Ming Dynasty

Legit cantonese teahouse. Food was great. Service was quick and curt during the table seating. The cart servers were very friendly and accommodating with their willingness to cut pieces in two or to serve a bit more sauce if asked.

The best part was no one complained about the food. The crunchy stuff was crunchy, the succulent stuff succulent. We've paid double to price for dim sum in other places near Sac and did not get double the satisfaction so we were quite pleased. Definitely on the list to return.

Ming Dynasty is a Cantonese restaurant located in the Land Park neighborhood of Sacramento, not far from downtown. My family and I came here for dinner on Father's Day 2023 after spending a day in the state capitol.

It was already pretty busy when we walked in at around 6pm. We were greeted by the owner and he seated us immediately. The interior was clean and spacious. The carpeting, furniture, and decor were all old school Cantonese. There were several live fish tanks near the back. Several TVs provided diners with entertainment.

It took a while before tea and menus were brought to us. The staffing shortage was apparent. Their menu featured a wide array of Cantonese dishes. The following was what we got:

Salt and Pepper Pork Chops - The chops were meaty and crispy. Good salt and pepper taste. Stay away from this dish if you are sensitive to MSG because a copious amount was used.

Sautéed Shrimp with Veggies - Very light and tasty. The shrimps were succulent. Sugar snap peas were very sweet.

Satay Beef with Gai Lan - Beef was very tender and the satay sauce was intense. Gai lan stems were crunchy and sweet but not a whole lot of leaves on them.

Braised Cod and Tofu Clay Pot - Good stuff. Lightly battered pieces of fish were deep fried and then braised in a savory sauce. Tofu was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Sizzling Chicken in Black Bean Sauce - Although it was tasty, it didn't sizzle because it wasn't served on a sizzling platter. The lack of detail was disappointing.

Dry Fried String Beans - The string beans were very fresh. The topping, made with ground pork, dried shrimp, and jar choi (zha cai in Mandarin, commonly known as Chinese pickled vegetable) was savory and addicting.

The dishes were fairly priced, and the portions were moderate. Service was good despite the staff shortage. Servers were friendly and responsive to our requests. The total, with T/T, was around $110.

This is a legit Cantonese restaurant with strong credentials. They were a Michelin recommended establishment back in 2019 and have many favorable reviews here. We are going to return in future to try their dim sum. 4 stars.

BONUS MATERIAL:

- Private parking lot on site.
- Major credit cards accepted.
- Banquet menus available.
- Directly across the street from Target.

I have been here a bunch of times and food is always solid.

Dim sum is good, and service is ok. Their sizzling plate with fish and eggplant is really tasty.

Manager there is always talkative and chimes into your conversations pretty regularly, but I don't mind. He's funny.

Typical Chinese joint. It's in the rotation for dim sum for sure.

As a white guy, I approve.

All the dumplings were delicious and the pineapple custard bun was immaculate. Got to try chicken feet for the first time too, not bad.

Definitely come with people that know Cantonese/mandarin though. It makes ordering a lot easier

Another top tier meal from Ming Dynasty. We had a little game day feast today (go Niners!). Arrived warm & ready via their website that utilizes doordash. Everything was delicious. Some things were not the same but still good.

My first time ordering the Yang Zhou fried rice and it was really yummy. Had all the nice bits and pieces of meat & seafood minced in. My lotus wrapped rice was a little too gooey mushy. The ham sui guk had very little meat but it was fried beautifully. Chicken baos were very doughy but a good amount of meat. Chinese broccoli, beef chow fun, shu mai, tofu wrapped pork, shrimp/chive dumplings and egg baos were their usual winning selves.

Thank you Ming Dynasty for another consistently delicious meal.

All that's open on Christmas is Chinese food so I found myself here after the wait was too long at Tea Cup. Well it was still an hour here. I rushed over because I thought they said it was a 15 minute wait. Whoops. 50 was the word.

It was fine, just got the family combo 3. Decent amounts of food and it was about $50 with tip for two of us. It tastes like typical Chinese. There was some stuff I hadn't tried before like the ribs. I wouldn't have tried those if they weren't in the combo. Nice and fatty. Wonton soup is always good and they put a decent amount of shrimps in there.

