Dim Sum in Miami

3451 NE First Ave., Unit 103 Midtown/Wynwood/Design District

305-573-8886

Chinese, Dim Sum, Critics' Pick, Slideshow

Blackbrick in midtown serves the Chinese food you've been waiting for. There are classics such as salt-and-pepper shrimp, Sichuan vegetables with hot oil fried rice, and steamed red snapper with soy, ginger, and scallions. The dessert menu is also extensive, with ice cream from Calle Ocho's Azucar and an assortment of cakes. Stop by the 60-seat restaurant and sit at the kitchen bar. From there, you can inhale the smoky scent of toasted Sichuan peppers and watch chefs stir-fry mustard greens in red-hot woks.

30 articles

Chef Ho

16850 Collins Ave., #106A, Sunny Isles Beach North Dade

305-974-0338

Chinese, Dim Sum

Chef Philip Ho in Sunny Isles Beach shines with some of the best dim sum and Chinese fare in the city. Ho is no stranger to Asian fare with flair: He worked as the dim sum chef at the Setai for several years before opening this place of his own. The dim sum selections are on the menu during the week but get rolled through the dining room on carts during weekends. That's the way to go -- what you see is what you get. You can hardly go wrong with any selection, because the cuisine is uniformly impressive. Some of the hits: congee, a rice porridge that isn't offered often locally; chive and shrimp dumplings; steamed green-tea duck dumplings; scallop and black truffle dumplings (!); rice crêpes wrapped around various fillings; taro cakes; shumai; and barbecued spare ribs. The non-dim sum portion of the menu knocks it out of the park as well, from thin hand-pulled noodles coated and threaded with chopped shiitake mushrooms to a lean loin of honey-sweetened barbecued pork to amazing house-made tofu and eggplant in black-bean-chili sauce -- alone worth the drive. Don't miss the egg custard tart with black truffles or the steamed egg custard lava bun for dessert. What else can we say? Go to Ho!

10 articles

Gold Marquess Fine Chinese Cuisine

8525 Pines Blvd. Pembroke Pines

954-367-7730

Chinese, Dim Sum, Best Of

The pigs are sweet inside this opulent Chinese spot adorned with pictures of gilded dragons and glistening lacquer paintings of intricate zodiac symbols. These are no normal pigs. A bite into one reveals not flesh, but fluffy steamed dough wrapped around a warm, slightly sweet egg custard. It’s an ideal dessert after assaulting your body’s water content with swollen soup dumplings filled with crab and pork. Of course you can’t stop there. There are pork ribs in a fragrant fermented black bean sauce, then come the pasty taro fritters, with the puréed tuber encased in a crackly web of a crust. By the time the sweet pig buns arrived, you'll have had more than your fill. But how could you resist the adorable pink snouts and curly tails so precisely affixed to the sweet treat? All that’s left to do is keep your eyes open for the drive home. Then, and only then, can you collapse into a dream world filled with sweet pigs marching by.

2 articles

Kon Chau Chinese Restaurant

8376 SW 40th St. Westchester/West Miami

305-553-7799

Chinese, Dim Sum, Recommended, Best Of, Readers' Choice, Essentials

Located in the same West Miami-Dade shopping plaza as long-standing Asian grocery Lucky Oriental Mart, Kon Chau has been disproving the slander that you can't get decent dim sum in Miami since 2011. Rolling carts steam forth from the kitchen stocked with all the usual small-plate suspects — lotus leaf-wrapped sweet sticky rice, sauce-slick chicken feet, Shanghai-style soup dumplings, fluffy steamed pork buns, tender pork siu mai, etc. The cognoscenti know to order lesser-known offerings like salted pork porridge with century egg, duck-stuffed dumplings, and tripe noodle soup.

