Dim Sum at Lake Pavilion (Flushing)

Just so Bright!

Fresh off our recent review of Lake Pavilion (Click here to read the review), I just so happened to be in Flushing this afternoon with my girlfriend, Mee Wen Dee, to walk the streets, check out the shops, and sniff out new restaurants to review.

Of course, all the aromas make this Mee very hungry.  Being that Wen Dee had never had Dim Sum before, coupled with memories of dinner at Lake Pavilion, and Mee Yong Joo’s visual description of the Dim Sum he witnessed when he returned to retrieve a personal belonging, I could think of no better place to experience Dim Sum then Lake Pavilion.

So off we went.   As if by magic, a parking spot opened right in front just as we arrived.  It was a little late for Dim Sum (about 2pm), but still we had to wait for a table.  Ten minutes later we were escorted, with another couple, to a table in the furthest reaches, most remote, out of sight, table we could possibly be seated at.  In fact it looked like they just rolled it out.  NO table cloth, settings, etc.  They did set the table quickly though.

We were the only non-Asians in the entire restaurant, so perhaps we were seated there on purpose.

The second we sat, we were descended upon by the most aggressive, dim sum pushing, cart pushing, waitresses around.  They must get paid on commission!

The Servers barely spoke any English (and I think they were offended when we asked for two forks).  They tried to push so much food on us!  We were a bit overwhelmed to say the least as we could hardly understand what most of the dishes were.  We ended up getting only three, and that filled us up just fine.  We had:

• Pork (duck?), with crispy skin, and a sauce (hoisin?) – we thought we were only going to get two or for slices not the entire dish.  The sauce and the skin were out of this world.  The sauce, we thought, was like liquid gold because they gave us so little of it.  It was like the pork (or duck, whatever it was), was there just to mop up the sauce.  We couldn’t finish all the meat.
• Shrimp w/garlic dumplings – Three.  Shrimp was good.  Nice dumplings. Could have used more of the hoisin sauce on it!
• Shrimp w/noodles – doused in soy(?) sauce – If they used hoisin sauce instead it would have been a home run.  Shrimps were good… noodles ok.  The choice of sauce left the dish without a kick.

As this was our first experience we were really clueless as to what to get.  If we had to do it all over again, we would have chosen more dumpling dishes.  And stuck to that.

The meal for the two was reasonably priced at $24.  As you get served they check off boxes on your check, which gets tallied up at the end of the meal, and then they tell you how much you owe!  Our check had just three marks on it.  The couple that ate with us could have won twice at Bingo! (their check was marked up down, diagonally, sideways… BINGO!)  I don’t know where they put all the food that they ate.  They were still eating when we left.

Fair warning, while they do take credit cards, it’s a $35 minimum.  We didn’t have enough scratch, and I don’t think they wanted us washing dishes, so they accepted my card in lieu.

Bottom line:  Lake Pavilion was great for dinner, and an experience for Dim Sum.  If you go during “normal” Dim Sum hours be prepared to wait a LONG time for a table.

Humbly submitted for your consumption,

—Mee Magnum (“Chop!  Chop!”)