Winsor Dim Sum Café

The only place in Boston that makes Liu Sha Bao (runny/​molten sweet salty egg yolk bun) right. One of the best places for Chi Zhi Feng Zhao (steamed chicken feet), the meat falls right off the bone and melts in your mouth. Very cheap like other dim sum restaurants. The seasoning/​saltiness is lacking a little bit for me in general, but I suspect it’s because the cook is truly Cantonese and I’m more used to the northern palate.

I didn’t recommend to anyone this place. The food is not bad but the service of that place is totally crap. Very poor customer service!!! They don’t know how to treat costumer. Totally crap place… Never ever go again that shitty place !!!

Food is average. No better than China Pearl. Waiters are ignorant and rude. It had been more than once that I ordered something that was not served but still on check. Pls do check before u pay. FYI, they do not accept credit cards any more. Cash only. Such an inconvenience.

The best dim sum! They have dim sum all day :’) The xiao long bao was perfect! And the mango pudding was so yummy. We went really early at 9am, and there was no wait. Very delicious! I highly recommend!

Dim sum baby! Here is where you’ll find the best that Greater Boston currently offers.
To everyone that has no idea what dim sum is — PERFECT. You must try this. Dim sum is basically Chinese brunch, most famous in Hong Kong. You’ll find lots of steamed tapa-​style (3 – 5 pieces) dishes here, with a focus on rice flour and dumplings/​buns. Therefore, the taste is fairly light, but don’t let that discourage you — some of these dishes can also pack a wallop to your taste buds (spare ribs, I’m lookin’ at chu).
So out of all the numerous dim sum places, why this one you say? First, it’s a la carte. Therefore, FRESH. First timers, you may be reading this with confusion, as how else would a restaurant serve food? That’s cause a novelty of most dim sum restaurants is bringing out the dishes in carts, and you point the dish you want as they are wheeled around the restaurant. Definitely a fun experience, but it can cause stale food if the cart has been around the block a couple of times and is more of an annoyance for pro-​dimsumers like myself, as I hate waiting and hailing a cart can be as difficult as getting a taxi in NYC. You don’t have these issues here at Winsor. Second, it’s tasty AF. You know a place is good when it’s a tiny hole in the wall, and has been in business for years. On Sunday, there’s a hefty wait, so I would recommend getting there as soon as they open to nab a seat. Otherwise, wait around –the turnover time for dimsum is fast. Plus, you’ll have the option of being seated faster by sharing a large round table with complete strangers — how’s that for table conversation?
Lastly, the food. Oh joyous, heavenly shrimp dumplings. These round bags of joy are my baes. I get them wherever I can, and I have to say, Winsor does them well. The rice flour skin is moist, and just the right thickness. The shrimp filling inside is large, chewy, tasty. No qualms here. I recommend most of the other dim sum staples — chicken feet (TRY IT), pork spare ribs, shrimp rice roll (delicious and a must for first timers), pan fried turnip cake (another must) and shu mai (pork and shrimp dumpling). Those are my go to, and if I feel hungry, I expand and go for some of the fried items (fried shrimp ball, yum!) or other steamed items (Cha Siu Bao AKA Steamed Pork BBQ Bun also hits the spot!). You can’t go wrong with most of these items, so have fun, and explore the different dishes! They even have a laminated menu with pictures for people unfamiliar with the dish /​name, how helpful!

I wouldn’t recommend this place to anybody. Both the service and the food.
After putting our names on the waiting list, the reception told us that we could wait outside and she would definitely call our names outside when it’s our turn and it would take approximately 20 minutes. We trusted her and waited roughly about 20 minutes only see people coming inside. Then we turned back to the reception to ask how much more time would it take. The reception became impatient while she checked back and saw our names already passed, but she said to us angrily, «I can’t say one or two minutes, if it’s your turn, they I will let you know okay? Just wait!» Well, obviously she never reached out for customers.
The food is weird as well. It’s NOT dim sum! The flavors were not right and it’s obvious that they were not well cooked. Please don’t try steamed sausage vermicelli roll. It’s not what vermicelli roll should be, just bun like stuff with sausage.
The environment is doubtful too. I saw crock roach happily crawling on the wall while we were eating.
I really have no idea how this restaurant reached somehow such a relatively high reputation and popularity… maybe it’s just going down after becoming famous, just as many other places.

