Diamond Rice

Authentic Chinese food. One of the best I town! At least if you order the right dishes!

When we first walked in a little before 7pm, it was very quiet with only two diners sitting by the open patio doors. I had to walk almost all the way to the back of the restaurant to find someone working there to seat us. As we looked over the menu, I couldn’t help but admire the interiors; definitely not what I expect when I go out to eat Chinese food or dim sum. Comfy designer chairs, detailed murals, HUGE square plates, and a giant hanging lamp. However, a conga line of Chinese tourists suddenly started coming in through the entrance and filled up the whole back room. This turned up the volume inside, in addition to the open patio doors letting in the noise from the street. The summer breeze was nice, but quite a few trucks and motorcycles enjoyed speeding through that street and I had to shout to speak a few times. To make things worse, some customers went out to smoke by the patio and the smell drifted in through the open doors.
Luckily the food made up for this.
Char siu bao: Small serving but great flavours and nice bun. We even ordered a second round!
Tofu skin roll: Great texture with wood ear mushrooms inside.
Shumai (listed as prawn and pork dumplings): Probably the best one I’ve tried in Copenhagen. The shrimp and pork are coarsely chopped so you get great texture instead of using mince.
Black tiger prawn dumplings: Good, but I didn’t like the sauce (mayo?).
Prawn and scallop dumplings: Hands down the best dish we had here. The rice paper containing it was very well-​made and the tobiko topping was nice.
Cheung fun with prawn: Good. Very tidy presentation compared to other dim sum places.
Deep fried bbq pork puffs: Our server suggested this and I’m glad we got it. The pastry looked beautiful but was very delicate and crumbled between our chopsticks. Best to just use your hands I guess. Tasty!
Potstickers: Very nice. The menu says you get five but we got six. (:
We also wanted to get the turnip cakes but they were unfortunately sold out. Overall the dim sum was good with some obvious standouts. The prices were comparable to Royal Garden. But I have to say, I prefer the ambiance there or at Fu Hao. This place looks upscale but service can be too laid-​back and the noise/​smoke from the street annoyed me throughout the meal. I would like to come back for the prawn and scallop dumplings and shumai at some point but I guess it will have to be after summer when they close the patio doors and there aren’t so many tourists.

I’m going to begin my review by saying that it’s very rarely that I step out of my comfort zone when it comes to dining. My experience at Diamond Rice began with the fact that our favorite dim sum restaurant Royal Garden was closed due to summer vacation *rolls eyes* and so off we went to find a nearby alternative which happened to be Diamond Rice.
Location-​wise, this place is very touristy, almost smacked right next to Nyhavn at Skt. Annæ Plads and we were proven right when busloads of (Chinese?) tourists came streaming to this place for dinner while we were there. It was somehow a catch-​22 situation, since maybe it was a good thing that Chinese tourists were dining here, after all — they’re Chinese and know their food? but it could mean a bad thing if this restaurant caters only to tourists.
Putting skepticism aside, we placed our orders and our dim sum dishes turned out to be okay. Not spectacular but perfectly edible and some were surprisingly good, this can be due to the fact that I set my bar too low when entering this supposedly tourist trap. The char siu bao that could be used as a yardstick for dim sum places anywhere were good and so were the shiu mai. The prawn and scallop steamed dumplings were somewhat above the par. Excellent. I do however still fancy the same old tofu roll at Fu Hao compared to the one I had here.
Service was polite and attentive albeit for one odd thing (that pulled one star down from supposedly a three-​star review) that when I got up to take a picture of the food (duh, we are Unilocalers after all!), some waiter (possibly owner since he was dressed in just t-​shirt and capri pants???) suddenly came grinning, bent his knees down by our table and posed with the food.
WHAT. THE. F.
He probably thought that he was being chummy with some jolly Chinese tourists (that came in group as previously stated), but I am no Chinese tourist and I am far from jolly when dealing with strangers. A quick death glare from my side to his awkward presence by our table quickly resolved the odd situation as he moved away pretty quick and behaved quite professional the rest of the night.
Maybe it is asking too much, but I don’t want my waiter to be all-​pal with me throughout a dinner service. I expect service, not friendship, by the end of my meal and I definitely don’t want his photo show up on my Instagram feed.
…and until then, I stick to my lovely Royal Garden and Fu Hao thank you very much.

New open Cantonese restaurant ! Finally found my favorite Cantonese food restaurant ! Delicious dim-​sums! Strongly recommend «Shrimp Toast» and «XiaoLongBao”(a kind of dumpling) hmm, taste like home! Very special and beautiful decoration in the restaurant. Chinese style painting on the wall with strong color blend with Nordic design dinner tables and chairs! And with that price on menu! Definitely going there again! And again! :)