The food at Upper West Side’s Dim Sum Bloom was meh when I ate there, but the back story of the restaurant is interesting. It originally opened, to great anticipation, as “Shun Lee Cafe” and then later changed its name to “Shun Lee 98th St”. The opening announcement was greeted with joy by Upper West Siders, who though they were getting an outpost of the beloved Shun Lee restaurants (Shun Lee Palace on East 55th and Shun Lee West on west 65th). But the menu at Shun Lee Café/98th didn’t include any of the Shun Lee classics and the food was not nearly up to the quality of the OG Shun Lee’s.
It turns out that during the height of the pandemic an accountant working for the real Shun Lee had pitched the restaurant’s owners on opening a more casual dining version of the classic Shun Lee. Apparently, the owner of Shun Lee initially bought into the concept and partnered up with the accountant, but then decided to back out of the arrangement and sold his ownership stake to the accountant. But Shun Lee inexplicably agreed to license their name to the new venture, causing much confusion on the Upper West Side. In the wake of customer confusion and disappointment, even though they apparently had a legitimate right to the name, the owners of Shun Lee Café/98th decide to change the restaurant’s name to Dim Sum Bloom.
The Dumplings: As its name suggests, Dim Sum Bloom has a large dim sum menu with a lot of dumplings options. We tried the Pork Soup Dumplings, the Pork and Shrimp Shumai, the Duck Dumplings, the Fried Fish Wontons, and the Honey Roast Pork Buns. Overall, the dumplings were competently executed but were not great, and with so many excellent options for dumplings on the Upper West Side, a Dim Sum restaurant needs to be more than competent to be worth eating at. The Fried Fisk Wontons were the one standout of the meal, and if I was dragged back to the restaurant I would order them again. The wontons were filled with white fish, that had a mild, sweet fish flavor without being fishy, and were near perfectly pan-fried. But with Moon Kee two blocks north, Happy Hot Hunan a few blocks further up on Amsterdam Ave and the newly opened Na Xiang Express on Broadway and 107th, there are some great dumpling options that I’ll go to instead of Dim Sum Bloom.
The Location: Dim Sum Bloom is on the corner of 98th street and Broadway in Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood.
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