I give this place its props for having «all day» dimsum but I came in yesterday (at around 6pm) mainly for two items: the chinese fried dough in rice noodle and the deep fried pork dumplings. i was disappointed that apparently the chinese fried dough in rice noodles is only offered during lunch time, according to the guy that took my order. and the deep fried pork dumplings were practically miniature sized compared to the ones at hei la moon. I also wanted the baked roast pork buns but that was clearly noted on the menu that it was only available during the weekend. i also saw that they didn’t offer crab claws… okay, so dim sum items were a disappointment. other than that, I ordered the beef pan fried noodles and the beef chow foon. They were alright, I’ve had better.
All in all, probably won’t be frequenting this restaurant again unless I was REALLY craving dim sum during off-​dimsum hours.

best all day dimsum in chinatown. yes yes sit down at 9pm and go to town. If you are going to get dim sum and don’t order at least like 5 items per person, I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to accomplish with your dim sum experience.
The food here is a solid 3.5 stars, it’s open pretty late and they serve dim sum all day. price is pretty cheap and they give you some nice luke warm tap water when you ask. All in all you can’t fault this place on anything really, so it gets a nice 5 stars in my book for what it is trying to accomplish.
Stick to the dim sum here, although the entrees are surprisingly actually pretty damn decent. Food aint gonna wow you here but youre gonna get what you came for.

Pro: dim sum is good quality and super tasty
Cons: receiving 50% incorrect items in our to-​go order, getting yelled at by the bossy and rude cashier lady for asking a question about the menu, and getting shoved by other customers who are all squeezing in the doorway to wait for a table… as if that’s going to get them seated any faster.
Granted, it’s an Asian restaurant, so I’m not surprised to receive unfriendly service, but I would at least expect them to get our order correct. And it wasn’t as if they mixed up similar items — half of the stuff we got was completely random and not even close to what we wanted (i.e. we ordered 流沙包, a dessert bun with sweet filling, and got something akin to crab rangoon).
I’ll give them 2 stars because the (incorrect) food was nonetheless delicious, but I’m definitely not coming back anytime soon. Not worth the hassle of dealing with mean waitresses if I’m not likely to get what I’m craving.

I hear this is one of the better dim sum places in Boston, but most of the food did not leave me super satisfied. I actually thought the dim sum in Philly’s Chinatown was better. Overall, there was a fishy taste to the majority of the dishes that overwhelmed the flavors. The seafood also did not taste especially fresh. I still came out of here full though and the prices were extremely fair.
I’ll probably come here once more to try and ordering a different set of dishes.

Just as others on Unilocal have commented the food is ok but the service is horrible. We walked in and were asked to wait. Two girls walked in about a minute after us and started speaking in another language to the guy working there and they got seated right away. Not sure if it was because they were Asian and we weren’t but that’s not good customer service at all. The food was just ok. I’ve had better dim sum. I’m sure there is better dim sum in Boston somewhere.

Oh yes, oh yes, finally a GOOD dim sum place! I have not reviewed any dim sum places (not in NYC, not in Philly), because I never knew what to say about them. Dim sum is just dim sum – usually no one does it EXCEPTIONALLY well in the States, and it’s also usually hard to screw up.
Winsor was a delight when I visited yesterday. Our group of three visited around 7:40PM on a Sunday and got seated with no wait. I love, love, love, that Winsor serves dim sum all day. Usually places only do dim sum for lunch.
We ordered shrimp dumplings, shrimp and chive dumplings, spare ribs, beef chang fun (no idea what this is in English), char sui buns, shumai, and some seafood porridge.
What I love about the dim sum at Winsor is that it’s not oily! It’s amazing. Usually dim sum is so oily, especially the spare ribs. The spare ribs here were large, and not completely soaked in grease. Everything else tasted super «clean» as well, though I did bite down on some shrimp shells in the shrimp and chive dumplings.
I think the experience at Winsor was really great and I would be happy to come back here for dim sum. Our bill came out to be $ 33 pre tip and we were all quite full. any of the dishes come in sets of threes (three dumplings or three pork buns, for example), so plan accordingly with your group.
The place is pretty small, so be prepared to wait on the weekends during lunch hours.