Tea Cup is a little cheaper but I don't think you get as much food for the combo. But they have different stuff on their combos. I feel like Tea Cup is the standard for Chinese in midtown area since it's so old, that's why I mention it.

I'd be willing to bump my rating up if I tried it again because the servers seemed a little stressed out with all the Christmas business.

This is the place we stop for lunch on the way to Bay Area. Normally we would go for dim sum. On this day, we decided to try their dishes.

We order a beef and a chicken fried rice with salty fish. Beef was tender but cut of meat was not the best. Fried rice was only possible with their high fire stove and wok skills.

As usually, restaurant was full of customers.

When I saw my usual dim sum place in Sac was closed, we decided to try Ming Dynasty. I had previously tried some dishes from here for dinner, but hadn't tried their dim sum. Now that I have, I can confirm I wouldn't return for the dim sum again.

The Xiao Long Bao was terrible; there was no soup inside, it was completely dry. Siu Mai was alright, as were the Fried Shrimp Balls and Har Gao. I don't think you can really mess those up too much.

I left the restaurant not feeling full because I wasn't enjoying the food; I didn't want to keep ordering food that I didn't like just for the purpose of filling my stomach.

They seemed to just be circling with the same three carts/items going around. The selection wasn't as large as their menu, but you can special order things (but I believe it comes at a higher cost).

The owner is welcoming and helpful. He came to chat with our table when we dined in for dinner, so I recognized him when he came by and asked if we needed something when we were there in the morning for dim sum.

While there are some dim sum items that were fine, I think everything here doesn't stand out as spectacular...but I understand why you may end up here, options for dim sum in Sac are pretty limited (as far as I know).

Look for a Restaurant that serves Dim Sum at night time? This is the spot! Love the variety and its reasonably price. The dinner dishes were delicious as well! We got the mushroom and steak with house special sauce, spring beans, scallop fried rice, oyster clay pot, and this garlic fried chicken. The chicken was the worst item that we've had. It was super dry and bland.

A surprise gem that I think is unfairly represented on the low star side on Yelp. As I am reading through some of the lower Yelper ratings, I'm reading things from others such as, "we got there late" and "Service was lacking. They swarmed us..." Um, have you ever been to Hong Kong? Show up late and you will be lucky if a server grunts in your general direction let alone allows you to be fed and if I'm not getting swarmed during a Dim Sum experience, I would be suspicious in the same way as if I walked into a Dim Sum place and noticed an absence of Chinese people. Personally, I had a great experience here.

I loved the private parking lot with plenty of spaces. Granted, my visit was a weekday and while it was busy, it was not jam packed. I would guess that a typical weekend Dim Sum pilgrimage here will definitely use up all of the parking quickly.

As for the food, all the usual things are available by rolling carts. And yes, they do come at you quickly as soon as you sit but I don't see that as a negative. That is Chinese efficiency as they want you to get in, stuff your pie hole and then GTFO so they can turn the table. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion plus, tasty morsels make it into my belly faster. What's not to like about that? Another comment on the food is that the sizes of the dumplings are slightly over-sized in my opinion which is another plus and the 2 items that were particularly prepared well were the white steamed tripe and the pork spare ribs in black bean sauce that were pretty much "fall off the bone" tender. If you like either of those, you will love them here. We also had a kitchen order of pan-fried noodles that were excellent.

Finally, the pricing was friendlier than most other sit-down Dim Sum spots with table service and table cloths. I found the host to be very personable, kind and service-oriented as well as being very efficient. Some may interpret this as abrupt. I thought it was a good combination of friendliness and hard-working momentum.

All in all, this place checks all the boxes for me in a seated Dim Sum restaurant. I would love to try the rest of the menu at dinner sometime and I will certainly make this a regular stop for lunch whenever I am in the Sacto area. In case it is not obvious, I really liked my first visit here.

I came here with my wife as my daughter had some event to attend. We ordered maybe 8 dim sum and congee. Congee was good. All dim sum was tasty and no complaints. Service was decent as well. We had beef balls, chive dumps, chix feet, beef noodle rolls, congee, shrimp in bell pep, taro puffs and turnip cakes. Yum. Prices up of course. Dim sum is a luxury now instead of a weekend event. But nothing to keep us away from this as one of the dim sum spots in our rotation.