Iron Teapot

Dim sum for dinner

Have you ever seen such thin lo bac guo slices? Also where's the diced shrimp or whatever the vegan equivalent is? (maybe a preserved vegetable of some sort?)

Char shu is also sliced way thin. Skimpy portions appear to be the thing here.

Lo mai gai were the only normal portion.

Even the gai lan portion is skimpy. Thwy were also on the verge of being overcooked-- but not quite!

The spread. This, beer, char shu, lo bac guo, cold cucumber was over $100 after tip. o_0

Only TWO char shu bao??

And THREE shu mai? Not four?

Har gow were well done but again only three in a steamer is pretty sad.

Beef tripe, another small portion. They did an okay job tho.

Cold cucumber, not bad, was still hungry.

Outdoor decor. Made a dumpy part of Culver City look good.

Dim sum for dinner is a bit weird, but for Iron Teapot's soft opening, dinner's all they're doing in their surprisingly nice space on a dumpy bit of Venice Blvd. Heck the concept of dim sum in Culver City or west LA is odd in itself.

Food was okay to pretty good, kind of surprised they did an okay job with the beef tripe, better than the char siu (which was sliced way too thin and had too much sauce). Some items were done vegan or vegetarian which meant the flavors weren't quite right, but for the most part they worked well enough. Main knock was two-fold: westside pricing, which you kind of have to let slide.

But the second half was harder to forgive when you factored in the first: portions were skimpy. Three har gow or shu mai instead of four in a basket (or even 5, as some places do in 626)??? Two char shu bao? Tripe portion was about two-thirds the normal size. Even the gai lan portion looked about half the usual. Given I was out with coworkers this meant it was either leave hungry or have a damned expensive meal.