Note to self. When looking to take NY family to a local, NJ dim sum/Chinese restaurant, come here! Qin Dynasty is good ol' fashion dim sum at its very finest and, as of this date, our NEW FAVORITE dim sum restaurant in NJ!
As we make our way through our own personal NJ dim sum trail, we have been to dim sum restaurants with more spacing, dim sum restaurants with less of a wait and dim sum restaurants located closer to our home, but the food at this restaurant is just simply MUCH better.
We came by on a brisk November Saturday morning at 11:45ish and, we took it as a good sign, but there were A LOT of cars in their parking lot already. Although the lot was smallish-looking, there were actually plenty of spots around the corner and in the back. To no one's surprise, the restaurant was bustling inside with parties waiting to be seated and also with take out orders. The restaurant isn't too big, but not small either and spacing is good between tables too. Thankfully, the wait for our party of 4 was only 10-15 minutes and by the time we left, there was no wait at all.
Once seated, IMMEDIATELY, I meant we didn't even situate our kids fully yet and BOOM a cart with dim sum dishes already rolled up to us. I LOVEEEEE IT. Food on the table in nanoseconds of getting our table. Didn't hurt that we were starving too. Service was fantastic throughout our time there because the restaurant isn't too big, so the carts circling around made their way to our table often. AND when there were certain dishes that we were looking for, but they didn't have it on the cart that was at our table, the cart ladies would kindly seek it out for us and bring it to us!!! Major brownie points there.
Qin Dynasty pretty much had every dim sum dish we wanted and all of the usual suspects, but, best of all, it was all really, really tasty. We've been to a few dim sum restaurants in NJ and some were meh and some were really good, but Qin definitely outranks them all with the variety and flavors. They had all of the typical rice rolls (beef, shrimp, roast pork), pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, pan fried turnip cake, spring rolls, chicken feet, beef balls, fish balls, spare ribs with black beans, shrimp and chive dumplings, pot stickers, Malay sponge cake - I can go on and on with more. AND, ALL of it was good. I didn't have a single complaint about flavor for any of them.
In addition, plenty of customers were ordering made to order kitchen items like pan fried noodles, fried rice dishes, etc, which we had a chance to try our 2nd time here, specifically the pan fried noodles. Sauce was tasty, but they drowned it way too much . Nevertheless, solid, but could have actually used less sauce.
It seems the cat has been out of the bag about Qin Dynasty for a long time as they seemingly have been in service for over a decade and by the look of their business they are clearly the top choice for many people for authentic Chinese food. The restaurant was poppin'. Let's just say, there is NO DOUBT we will be back for more. read more