Foo Lam Chinese Restaurant

Two hours later we canceled our delivery order :(I wouldn’t wish this hell on anyone. They called us 2 hours later to say it would be another 20 minutes, they hadn’t left yet. Wish I could judge based on the food but we could have a pizza delivered in that time. You lost our business and they should lose yours too! Ruined our night waiting so long !! You should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves!!!

The dim sum here seemed pretty standard to me and wasn’t bad. I was able to order the usual items and everything was steaming hot which is a plus. Still wouldn’t call this the best dim sum of Seattle, but it reasonably good for the price. I would come here again.

Ordered delivery tonight via phone. Hot n sour soup, chicken chow mein, cold scallion ginger chicken. All tasted pretty good, but then i confirmed what uh oh looked like a breathing hole, lifted a piece of chopped chicken and then i was totally grossed out and lost my appetite. Uh uh no chopped chicken head for me. I was not expecting that on a delivery order. Guess im just not asian enough. No thanks.

We were the only ones in the entire restaurant tonight, which was kind of nice considering my family is a bit crazy. Overall, nothing really stood out, sadly I would have to say it was mediocre. Plus side, I got some dope pictures of my STi. #winning

I went here on Easter so I expected it to be busy and the wait ended up being 30 minutes. The thing they do is if you have a larger party of five or more you are more likely to be seated first because they have a lot of big tables. So if I come back I’m definetly going to bring the whole family so we will get seated faster. Food wise the egg tart and black sesame balls were my favorite. The shu Mai was okay. Some of my dishes were cold but some were hot, not consistent. All the food is super big. We ended up ordering 9 dishes and it was thirty one dollars so not bad pricing.

Finally decided to try, ordered 3 different dishes to go, had 5 bites. Very very fatty and chewy meat. Disappointed on all fronts with the food. Nice people thou.

Came for dim sum. No Bueno. We had all of the standard items: pork buns, siu Mai, shrimp dumplings, chicken feet, eggplant, shrimp noodle, sticky rice… Food wise everything seemed day old and not fresh. Not very flavorful. We were there early, but in the hour we were there it was the same 3 carts roaming around. Service was not attentive, they forgot our water and never refilled our super tiny teapot. I would not recommend this for dim sum.

Food is okay. But the delivery is slow and I will never even order delivery again. I think I will only dine in.

I just seen a mouse run across the restaurant floor wtf — never again!!! I thank my husband for dragging me here smh

I haven’t been for Dimsum yet but their dinner service is great. Good prices, portions and awesome food. My faves are the mixed seafood tofu hotpot and the honey garlic spareribs. They also do some great Peavines with garlic and Cantonese style fried chicken. Live seafood tank is a huge plus! They do buckets of brews (6) for just 12 bucks during their happy hour (3 to 6). I wish I lived closer to this place. Just as good if not better than any of the restaurants in Chinatown without the headache of trying to find a parking spot. I have never had bad service here. They are always efficient and they keep your glasses filled! Try to go with a big group so you can try as many dishes as possible! If you like southern Chinese grub this is a great spot to check out!

Favorites and variety. I came here with friends on a Sunday morning. At 10:30a there were plenty of open tables, by 11:30a it was jam packed. High table turnover rate so the food seemed quite fresh and there were lots of dishes I didn’t recognize. Carts came by tables at a pretty fast pace, and service refilling tea pots was good.
I wouldn’t consider this destination dim sum, but if you are anywhere in the general area, this is an excellent choice. Free parking is pretty easy at the mall lot in front and behind the restaurant along with neighborhood street parking.

I’ve eaten here on several occasions, but have yet to experience the dim sum weekend. I love dim sum.
This review would be 4 stars because I really do love this place, but the delivery is what drags it down a star making it 3. I’m ok with a half hour late delivery — I was expecting it to be really late, to be honest. However, the order for my husband was completely wrong.
It’s hard to find vegetarian dishes for hubby… and it was really hard to find vegetarian noodles for him. Ordered what appeared to be a vegetarian noodle dish — turns out it was with a hefty portion of shrimp and razor clams. I ended up eating his noodles in addition to my won ton noodle dish.
Food was good and tasty, but the way the menu is organized on Unilocal Eat24 makes it difficult to discern which things can me made vegetarian.
Overall I think we have to keep this as a dine in establishment and not a delivery one.