13 articles

Sang's Chinese Food

1925 NE 163rd St. Aventura/North Miami Beach

305-947-7076

Chinese, Dim Sum, Best Of

Proprietors Purwan and Irene Cheung have cooked and waited tables here since they opened Sang"s 19 years ago. Nowadays, the unchanged, basic-Chinese-restaurant décor is tired, but two important details stand out: Most of the seats are filled with Chinese people, and most of the plates are filled with rewarding Cantonese fare. There are two menus here - ask to peruse both. You"ll likely want to start with items from the pink, more Americanized bill of fare, for that"s where you"ll find familiar favorites such as hot-and-sour soup, which is requisitely piquant. Egg rolls and dumplings also come from the pink list; the former are pretty standard, the pan-fried dumplings thick-skinned and plushly padded with minced pork. The more authentic and equally extensive white menu offers a fantastic, hacked-up half-roast duck with crisp mahogany skin and juicy meat; slowly braised stew of beef and turnips; and soft, sweet pieces of purple Chinese eggplant dissolving with flat, tender squares of beef in a spicy-sweet brown garlic sauce. Don"t miss the whole steamed fish plucked fresh from the fish tank in back. Sang"s waitstaff is a sturdy hybrid of no-nonsense personalities with no-incompetence efficiency. Prices are refreshingly affordable; most entrées on either menu cost $8 to $12. Lunch specials run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and some 60 dim sum snacks are available daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

7 articles

South Garden Chinese

10855 Sunset Dr. East Kendall/Pinecrest

305-274-9099

Chinese, Dim Sum, Recommended, Best Of, Menu

The difference between Westernized and typical Chinese cuisine is crystal clear at South Garden Chinese, which serves both. One side of the menu offers Americanized goodies such as crab Rangoon, egg drop soup, and General Tso's chicken. Flip the menu over and do as the Chinese do, with more complex traditional dishes. The crisp fried chicken, steamed catch of the day, and honey-glazed shrimp with walnuts are favorites of the local Chinese community, as is the dim sum menu featuring more than 40 dishes made by a certified dim sum chef. These can be ordered per piece and come in three sizes, stuffed with seafood, beef, pork, chicken, or sweet fillings including mango pudding and coconut soft cakes.

4 articles

Ten Ten Seafood Chinese Dim Sum Restaurant

10101 Sunset Strip Plantation/Sunrise/Tamarac

954-999-5298

Dim Sum, Chinese

1 article

Tropical Chinese Restaurant

7991 Bird Rd. Westchester/West Miami

305-262-7576

Chinese, Dim Sum, Asian, Recommended, Best Of, Readers' Choice, Essentials

Nearly four decades into its existence, Tropical Chinese is still going strong. The dinner menu is chock full of offerings, from the traditional to the exotic. Appetizers include wok-fried, salt-and-pepper-style calamari and the fun-to-eat "rainbow pancake," featuring four wraps to fill tableside with vermicelli noodles, wood ear mushrooms, shredded carrot, cabbage, scallions, and freshly ground peanuts glazed with plum sauce. What's more, this unassuming spot in a West Miami-Dade strip mall remains a go-to for the best dim sum in the county. More than 30 kinds of are offered, all prepared fresh on site. Pro tip: The barbecue pork buns are a must.

29 articles

Zitz Sum

396 Alhambra Circle, Ste. 155 Coral Gables/S. Miami

786-409-6920

Dim Sum, Chinese, Best Of, Essentials

Zitz Sum chef/owner Pablo Zitzmann's mash-up of Asian, Mexican, Latin American, and Italian influences earned him a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation in 2022. Previously famed in Miami for his now-closed restaurant No Name Chinese, the chef brings together all these flavors in dishes like lobster and shrimp har gow (dumplings) and pork-belly potstickers with a green-apple amazu sauce. The menu is succinct but Zitzmann is known to change things up, so if your favorite dumpling isn't listed, take it as a cue to explore something new, secure in the knowledge that everything is unique — and delicious.

3 articles

Dim Sum in Miami

Newsletter Sign Up

Enter your name, zip code, and email