No, this isn’t a sappy post-Valentine’s Day write-up, though Henry and I had a lovely dinner out two nights before for our 15th Anniversary. For V-Day, we worked. No, it’s that… finally… Finally… FINALLY… someone has opened a dim sum parlor in Buenos Aires. Not just the few dishes offered up at Cinco Corderos, Hong Kong Style or Cantón, but a real, honest to goodness, dim sum spot.

 

Royal Mansion, Mendoza 1598, in Barrio Chino.

They haven’t spared the expense on putting this place together….. And there’s an entire upstairs dining room of about 2/3 the size of the main one. On our first visit, a Sunday afternoon with The Horde, the downstairs ended up about 3/4 full. On a second visit, a Tuesday afternoon, there were maybe four or five tables of people, total.

Nor did they skimp on the menus, which are full color, with pictures of almost every dish. This isn’t a place with the carts that come around, you peruse through the dozen pages of the menu and select what you want. Each dish has a letter next to it, and there’s a chart on the table that tells you what price that corresponds to. The majority fall between 250 and 400 pesos a plate, with a few main course type dishes and specialties that are higher (including two much more expensive, but one’s a whole chicken, and the other is a platter of fried quails).

You mark off how many of each dish you want next to their number on a printed ordering menu. You reuse this later if you want to order more, just on the second round, you circle the number of things you want. On a third round, I don’t know, triangles or squares or something. As often happens when The Horde goes out to somewhere Asian, the ordering was turned over to me. Silly people. Those prices add up fast. Actually, a lot faster than any of us thought. And when you think about it, those peso prices run between $4-6 per plate for dim sum. New York dim sum parlors typically run between $2.50-4 per plate (I went to a couple on my last visit, and just spent a little time looking at online menus for several Chinatown Manhattan spots). This ain’t cheap.

Two visits, however, so far, one with The Horde, one with another friend. And no regrets, other than a mild whimpering when looking in my wallet. Cash or debit card only (but not Mastercard debit it turns out from the second visit – not because they can’t, but because Mastercard apparently charges businesses the same fee for debit or credit cards, rather than less for debit – that explains a lot of why so many places here don’t accept it… I actually had to insist on the second visit as it was the only debit card I had, and they processed it just fine, other than with a lot of grumbling).

Okay, the rest is just pictures (I have no idea why most of them on the first visit came out blurry – a smudge on the lens is my guess) with captions…. we ate a lot between two visits. More or less in the order they hit the table….

Scallops in rice noodle rolls.

Green beans sauteed with pork.

Shrimp har gow

Barbecued pork

Stir fried daikon cakes, Singapore style.

Soup dumplings (maybe lacking a little soup, but tasty)

Beef balls

Siu Mai

Potstickers

Barbecued pork steamed buns

All that was The Horde‘s outing – with, basically, two of each plate (there were six of us), and that all, with drinks, and tip, topped us out at a rounded up 1700 pesos apiece… or about $28. The same in NYC would have probably only run us about $20. Just sayin’, not complainin’.

Barbecued pork in rice noodle rolls

Daikon cakes

Pork and cilantro dumplings

Braised beef tendons in scallop sauce (The Horde wouldn’t let me order this one, but luckily, the person I had lunch with had no issue with it, and it was delicious!)

Much more reasonable this time because we stopped ordering at just these four plates, but even so, that topped out with beverages and tip at 1400 pesos, or $23, though split two ways.

All of it, delicious, each and every dish is one that I’d happily order and eat again. If I were going to pick out a reasonable selection for you to go and try? Get the beef tendons, expand your horizons, get the green beans, they’re amazing. Then get the potstickers, the siu mai, the prawn har gow, and one of the rice noodle rolls. Then see if your group is still hungry.

Dim Sum literally means “to lightly touch the heart”, though in context means “to lightly fill the stomach”. Let’s just say that depends on how much you’re ordering. At Royal Mansion, it could also mean, “to lightly empty the wallet”. I do love dim sum, but at these prices it’s going to be more of an occasional treat.