Tiny space, limited offering.I’ve had dim sum from at least 3 different restaurants in Boston Chinatown and this is probably my least favorite.Their strong suit is that every item is cooked to order, so we everything comes out fresh. Like 流沙包, which really needs to be warm to be fully enjoyed. But their dim sum menu is so small, and some of the items were just disappointing. Including the classic dim sum dishes like chicken feet and steamed pork spare ribs. Neither of those were cooked long enough that they’re very hard to chew.The food does come out very fast. The servers, like any dim sum place probably, don’t really care for the customers.
Key points about Great Taste...- they open early, at 8am on the Saturday we visited- they have a fairly full menu of a la carte dim sum. It's not the full OG menu like a grand dim sum palace, but certainly fantastic before you start your day- attached bun shop to get some items to goAll the food ordered were good. As a plus, they have 炸兩, which is a treat.
We came here around 0800 on Sunday and it wasn’t that crowded yet for dim sums. Overall, it’s okay. Aside from the steamed veggies, everything were mediocre. We end up regretting not waiting for Taiwan cafe or other places to open. :( The servers were nice tho. The sticky rice in lotus leaf has weird aftertaste, the XLB is small and meh, and the shrimp dumpling tasted fishy…Would we come back? No.
The service here was okay, and the food came out pretty quickly, but the ambience and flavors of the food left a bit to be desired.This is one of those old-time, small Chinese restaurants with the mirrors on the walls to make the interior appear larger, where the staff are speaking loudly and yelling at each other within earshot, adding to the old-school "charm". Takes me back to my childhood, but not altogether in the best way.The big draw for Great Taste is that they serve dim sum all day. They're one of the only places that do, which is why we chose it. We figured if they're making dim sum that frequently, they're going to be pretty good at it after all that practice!So we ordered many different dishes. Here's the low-down for each:Deep fried pork dumplings: EXCELLENT. Good, rich, multi-layered flavor, cooked to perfect, mouth-scorching, lava-like temperature. Perfect with dipping sauce and hot chili oil. I could have eaten JUST these and left perfectly satisfied.Char siu bao: decent, not a ton of filling. Dough was fluffy and slightly sweet, light and airy, but filling was a bit too saucy, even though there wasn't very much of it. Not the best I've ever eaten, but not the worst either.Bean curd wrapped pork and vegetables: a little bit of a strange flavor and texture - the bean curd was right, but the pork inside was a little too dense, like it had been pressed for a long time.Chinese sausage roll: GREAT. The dough was beautifully puffed, light, sweet, and delicious - I think same dough as for the char siu bao. It might have been a bit nicer to eat if maybe the lapsung inside was sliced or diced and mixed with some egg and wood ear to make it a bit more umami - it was just the log of Chinese sausage stuffed into each steamed roll, so not a lot of complexity - but overall, this was pretty satisfying, since the lapsung was good quality.Turnip cake: GOOD, came out light and piping hot after being fried to perfection - be careful and don't burn your mouth like we did with the molten, jelly-like interior because we were too impatient. You will need dipping sauce of some sort for this, as the flavor is very, very mild. More of a carrier for savory sauces of different kinds.Molten egg bun: very sweet and very runny. Could only eat one, really.Shrimp and chive dumpling: not good. The flavor seemed a bit off and the shrimp inside was overcooked to rubber.Steamed taro dumplings: a little odd texture, kind of powdery inside towards the bottom, which I was not expecting, and which made it a bit of an unpleasant experience at the end when I got to the bit, even though it started out promisingly.Ma po tofu: not made traditionally, flavors were just meh. Had some strange additions like bamboo shoot, maybe some bell peppers? Sliced pork instead of ground, no Szechwan flavor, very one-note.Service was decent, but would not go here again.
Excellent dim sum! We loved the shrimp rolls, hargow, Xiao long baos and more. Service is good enough. Yummy! Can’t wait to visit again.
This place is a hit or miss. Some of the items are delicious and some are not. The Japanese tofu dish, soft shell, and brisket in Claypot was yummy. The price is average for Chinatown. The service is good. The portion size is decent. It's a fine place to have a meal.
I came here tonight with an empty stomach, hoping that I could get something to eat for dinner. However, when I arrived, I was tremendously disappointed with my experience at this restaurant. First of all, I wanted to order a specific food on the menu, but then they told us that it wasn’t even available anymore when they literally had it on the menu that they’ve given us. Second, when I ordered my shrimp with wonton noodle soup as a replacement for what I had originally wanted to order, there was no shrimp at all??? All it had were wontons with 0 shrimps, and a bit of noodles. Third, my child had ordered seafood chow mein. The chow mein was heavily cooked with oil, and she could not ate any more bites than 10. Lastly, when I received my check for the meal, I noticed that there was a $1.00 charge fee that was labeled as, “Open food”. Not knowing what this meant, I asked one of the workers and apparently they charged us with a dollar fee for having softer noodles than crunchier noodles for my daughter’s chow mein. Keep in my mind that they did not even tell us that it would charge us a dollar if we wanted softer noodles, and they even were the first one to bring up the question on whether we wanted softer noodles or not. Definitely a restaurant I would never come back again due to horrible service and foods.
The food was not good enough, to make up for the terrible service.Took some friends here after my first visit to eat dimsum for the first time and it was I felt embarrassed to give the restaurant high praise after how badly attended we were.We had to remind them several times to provide water's and utensils and sauce (soy sauce, vinegar, and chili oil). Server seemed bothered when we (five people) asked for more vinagar given the small portion provided. We ate half our meal dry and without sauce which made some of the food very unenjoyable.Food was quick and decent quality, but not special enough to merit how badly the service was.Happily take our business to Hei Lai moon.
From the earlier reviews, I can only surmise that some things have changed. To start, the first thing we noticed was that although it is small and very full, they managed to keep it looking clean. Next, although all of the tables were taken when we arrived, we were seated within 3 minutes. The waitress was patient with our order and our food came out within ten minutes.Our tea (which was lovely) was piping hot and was the perfect amount for two people. The portions were generous, and quite tasty. I would definitely recommend this place.
Ordered general goa and 2 thumbs up. Not bad portion for the price they charge for the chicken and rice. Crispy af. I'd go back and order it again.