In that first round were the following: seaweed salad pork and “monster egg” congee pork shiumai (listed as pork dumpling on the menu) hargow shrimp shiumai and shrimp and chive dumplings. The 4-top table we were at was small and we didn’t want to overload it. We placed a small order not too long after we sat down. There’s a charm to the chaos of the carts but odds are always good that you will get things that have been going around the dining room for 15-20 minutes and will have either dried out or over-steamed in the process. This because the quality of dim sum is always better when it comes fresh from the kitchen when you order. We were actually happy to see that this was the case-not the staffing shortage but the doing away with of the cart service. Apparently, this is a consequence of pandemic staffing shortages. Instead you mark your order on a paper menu and it’s brought to you from the kitchen (the items on the left are steamed the fried and baked and special items are on the right). But there’s a major change in the dim sum service. The restaurant is pretty much the same on the inside as it was on our last visit in 2017. Starting at about 10, people began to file in, slowly at first and then much faster by 10.30 all the tables were taken and there were people waiting both in the foyer and outside. And when they opened their doors, we were the first in. I’d worried that there would already be a lot of people waiting outside (after all Mandarin Kitchen’s dim sum is a lot worse and people queue up there before they open) but there were only two or three others cars parked in front with people inside. As I’m paranoid, we arrived in their parking lot at 9.30. They still don’t but the person I spoke with said that if we were all present when they open their doors at 9.45 (they officially open for dim sum at 10 am on the weekends it’s served till 2 pm) we would almost certainly get a table. I’d called the restaurant the day before to see if there was a chance they now took reservations for dim sum, as the start time of our midday appointment was non-negotiable. Louis Park at midday on Sunday and as I cast around for a place to eat an early lunch at Yangtze was right there.

But our last meal there- back in 2017-was a big disappointment and, given that it’s a 50 minute each way drive for us, we swore off returning. Louis Park was the one place we would eat dim sum at from time to time. In fact, you don’t even have to compare the local scene with that in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley to find it lacking we ate better dim sum in Denver when we lived in Boulder in the early-mid 2000s. Despite what a lot of people will tell you, it’s not really very good-both on its own merits and when compared to what’s available in American cities with large Chinese populations. It is not a secret that we-my family and I-are not fans of the dim sum available in the Twin Cities metro. Regular readers of the blog know why this is shocking.

I bring shocking news: we went out to eat dim sum in the Twin Cities.

Yangtze restaurant dim sum menu