I came here with a for up of 6 for brunch on a sat. I don’t eat a lot of Dim Sum but I really enjoyed what we had. $ 136 and there was more food than we could have ever ate. All left stuffed. No reservations and it is very small. Service was fast and attentive. I would go again.

Food was horrible! Their dimsum items did not taste fresh, and the meat in the Yang Chow fried rice looked disgusting. I was also disappointed by their service; I called them numerous times to ask for a spoon but they never paid attention. Never ever coming back here again!

Again, not as great as dim sum places in HK but I guess it’ll do until I get on that long plane ride across the country.
Get the salted egg yolk buns (which was my favorite by far), bbq pork buns, and milk custard buns. If you like, go for the pan friend turnip cakes in XO sauce. It was alright.
The other dishes we got probably could’ve been skipped over.

This is my go to dim sum place for during the week when in Boston. It’s small, the food is very good, and during the week around lunchtime, it’s always easy to get a seat.
They do not take AMEX so bring anything else or cash, but the dim sum is some of the best I’ve had in the area (Bubor Cha Cha is more authentic).
I have not been on the weekend but imagine the crowd is pretty substantial so check them out if in town.

It is small and there are no carts, but that doesn’t take away from the experience. Me personally actually like the fact I can just order everything I want at once. The menu has pretty much anything you would want to get at a dim sum place and the price is reasonable. 3.95 for every dish. We ate way too much. I like it more than the China Pearl across the road.

This place probably deserves 3.5 stars, but I feel better about giving it a 3 rather than a 4. It’s just your typical, run-​of-​the-​mill dim sum shop that will suffice until you can get out of Boston and get some of that «dayum» dim sum. My girlfriend and I came here last night and ordered about 5 dim sum plates and 1 beef with broccoli rice plate. The dim sum plates were shrimp and spinach dumplings, turnip cakes, spare ribs in black bean sauce, shrimp rice noodles, and another dish that must have been too mediocre for me to remember.
Dim Sum Dishes ($ 3.50 each)
1. Shrimp and spinach dumplings: Pretty tasty with fairly large shrimp chunks, but only 3 dumplings
2. Turnip cakes: Again, pretty tasty but would have been nice if they could crisp the outside a little more. Also, I prefer soy sauce over hoison sauce with these (good thing they had soy sauce on the table!)
3. Spare ribs in black bean sauce: Great flavor, but extremely small portions. Just a handful of tiny ribs that were largely just bones.
4. Shrimp rice noodles: Nondescript. Not much flavor and lacked sauce. Texture was also lacking as it lumped together into one uncut noodle.
5. Don’t remember: because everything else was meh, I’ll say this one was meh too.
The beef with broccoli was what really filled me up. It comes as a heaping plate of rice with a decent amount of beef (tender… so tender there wasn’t really any texture…), carrots, and broccoli. I think this was probably the best deal as it was only $ 7.
After all these mediocre reviews of their plates, would I come back here again? Absolutely. Gotta get my dim sum from somewhere.

First Dim Sum experience. Definitely not the last! I am SO sad this place is so far away from us, CT doesn’t really have any good places for dim sum. It is this tiny tiny restaurant that was JAM packed when we got there, and all for good reason. The food is out of this world, I think we went overboard and ordered 8 different dishes to share, but all were so tasty. They also have veggie dim sum for us vegetarians, woohoo! I wish I saved the receipt so I could have remembered the names of our dishes, but we had a shrimp steamed dumpling, vegetable rice noodles, sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf, fried shrimp, and a few other items. All I’m saying is you need to go here if you’re in Chinatown for the best dim sum ever.

