Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown

Wanting to find some all-day Dim Sum places, I decided to do a search online and found the oldest Dim Sum parlor in NYC, the Nom Wah Tea Parlor.  It is located on Doyers Street.  A small and windy side street off of Pell Street.  The obscured street sign sits behind an old tenement's fire escape, and unless you look really carefully, you will surely miss it.

Now, let me first say I am fairly new to Dim Sum.  The only other place I have been to  has been a restaurant in Flushing named Asian Jewels on 39th Avenue.  I must admit I really enjoyed the food there.  There were a few things I could have done without like the long wait for a table and  then the Maitre D' assuming we would be fine with sharing a table with another party.  The restaurant was extremely noisy and the carts passing by every few minutes were an appreciated novelty at first, but in a short time, the inability to communicate with the waitstaff rolling the carts became a nuisance.  The other thing was I felt pressured to take what they wanted to give me rather than what I really wanted.  The ladies with the carts were for the most part impatient, and were very pushy when it came to promoting their dishes.  There was a certain sense of chaos suffocating the atmosphere.  At times, it was difficult to get anyone's attention to refill your glass with water or to order any soft drinks.  They basically just plop your tea pot on the table, and you are left to fend for yourself until it is time to pay.  However, I will state that the restaurant was very nicely decorated and the dining rooms were quite large.

You can now imagine my surprise when we walked into Nom Wah Tea Parlor and were seated right away.

In fact, the restaurant had plenty of available tables.  We chose the small one by the window so we could watch people as they walked along Doyers Street.  The decor of the place was not very impressive, but the place was quaint and reminiscent of a diner of the 1950's.  We were handed a menu on a single sheet with check boxes by a very pleasant young man who spoke perfect English.  On the menu, you had to indicate which items you wanted brought out.  Instead of the carts, all items were made to order.  This was a nice change of pace because everything was hot, not warm, and the freshness was very noticeable.  I was amazed at the tastes and textures of each dish as well as the portion sizes.  The roast pork buns were HUGE!  The sticky rice in the bamboo leaves were also very large.  I would dare say twice the size as the ones at Asian Jewels.  Because of this, we ended up ordering less dishes and spent about half what we would have at Asian Jewels.  The steamed spare ribs were a really nice surprise since they were actually made with real green peppers and onions, as well as, black beans and mushrooms.

After our meal, the young man who first took our order asked us how our  meal was.  It was a genuine request instead of the usual pleasantry when they don't even wait for you to answer as they zoom by your table while rushing somewhere else.  Overall, whenever I am in the mood for Dim Sum again, I will be returning to the Nom Wah Tea Parlor even if it means a long subway ride from Queens.  It is undeniable that the quality of the food was superior and the friendliness of the people here, made it a very nice and laid back experience.  No one gave us any indication that we needed to rush or that we needed to continually order something in order to sit longer.  In my book, the Nom Wah Tea Palor definitely gets two thumbs up!