Dim sum at Fifty One Chinese Kitchen

Fifty One

Culver City

The menu.

Clearly a fancy downtown Culver City place, as opposed to the typical 626 restaurant.

The steaming baskets here are ginormous.

Har gow. Not cheap, skins too thick, not quite there on the folds... but pretty decent execution for such a white-washed place.

Deep fried shrimp ball. Like the har gow and everything else, they're huge.

Sense of scale.

Fancy shu mai. Topped with truffle oil, mushroom, masago, uni, and plain. Fell apart when you eat them, not good.

Pai gut (pork spareribs). Not quite flavorful enough, but edible.

Lobster dumplings. Kind of meh, not enough flavor in lobster compared to shrimp or pork.

Dim sum in Culver City? Preposterous. Actually edible? Shocking. Horribly overpriced? Well. No surprise.

Har gow, shu mai, and lobster dumplings are all big and fat, and the execution is mostly sound. Flawed enough to still not be particularly good, with shu mai that fell apart as you ate them, and lobster (and lobster shell...) that isn't all that tasty a filling; it's more of a status item at $4 a piece when you buy 3. o_0

Dinner later at El Torito, had to have salad to make up for lunch... then time for Avengers: Endgame!