Convenient location right next to a boba place. The food here is pretty good. Although some of the food for example the chicken feet, is plain compared to the other places. But the other food is pretty bomb diggity. The wait wasn’t long at all. We got seated right when we got into the place.
There’s no carts that roll around like the traditional Dimsum places but I prefer to order on a piece of paper and the menu has pictures of the food so you know what you’ll get if you’re new.
The only downside is that the utensils were kinda dirty. But just wipe it with a napkin haha

I love love this restaurant.
Granted the décor isn’t the best, it serves Dim Sum but doesn’t have the carts, it is a small tight spaced restaurant but gee it is a great great dim sum place.
I am from Hong Kong and have tried dim sum in many many locations and I can confidently say that this restaurant is the best dim sum place in Boston. The wait time is around 20 – 30 minutes and is a testament to its popularity with the Chinese locals. I recommend trying the staple dishes of dim sum and overlooking its small tight spaced setup for its quality.
Great find! Highly Recommend!

Small tight spaced restaurant. The wait can be pretty long but you can always share tables. Prices are reasonable so you’ll be able to pretty much try every dish from the order paper.
The orders are made to order so its piping hot! You MUST TRY Pan Fried White Turnip Cake w/​XO sauce, its my favorite. The spare ribs and rice noodles is really good. At the end of your meal get the egg tart, it’s so fresh and the best! If not, go next door to the bakery that is connected to get your egg tart because it still tastes amazing.

I’ve been going to this dim sum place ever since it has been opened, and all of my past experiences has been great. Until my visit earlier this day, I found not one but two pieces of hair on our food. It wasn’t even like thin or anything like that– anyone could see it from far away. I don’t even want to describe it right now. It’s just simply disgusting. I’m surprised our waiter did not even see those hairs! and to served it to us? We asked for another plate of shrimp dumplings but now I’m still very skeptical of their food. This is my first time I’ve encounter this and hopefully it’ll be the last.
I really like going to this dim sum place. I particularly enjoy their mini house dumplings with soup inside and you get to dip it in red vinegar sauce. I also like their turnip cake, congee, those thin shrimp wraps! Which is why I can’t really give it a 1 star.
I wish they would train their staffs to be more cautious and self-​aware. I’m not sure if i will come back or not. Don’t get me wrong– I enjoy their food but I hope you find this review helpful!

No fuss no muss! Winsor is a great place to go on the cheap and on the delish!
We shared a table with others, and had about a 10 minute wait. No big deal.
At only a few dollars a dish, you can try something new. Or not! I tried the soup dumplings and was in love. We also ordered pan scallion pancakes, pork & shrimp dumplings, roasted pork bun, and spring rolls. I have no complaints. It was great.
A bit hard to flag down staff for drinks, but it’s part of the experience. That’s my excuse.

Delicious food at reasonable prices. Was disappointed that there were no soup dumplings available but I did arrive later on in the day. For less than 30 dollars my party of 2 had plenty of food. I will return in the future!

As dim sum places go, this place is no frills. It’s a pretty tight space, and like many other restaurants in Chinatown, you may find yourself sharing a table with other patrons. No big deal, but try not to eavesdrop, bro.
The prices are super reasonable. Each dim sum plate averages about $ 3.50. There’s no dim sum cart; instead, you order off of a paper menu, not unlike at a sushi place. They gots all the good stuff, but unless you speak Cantonese/​Mandarin (sorry, I don’t know which they’re speaking and Chinese is not the right word), you probably won’t get to ask a lot of detailed questions. So, not for the finicky eater who needs to know all about the ingredients. Just go. Just dim sum.
Highlights: soup dumplings, red bean custard, and beef balls. Nomnomnom.

