Saturday, October 29, 2011

Dim Sum at Lin Garden

I love dim sum...but I do not like driving 45 minutes to Boston and paying $10.00 for parking.  New China Pearl in Woburn is a great alternate to Chinatown since its only a little more than half way to Boston and the parking is free.  Sometimes we venture out to New China Pearl but dim sum is one of those meals that are only good to eat in groups so everyone can order and share the countless offerings.  It's tough to eat dim sum with only two people since I like to try different things but also don't want to over order.

View from back patio
To get a quick dim sum fix for just the two of us, we headed over to Lin Garden in Dracut, Ma where they offer a weekend dim sum buffet for $12.95.

The restaurant is situated on Route 110 with a beautiful scenery of the Merrimack River. (I know.. who would have thought the Merrimack River would be scenic?)

The clientele for the buffet today was all Chinese families with the exception of one table.

The buffet offers a variety of steamed shumai's, wontons, and buns along with other typical dishes like fried tofu, rice congee and chicken feet.

Steam Shumai and Wontons

They didn't have the steamed pork spareribs, which is one of our favorite dim sum dishes.  They did offer non-traditional dim sum entrees such as fried peppers crabs, chicken wings, fried rice, ho fun and hot and sour soup, just to name a few.  They also had an assortment of sweets including moon cakes, sesame balls and tofu in syrup.

The food was not consistent.  The shumai's and wontons were really tasty but I was disappointed with the BBQ pork buns.  The meat filling was dry and bland compared to the sweet gooey texture that I am accustomed to.  Although I didn't have any rice congee, the Mo commented that it was really good.  The other non dim sum foods were delicious.

Overall, the buffet hits the spot for a quick dim sum fix without spending much money.  I would suggest going into Woburn or Chinatown for an authentic dim sum experience with the rolling carts if time is not an issue.

Assortment of steamed goodies

The Mo's rice congee with sriracha chili sauce with fried dough

Fried Shrimp tofu roll and pork and chive wonton

Fried Rice, Fried Clams and Mai Fun


Chinese Pastries

Tofu in Syrup

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