one is across the street from it. I’ve also tried the one that’s “hidden” underneath the bridge (and it’s just OK). I’ve even had take-out dim sum from a random bakery on 35th street. I mean. I’ve eaten it all. I like dim sum, in case you haven’t noticed, and I’ll try anything. I’ve also had two different places in Brooklyn and one in Flushing. So obviously I should go out to the other boroughs more. But damn yo. Most of the time this just tastes the same (good) to me. Steph and I tried one of those places above Mott street because Fork in the Road said that Royal Seafood is a top Chinese restaurant in the city.
They had decent pork buns and pretty good shrimp rolls and ok shumai. Hell we even ate chicken feet. I dug ’em. But eating all this dim sum just reminds me that I pretty much like all of it. Fork in the Road mentioned homemade tofu with ginger syrup, but I didn’t see that. We went kind of late so maybe they ran out. But that’s the thing about dim sum, I think if you’re going anywhere you get sort of the same quality of food. Some places might have dishes that you like more or other places have more variety… Chinatown Brasserie is the one place that I think stands out in quality, but it also stands out in price. It’s a special occasion dim sum. For the others, my friends and I go to Jing Fong a lot because they have the fried taro thing. We just call it the fried taro thing because we’re lazy and the ladies pushing carts mostly speak Catonese (which I don’t know).
Can I recommend Royal Seafood? Sure, but can I recommend it over any of the other ones? I mean, I like them all. It’s totally cool to pick one over another if one place has the har gau that you prefer. Or if another place has the bangin’ chicken feet. Or if another place has more comfortable seats or more friendly cart pushers that speak English. Really, you can’t go wrong with what you pick if you just randomly pick one in Manhattan. Now maybe the food gets way better in Flushing or deeper into Brooklyn. The times when I had it, they were good but not so much where I’d deliberately wake up early and trek to Flushing for it. And when I used to live in Park Slope, for my friends and I it was closer to get to Manhattan Chinatown than Brooklyn Chinatown. What’s the point then?
I know for me in the past that dim sum has been kind of a particular thing. But the more I eat around New York, the more I don’t really care. I just like them all. Maybe this means I have a crappy non-discerning palate, but that’s ok. At least I eat happy.
Royal Seafood103-105 Mott St.New York, NY 10013212-219-2338
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