Dim Sum Duck Review

On a rainy mid week morning, we headed off to Dim Sum Duck for an early dim sum lunch. We were told my friends who are regulars to get there early as you can’t book. We arrived about 15 minutes before the opening time. We weren’t the first. If you arrive after the opening time, you can expect to wait for up to an hour for the first lot of guests to leave.

Even with the rain, the queue kept growing. Dim Sum Duck is a casual HK style cafe in a single store front, found on a quiet backstreet new Kings Cross. There isn’t much else around here but despite this, it has become a bit of a destination for dim sum. Eventually, we got seated at a table, next to a family from Hong Kong. The friends I was with were visiting from Hong Kong too. And the expectations were high since it was recommended by friends who were regulars here.

The casual dining space is narrow and tight with room for about 25 people. There are no big family tables so this is not a place for big groups and you can’t book. The tables were tightly packed together, not unlike those casual eateries along Stanley Street in Central, the ones where the customers are crowding into your personal space, breathing down your neck. It was almost like that, safe for the customers hovering. They were relegated to queuing outside in the rain instead.

What to order at DimSum Duck

Dim Sum Duck is as the name suggests, a place for dim sum. The owners are from Macau via the US and the chef/ dim sum expert is their brother-in-law from Hong Kong. There are plans to move to a bigger place nearby to cater their increasing popularity.

We ordered a variety of dim sum and a couple of dishes for my friend’s pescatarian mum. There is a decent selection for vegetarians and vegans too. From the menu, we ordered prawn cheong fun, a prawn and chive dumpling, har gau prawn dumpling, spicy wontons, glutinous rice. Taste wise, the dim sum was fine, but in Cantonese, a bit “chou lou” or coarse. Cheung fun is one of the dishes that can help you gauge a dim sum chef’s expertise. The ones they serve here taste fine but the rice noodles were quite thick, not the thin and silky ones that you find in the more refined dim sum kitchens. The skins of the dumplings were again too thick and they were enormous.

Read the review of dim sum at Royal China

In addition, we added a crispy vegetable fried noodle and some crispy salt and pepper tofu. Salt and pepper tofu was done just right, crispy on the outside with the flavourful garlic chilli flavours. But the simple fried noodles that are the staple from a Cantonese kitchen were strangely sweet. That was a big of a let down.

Meanwhile, we had made friends with the HK visitors, who were uncharacteristically quiet. We compared dishes and they were quite underwhelmed but didn’t outwardly complain.

One highlight was the taufu fa or tofu pudding they swerved for pudding. The homemade tofu, served sweet with a ginger syrup was smooth and light. Which ended this meal on a high note.

Service was efficient and friendly enough (one of the ladies was quite brusque – HK style), although they were quite reluctant to chat. For a casual dim sum lunch, it was perfectly fine but not a wow enough experience to warrant a repeat visit. Especially not worth the queuing. If you are one to follow hyped-up restaruants in London, give it a try. You might have a better experience than us.

Dim Sum Duck
124 King’s Cross Rd,
London WC1X 9DS
Phone: 020 7278 8878

Note: there is no booking system, you have to join the queue. And I heard that it is now cash only.