Shanghai Lil to Offer Dim Sum

For the uninitiated, Dim Sum means "heart's delight" in Cantonese, and consists of a bunch of small dishes with lots of different little dumplings and buns. It's served at lunch, where a constant stream of servers comes by your table with wheeled carts heaped with different items. You pick what looks good, and then they put it on your table and mark your little tally sheet to indicate what you've selected. If you don't like anything on one cart, no matter: the next server will be along in a few minutes with completely different offerings. There are always more dishes I want than I can actually fit into my stomach, which is why Dim Sum is most fun with a larger group of people so you can order as many different items as possible.

Lil's will do it a little differently--you order off of a menu and they'll bring it out to you. This is a disappointment in that you can't window shop first, but probably better from a made-to-order perspective. Among Lil's 40-odd choices, you can pick from such delicacies as stuffed eggplant, spring roll, shrimp crepe, and pork pot stickers. The more adventurous can sample jelly fish, five spice pork stomach, or spicy black bean anchovies with peanuts (sorry, no chicken feet). Prices are $2.50, $3.50, $4.50 or $6.50 (depending on size and/or complexity of each plate). Also available are a number of specials for $12.96 apiece. If business is good enough, they'll expand to Fridays (fingers crossed).

Directions

Shanghai Lil
8505 Keystone Crossing (the North side of 86th St, across from Keystone Grill where Peter's used to be)
205-9335