Li Min Dim Sum

The spare ribs are delicious, the rice noodle rolls are generous with fillings and you can eat a whole shrimp in every bite, the durian pastry filling is very solid and you can taste the flesh, and the roast duck is just average, neither good nor bad, but it can satisfy your craving

I'd say it was pretty good overall, but there are definitely some issues that warrant attention on their part if they want to be successful. I overheard one employee (maybe the manager) on the phone saying things are slow and it has been hard, which makes sense based on what I saw. It was what should have been a busy lunch day for them but my table was one of two there when we arrived, and the woman at the other table actually abandoned her water/sauces and left the restaurant before she ordered.My thinking with hot pot places is that you can either cater more to the Asian market or to the American market, but not effectively to both. I was at a different one last week that was very Asian oriented. I could not identify 90% of the items in the pot and they could tell me nothing about what sort of meat they use; they only had "beef" and "fatty beef" options for beef, but could not tell me what cut it was. It didn't taste like any beef I have ever had. There were a lot of tastes and textures I was not familiar with and didn't particularly like. That's just personal preference, not indicative of quality, but it's important to know that people who are not accustomed to those tastes and textures may not respond as well to them. That particular place, I would not return to.Chao's Beef Hotpot is much closer to the mark on catering to the American market. The menu makes sense. I know what meat I'm ordering. The ribeye looked nicely marbled. The $1 promotional beef plate was awesome. Food-wise, we were all satisfied.Where I think Chao's misses the mark is twofold:1) Service -- The only person we interacted with in the restaurant was someone who spoke passable English but was difficult to understand. No problem at all with people speaking their own languages, but when you're having a new experience (which many American who wander into a hot pot place are), it's hard enough to understand what's going on even without a language barrier and having to strain a little to understand someone. They would benefit from having some staff who can communicate effortlessly with English-speaking clientele.There was also no explanation of how things work there and they have no literature or signage. It's like they just assume that everyone who goes in there knows what they are doing, which is not the case for most people. So I had to be the person who explained it to the other 3 people I was with. No one had any idea what all the different bowls and spoons are for or what the right etiquette is or why there was a metal thing in the pot. So many different sauces at the sauce bar: which ones mix well together or go with which foods?Pricing is my last gripe, though at this place with the promo it happens to be extremely reasonable and it's great that 4 people can share one pot, which is very economical. But I hate the idea of a la carte charges for sauces and vegetables. My favorite hot pot place in Richardson charges a fixed price per person for the stock and you have to select 1 protein so you're in for like $18/person, but you have unlimited sauces and vegetables. On an a la carte offering it seems nuts to pay $5 for a plate of cabbage or $5 for some mushrooms. And the assorted vegetables at Chao's for $8 is fine but includes a lot of stuff that was more spriggy than leafy and didn't feel like it made sense in a pot.Overall I think Chao's COULD become very successful, but they will need to work on the communication with customers and be more thoughtful about the customer experience. Remember that a lot of your target market is people who are in the surrounding offices or wandered over to the urgent care or saw it driving by and have no clue what they are doing here. Having a friendly face ready to greet them and explain how things work and help them have a good experience will go a long way.The fact that you had a customer in there just sitting there who ended up walking out before she ordered was a missed opportunity; who knows how many people she might have referred or brought back if she'd had a good experience. She may even have been a food critic or something.

We tried a new dim sum place this weekend, Tian Li Min Dim Sum, which is the sister restaurant to Tian Tian Restaurant (amazing Peking duck!). This place is a little different, it doesn't have dim sum carts walking around, and all dishes are ordered through the menu. This is good, as the dishes are freshly prepared (to the extent possible). The prices are a bit higher than usual per dish as well. We enjoyed the experience, but did not think the food was as good as our usual dim sum place (Kirin Court). A lot of the dishes lacked enough seasoning, and so we had to add more salt or chili oil. I think we may also ordered the wrong dishes. I saw a family share a large seafood soup with crab and shrimp that looked amazing, we might try that next time. Also saw some better looking dim sum dishes at neighboring tables.I think we would return for the congee and the fried shrimp balls, those were delicious. We might try some other dim sum dishes than the ones we ordered this time. Service was great and the premises itself was modern and welcoming.

This is your high-class dim sum restaurant, so if you're used to the typical dim sum cart experience, this is not that type of place.Prices are high, and they didn't have that many items on the menu. We ordered 3 different items: golden lava buns, xiao long bao, and ham sui gok. Nothing was out of this world, and for the high price tag, it was not worth the experience. My boyfriend liked the xiao long bao, but Wu Wei Din is cheaper and better so we'd prefer to go there instead. Customer service was lacking as well. We came on a Friday night and there were only 2 other tables besides ours, yet service was still slow. The staff seems to enjoy talking to each other instead of checking in on customers. Would not recommend it.

