Today I had dim sum for lunch at Lake Pavilion in Flushing, Queens. This was the first time I had dim sum at an authentic dim sum restaurant since COVID started - and it was definitely a different experience than the traditional, pre-covid dim sum experience.

Traditionally at dim sum, metal carts filled with the delicious dim sum dishes are pushed throughout the restaurant with the women pushing the carts shouting the names of the dishes in Chinese for you to select what you would like to order.

Today’s experience was different for a few reasons (in the order of experience):

1. We were seated outside in a tent set up in the parking lot of Lake Pavilion Restaurant, which is the new norm in NYC for outdoor dining.

2. We were served with disposable paper goods - paper plates, disposable wooden chopsticks. However what was very different to me, was that instead of tea cups, we were given mini paper cups for tea (similar to the ones that you get for sampling drinks or from a water dispenser at the doctor’s office).

3. We ordered our dishes by finding the item we wanted on the paper menu and writing the # of that dish that we wanted, rather than selecting the food from the carts directly. I have seen this done at some smaller (less traditional, Americanized) dim sum restaurants, but not at traditional dim sum restaurants. However, this does reduce the dishes from being exposed to the germs, and it would also be difficult to get the carts to and from the restaurant kitchen and the parking lot.

4. Some of the dishes were even served in plastic to go boxes instead of plates or traditional dim sum trays

While this was a different experience, the food was just as delicious as normal and definitely hit the spot! I am glad the restaurants were able to open while adhering to the COVID-19 safety precautions! I was really worried that dim sum would be lost to COVID - that is one thing i am happy to be wrong about and can’t wait to go back for more!