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Food guide

How to find good dim sum

Dim sum is a Cantonese lunch service of dozens of small steamed and fried dishes, traditionally pushed around on carts. Cart service is charming and made-to-order is usually better food — the trade is between theatre and everything arriving hot.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • Har gow with a translucent, pleated skin — Shrimp dumplings in a wheat-starch wrapper. At least seven pleats, thin enough to see the filling, holding together when lifted. The single hardest item and the fairest test.
  • Siu mai with distinct pork texture — You should see and feel individual pieces of pork and shrimp, not a homogenous paste.
  • Char siu bao that is just-steamed — Fluffy, slightly sweet, with a glossy filling. A bao that has sat goes dense.
  • Busy, loud, and full of families — Dim sum halls are judged by their Sunday crowd more reliably than by anything else.
  • Made-to-order tickets — A paper order sheet usually means fresher food than carts, even though carts are more fun.

What to order

  • Har gow and siu mai — Always. The two benchmarks.
  • Cheung fun — Rice noodle rolls with shrimp or beef, in sweet soy.
  • Lo bak go — Turnip cake, pan-fried until crisp at the edges.
  • Egg tarts — Flaky or shortcrust. Order at the end, ask for them warm.
  • Go before noon — Dim sum is a morning and early-afternoon meal. By 2pm you are eating what is left.

Where to find dim sum

Open listings put 630 dim sum restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

San Francisco, CA 56 New York, NY 47 Honolulu, HI 15 Chicago, IL 15 Seattle, WA 13 Sacramento, CA 13 Philadelphia, PA 13 Las Vegas, NV 12 Los Angeles, CA 10 Houston, TX 10 San Jose, CA 8 Fremont, CA 7

Campuses with the most within a mile

Pace University 17 NYU 16 BMCC 16 The New School 12 Hawaii Pacific University 12 FIT 12 Baruch 11 Jefferson 10 CUNY Graduate Center 10 Community College of Philadelphia 10

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

How Savor Scout looks for it

Dim sum searches read for cart or made-to-order service style, and for the benchmark dish names in reviews. A packed weekend room is treated as a strong positive rather than a wait to be avoided, because in this format turnover is freshness.

Find dim sum near you →

Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

All 1,000 cities →

Shellfish allergy at the table? Where shellfish hides on a menu, and what to ask before you order.

When you might want this

Where to eat with a big group Where to take friends visiting from out of town Where to eat on a Sunday night