Went for Dim Sum 11÷15÷15. Initially stood around waiting to be seated for what seemed like an eternity. Once seated the dim sum carts came through very quickly. All the usual fair and it was good, and hot. Servers were friendly and accommodating. It a bit off the beaten track from ID but decent Dim Sum, friendly service and decent price.

lunch
food: the thing i got away from this is the portion size of each order. more is not always better. however in this case, its decent. the dumplings are noticeably bigger than most dim sum joints. for me, i rather order a few other items than to have more of the same. the elderly people love it. ***3/​5
service: pretty typical. the people seems to know everybody, which is nice for some people. to me, i didnt know anybody and i was all aggro that theyre not coming my way. dont talk to me when im hungry. after i attacked the first cart then i dont care who you talk to. it was busy, but we were still able to grab a seat as soon as we got in. ***3/​5
value: given the portion sizes, this is cheap in comparison. however, if youre the type to try everything, this place might be limiting. smaller eaters can probably be full from one order of shui mai. ***4/​5

I know Asian restaurants always have pretty bad customer service, but this is really awful. My family and I stopped by on our way up to Seattle. I ordered cashew shrimp thinking it was walnut shrimp after being so under pressure to order, then realized I ordered the wrong dish and they were unwilling to fix it. Horrible experience and salt and pepper calamari was not great

***This review is only for Foo Lam’s weekend dim sum***
Having lived in Hong Kong for a decade, one thing I really miss is good dim sum. While I have yet to find anywhere in Greater Seattle that is comparable to my favorite Hong Kong yum cha spots, this is a good «local» dim sum spot with good portions at reasonable prices. It is located in a strip mall along MLK, so do not expect anything fancy. The poh-​ney tea is strong and the dim sum comes out in push carts, just the way I like it. They have most of the standard dishes one would expect, such as har gau, siu mai, lo mai gai, pai gwat, lo bah koh, fung jau, ja haa yuen, char siu bau, dan tat, etc. Unfortunately, no char siu sou. The dishes are authentic and the taste is well above average. Largely Asian/​Chinese clientele from surrounding Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley provides added street cred. The place is lively and gets filled quickly on weekends, though the wait is never long. Parking during weekends can be a pain, but this is probably your best alternative in the South End to Chinatown/​ID (weekend lines get crazy) or schlepping over to the Eastside.
Take comfort in the fact that I am Asian, so no need to apply the customary «g-​lo» ratings discount.

I’ve never eaten at the restaurant, I’ve always ordered their food online. Something always goes wrong and the people who work there never care about it affecting you. Today I ordered food and 30 mins later I received a call saying that they couldn’t get me my food because their internet was down. Instead of saying that they would help me out all they said was that they couldn’t get good to me, thanks. Won’t be ordering from them again, the service is always awful, even if the food is good.
Last time: I don’t even have my food yet after 1 hour and 15 minutes. So I call and the guy who answers on the phone is giving me attitude and being impatient. It was the first time I ordered from here. At least the food is good and the delivery person was nice.

Cheap, clean, compared to Jade Garden this place is a home run. Get their Liu Sha Bao, for that duck yoke deliciousness.

In between a 2.5/3stars.
I’ll start with the good first, the customer service was decent and helped us serve quickly and the way they keep track of what we ordered was organized.
The food was okay-​good, but not the best dim sum place I’ve been too. The table’s a little sticky too, it could have a little clean up and redecorating.
Food was good in the beginning, but as more people came in and got more busy, they rushed their food a lot more and when we got some of our food, it was unfortunately, raw.
The reason I’m giving close to a 3stars is because the employees took it back and gave us 2 new ones without an extra charge, they at least tried to help and was kind enough to give us a free one. But then again, 10 minutes later, we got another bowl of food, and the shrimp was raw. Totally lost my appetite. Shouldn’t happen twice. Overall, if they spend more time cooking it, It’d be better.