In summary, Li Min Dim Sum is a relatively busy establishment with impressive dishes that check the boxes for taste, texture, and detail but also tries to match how hard they hit with the bill.Definitely falls in the "average looks" in terms of establishments that I've been to for Dim Sum. I'm intrigued by the wooden "steamed boxes" they're using, so thats a positive. If you've read one of my reviews for Dim sum before, you guys know that I firmly stand by what I say about judging places' quality based on the execution of their Har gao/shrimp dumplings, and I'm proud to say that theory still holds true. Their Har Gao is slightly sticky, easy to peel from the serving plate, firm in its shape but soft and slightly gummy on the chew, and is definitely above average in terms of looks (and I am so sad and so sorry that I didn't get a picture for you guys). It's a great Har Gao and you would be missing out if you didn't get it. Solid Xiu Mai.I think service could definitely be better. They seem to be short on waiters and you'd be lucky to even find one sometimes. I hear getting an English speaking server can be an issue sometimes and I do validate what other reviewers have said on that note.If I remember correctly, I paid my bill up at the front because it was "so busy," but possibly understaffed.Bang for buck, Is it worth it? Hard maybe; I want to give it a 3.5... but definitely don't want to round up to a 4. I think if the service was really good, their price could be justified and an easy bump to a 4-star. But I could easily find myself going somewhere slightly subpar and save 30-40% of my wallet. Plus. I live in Houston, TX, so perhaps it's not a fair reference for Dallas locals, but hey, woah, chill--I said it's one of the better Dim Sum places I've eaten at.I wish I could try more of my usual favorite dishes and give a more detailed review but our scope was limited to try and accommodate a new guest in our party so I couldn't go too, too crazy.P.S. Ambiance was... fine? The tables are not too close, so conversation was easy to maintain without having to yell. Tables and booths aren't anything to fawn over, but the food looks and tastes great.Cheers from HTX.

Not your typical push cart dim sum restaurant so you miss out on that experience (peeking under the steaming lids and seeing what piques your interest in the moment). These are the items I tried and my rating out of five stars for each:Char Siu Bun - 3Shrimp Dumpling - 4Beef Siu Mai - 2Truffle Shrimp Siu Mai - 3Spareribs - 4Chicken Feet in Abalone - 3Chicken Feet in Oyster - 4Ginger and Scallion Omasun - 1Pineapple Bread - 5+ (must get!)Crispy Shrimp Balls - 5Chicken Potstickers - 3Turnip Cake - 1Chinese Broccoli - 5Salt and Pepper Tofu - 4Indonesian Fried Rice - 4Aw man... Just realized I ordered the Golden Chicken but didn't receive it.I need to adjust better to these inflated food prices as I think they are too expensive for dim sum. I won't come back here but I will give Tian Tian a try soon.

Spareribs were greasy, gristly & fatty, not appetizing at all. Xiao long bao was ok, the skin was a bit thick. The congee was fine, nothing memorable. Service was non-existent.

A solid meh could be better.Had been wanting to try Li Min for a while since hearing about it since Dallas is a dim sum desert. Kirin and JS Chen hardly have competition... sad to say, I think it's still the case. Go to LA, NYC, or Houston for dimsum.\\ har gow- the wrapper held it together for a bit but then just gave way without any resistance- the filling was probably the second best thing I had\\ beef shumai- first time i've tried it with beef, not pork- the beef is a little gamey and dense and tough, and there's hardly any depth of flavor, just salt- there's a mint leaf of sorts tucked into the filling perhaps in an attempt to spice it up however it just becomes something unrecognizable- decent size, just wish it had a tender juicy filling packed with umami\\ taro puff with shrimp- massive, good puffy crispiness- a little confused--naturally sweet from the earthy taro then savory with mushroom aroma- somewhat greasy\\ sticky rice with egg yolk and sausage- this was pretty good and filling- if I somehow found myself back here, this would probably be the only thing I order againOverall, not really worth my time or money. That sort of place where dimsum is questionable and expensive! The little robots were cool... but you can see them at other local restaurants too.

Fresh dim sum with big size shrimps, delicious fried shrimp ball. The services are depending on how busy they are. They have robot for serving as well. It was smaller than Tian Tian their sister restaurant on the corner but good atmosphere for family lunch.

Stopped by Li Min with a group of 14 after church on Sunday morning after hearing about it from friends and through Facebook over the past several months, and we all had a great time. We arrived around 10:45 and explained the size of our party and the staff were super accommodating! We ended up taking over three booths in the center of the restaurant. The interior was super nice, the AC was powerful, and everything was very clean.The classic dim sum experience is rowdy and raucous, aunties bustling by pushing carts piled high with tins and steamers, and I love that experience, don't get me wrong, but there's something really nice about being able to mark down everything you want and have it made to order and hand delivered directly to your table. My table of four ordered a bunch of items to try and received them all in a quick and timely manner. Standouts for me were the stir-fried turnip cake (such a different type of presentation from traditional turnip cake, but I loved the aromatics and bean sprouts, and the fact that the way it's cut up into smaller cubes gives you more of the best texture of turnip cake, which is the crispy exterior), the durian pastry (they look very homemade, but the pastry crust was wonderfully flaky and the filling was very durian flavored without being too in your face about it), the golden lava buns (perfectly gooey salted egg yolk interiors!), and the stir-fried chow fun. Steamed spare ribs with garlic were also flavorful and delicious. The pork and century egg congee portion size here is relatively small, and they don't give you a ton of century egg, but the meat quality is definitely better than usual. The shrimp dumpling and truffle shrimp shumai were solid, but you do need to season with soy sauce or vinegar for more flavor.There were some misses: the others at my table didn't care for the chicken feet in abalone sauce we ordered, saying that the flesh was curiously difficult to pull off from the bone. The swan taro puffs did not come with the swan neck sticks, as pictured. Since the place fills up pretty quickly, water service can be a little slow. Also, be aware that quite a few of the filled fried dishes (taro puffs, shrimp tofu skin rolls, haam seoi gok) include cilantro in the filling, so ask about that to be sure before you order.All in all, it was a satisfying meal, and I'm looking forward to coming back to try other things on the menu in the future!