Satisfying dim sum.
I was craving one of my favorite meals and decided to try a new place. I had a satisfying Saturday brunch at Winsor. There was a short line, but we were a small group and got sat immediately at a shared table. No carts, but on the plus side, all the dishes arrived extremely fresh and hot from the kitchen.
Service was fast and attentive and the food was not bad, though some dishes were definitely better than others. Shiao mai, my favorite, were unfortunately a bit below average. While piping hot, they were too salty and not juicy enough. My other favorite, the tofu skin rolls were great. The sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf (aka Chinese tamales) were good. The har gow shrimp dumplings were fine. The fried shrimp balls were not bad, but had what seemed like a slightly stale crunch. The slippery rice noodle wraps were slightly on the soft side. Overall, I had a satisfying meal, so I’m being somewhat nitpicky.
I’d be happy to go back.

I love going here for dim sum because it’s intimate and the service is great. It’s located up the stairs on Tyler street and there aren’t many tables so like a typical dim sum restaurant you’re normally seated with others at a larger table.
The menu usually has every small dish you could ask for. My go-to’s are pork buns, shrimp rice noodles and some fried sesame balls. You just write in the quantity on the menu and they’ll bring it out pretty quickly. Staff is great and quick to bring you tea and water! Wouldn’t recommend this dim sum place for larger groups — try empire palace instead.

Used to bring my coworkers to this spot whenever we craved dim sum. I like Winsor over the other dim sum options in Chinatown because the food here taste fresher and slightly better. Their service is slow though and once you order from the menu, it’ll take forever to get seconds. So if you know what you like and can check off the list of food they give you in the beginning, come here for dim sum! Otherwise, go across the street to the other big ones where they roll the carts around and you can point at the food you want.
The place can get crowded, so it is smart to send someone ahead to try to get a table. If you stand around long enough, they’ll sit you down.

Winsor Dim Sum Café while great in concept falls short on execution. Menu order dim sum that you can get at all times of the day and night? Sounds great right? The convenience of Winsor is one of the highlights. However the menu ordering just isn’t the same. Part of the dim sum experience is the carts and not knowing what’s coming. The dim sum cart pushers aren’t going to try to sell their items to you here and you may be missing out on something great because you don’t see it. Menu ordering is also tough because there are a lot of great dim sum items and many can be found on the menu here. Even during the middle of the week there can be 50+ dim sum items.
The food itself is pretty good. It’s not the same level as dim sum in the middle of a busy weekend rush (we came for dinner). Dumpling skins were chewy indicating they were probably sitting around too long that day, or maybe longer. Either that or they were over cooked. The fillings were really good though. My favorite was the spicy salty squid. This was fresher than other items we ordered, had great flavors and wasn’t chewy.
Price wise, it’s a bargain, especially for dinner. We had 6 dishes for 26 $ (tax included). Most dishes are $ 3.45 while specials like the squid could cost more. This was a lot of food for 2 people.
I would stick to dim sum during the brunch rush unless having a night craving just so you can get it at it’s peak freshness.

I was dying for some dim sum and found this place on Unilocal Nd we ended to try it out.
When we showed up, at 11 AM on a Sunday, there was a 35 min wait. I put my name on the list and decided to go find some coffee. By the time, we came back, the lady had already called my name and we were only gone for 15 mins. In other words, don’t leave the premise. The lady was nice enough to put us back on the list and we were next in line.
My buddies and I were seated at a large table and we shared the table with other people. At first I was a little skeptical about this, but we had fun with the the other guests there.
The cool thing about his place is that all dim sum is made to order and is pretty fresh. We went a little overboard with ordering food so I’ll just like the, out but what you need to order, what’s alright, and don’t waste your time.
You have to order: 1) turnip cake in XO sauce, bean curd stuffed with bamboo, rice rolls stuffed w/​beef, tripe, Chinese sausage Bao, and baby boy choy,
It’s ok: eggplant stuffed with shrimp, siu Mai, scallion pancakes, and xiao long Bao
Don’t waste your $: BBQ Bao and beef balls
I would definitely come back for those things I listed under «things you need to order».
Yummy!!!