Surprised to see only 16 reviews on this place. Basically a larger hole in wall place that serves authentic Cantonese food. The owners appear to be Cantonese Chinese from Vietnam. Cantonese food is not my current favourite but I find the three dishes we ordered to hit the spot. The lamb hotpot was very tasty with depth of flavor that is not easily found. It did have some chips of lamb bone which unfortunately is very much part of its authenticity. The Chinese love to hack their meat to pieces whether it be lamb or chicken. Don’t order this if you can’t deal with bone chips in your meal.
The Chinese broccoli was well done. Can’t be much skill to this but then again I have had some bad Chinese brocolli.
The house special stir fry was chives with Chinese sausage. My least favourite of the three but it was tasty and both the chives and sausage imparted its unique flavor. All in all a great meal. Wish I came here with a bigger group so that I can sample more dishes

So happy I live close by. I left fat and happy.
I will be back. I will bring friends. BBQ pork thank you good nite.

Currently my favorite Chinese restaurant. I saw it in the Seattle Times and Foo Lam is one of the top five restaurants. Wow. Hot steamy dim sum just like in the picture.
We went for lunch. Big Siu Mai, shrimp balls, and tasty Lo Mai Gai. Mixed in with items I had not tried before, like baked snow buns and fried Fun Gor.
I’ll definitely be back to try dinner.

The food is not bad & we had good service. I wouldn’t say this place has awesome dim sum, but it is decent. I like the fact that they serve dim sum from the cart & the place is a pretty good size.

The food was fine; one dish stood out, in fact.
But…I got sick a couple of hours later, and it was the only thing I had eaten by lunchtime that day :/​
I didn’t order anything unusual, and I didn’t find that the food was overly greasy either, so I’m not sure what happened.
When I went in, there was nobody in the restaurant. I was seated promptly and given a menu. It took a while to get my order taken but the food came out relatively quick. Atmosphere-​wise, it’s not my kind of place to eat. It’s big and has the Chinese banquet hall thing going on. It reminded me of Jumbo.
I ordered the squab and it looked and tasted really good. Shiny, roasted skin, well-​seasoned meat. Its little head peering at me as if to say, «Aren’t I delicious?» The long beans with garlic and peppers were fine, and the braised tofu’s sauce, while a little watery and too bland for me, wasn’t inedible.
Since I can get the equivalent squab in the ID, I don’t really see myself returning. You can never truly know what makes your tummy ill, so I guess I can just say to try it yourself if you have a large group you’re trying to feed and maybe a stronger stomach than I had that day.

Very solid dim sum, without the long lines that I’ve come to expect at some places in the ID. The buns tasted freshly baked/​steamed, and higher quality than other places around town. The sou mai were excellent and very juicy.
Overall, I think this place is a great place for dim sum and I’m happy I tried it out. Some of the earlier reviews I read here didn’t match my experience at all.

Dim sum here is just not great… After eating their food about two times now, it makes me feel so sick. Don’t get me wrong, I love dim sum but this restaurant just doesn’t cut it.

I don’t have the heart to give a new local business 1 star, but my family and I had a really bad experience. To start, my mom called ahead to order a special dish and the woman she talked to said it would be fine. When we got there, no one knew what my mom was talking about and then they said they couldn’t/didn’t make it. Ok, fine… we can still eat dinner, no problem.
We ordered 6 dishes, and they were all incredibly OILY. This is the kind of stuff that gives Chinese food a bad name. I couldn’t eat much besides my rice and some vegetables. The worst dish was the «steamed eggplant.» If it was steamed, why the heck was it sitting in a pool of oil? Why??? I didn’t even touch it because I was so disturbed. Even one of the waitresses looked at it and said «aiyaaaa.»
Another dish we tried was the seafood bird’s nest, which traditionally is a mix of seafood and veggies in a «nest» made with deep fried noodles. There was no nest — it was some sort of deep fried wafer bowl, but it actually wasn’t a bad alternative. However, I took one bite of shrimp and almost spit it out because it was loaded with white pepper. No thanks.
This particular night, there was a huge reservation where the party booked 10 tables, and that is great for them, but the tables and chairs were completely crowded together. It’s like they didn’t really think it through, and it felt like our table was right in the middle of this party. We were so close to the table next to us that there were constantly people squeezing in behind me and children screaming in my ear.
After all this nonsense, our bill came out to $ 103… yes, $ 103 for 6 dishes at a non-​fancy Chinese restaurant on MLK.
To be fair, I haven’t heard anything bad about the dim sum, but I am not that tempted to go back.

Went in for dim sum today. Food was fresh and hot. They had some selections I had not seen around Seattle before.
Was pretty crowded but service was still fast and staff is friendly.
Will be stopping by for dinner soon to check that out.