Dim sum at Beijing Opera

My friend D and I recently popped into new dim sum spot, Beijing Opera.  You’ll find it hidden away at the bottom of Rose St in De Waterkant, closer to the V&A Waterfront side:

As you’ll see from the photos below, it’s a seriously pretty spot inside.  I loved the bright colours and the big sharing style tables.  It certainly has a very fresh, modern feel to it:

They don’t have a liquor license, so unfortunately you can’t have a sneaky glass of wine with lunch, but they do sell these Aloe juices (R25) which are really refreshing and tasty:

To eat, their dim sum is split into steamed, buns & potstickers.  We tried the following:

Price wise I felt that it was a bit expensive.  I mean I’m used to paying only R40 for 8 pieces of dim sum at  I ♥ My Laundry and their dim sum’s pretty damn tasty.  Here you’re only getting half that for the same price or more.  Sure they’ve got a bigger selection of things, but still.

From the dim sum we sampled, we really loved the prawn & chives, the BBQ pork buns and the peanut & pork.  I’m guessing we also would have loved the pepper & chilli shrimp, but unfortunately they were out of those on the day.  Really wanted to give those a bash though.  We were not fans of the chicken potstickers (too bland) or the chicken sumai (very strange texture & taste).  But overall I thought their dim sum was quite tasty.

The one thing that really irked me though was that they don’t have card facilities, you can only pay in cash.  We weren’t prepared for this which meant we had to undergo a mission of finding an ATM somewhere to draw money and come back to pay.  I found that quite frustrating, so I’m passing on that info as a big heads up.

I’m really torn about this spot to be honest.  It’s super cute and the food is enjoyable yes, but the price, the cash only thing, and the service in general didn’t leave me super excited to go back.  I’m therefore going to split my Miss K Kiss-o-Meter scores as follows:

• Decor/ambience:  
• Food:  
• Price & service:  

If you wanna give them a test drive for yourself, take note of the following:

• Address:  The State House Building, 3-9 Rose Street, De Waterkant
• You can contact them on: 072 530 9654 or yang@beijingopera.co.za
• Opening Hours:
  • Tue to Thu from 10am to 4:30pm
  • Fri & Sat from 10am to 3pm
  • Closed on Sundays & Mondays

Anybody else been?  Thoughts?

xxx