Fine River Dim Sum Restaurant （缘来轩）

I highly recommend the Siu Mai, pork bun, and shrimp dumpling!! Those are my favorite. Yummy Dim Sum items at a good price! The only thing I wouldn’t get are the stir fry noodles: they are dry and don’t have lots of sauce.

Drove into Houston looking for the best dim sum and the reviews about Fine River Restaurant don't lie. It's a cozy and quaint locally owned business that has a line of Chinese folks out the door. Arrive early or be ready for a wait outdoors. When you arrive, write your name and # in party on the clipboard, grab a menu and order sheet and get to picking all the deliciousness! This was our very first time ordering dim sum, so I prepared by watching a couple of YouTube videos to ensure I ordered what I would like to try. Everything was delicious. Once you're called, you hand over your order sheet, take a seat, and they deliver the food a couple of dishes at a time. I can't wait to go back for more!

Fantastic no frills dim sum every day restaurant. The restaurant had most of the dim sum classics and the prices were very reasonable when compared to the prices at other local restaurants. Service was quick and friendly. This is a family owned small business and many of the dishes were served by the owner’s son. On Sundays come early or you might have to wait for a table! The vegetable spring rolls were only $2 for 3 rolls cut into 6 pieces. My only complaint is that the fluorescent lighting in the dining room is very harsh.

This is probably a new favorite dim sum spot of mine. Loved how there was no wait on a Sunday morning compared to the other dim sum restaurants in Chinatown. All the dishes were fresh and not too greasy which is important to me when it comes to dim sum. Very affordable prices and fast service too. My favorite dishes were probably the eggplant, turnip cake, and fried shrimp balls.

Small restaurant but was seating promptly on a Friday (July 4th) at 10:30am. The restaurant does get busy, there was a line and it gets loud inside the restaurant. The food was fresh and made to order. We got all the usual dim sum dishes. My only complaint was their stir fry egg soy sauce noodles. The noodles were undecooked, dry and hard. Price was reasonable. We ordered 11 dishes and the bill was about $80. Will definitely come back.

Came here during Sunday lunch time, and the place was packed. They have a clipboard at the front desk for customers to be on the waiting list when the tables are full. Self-filled in paper menu is also at the front. That paper serves as the customer’s order form, and to be given to the staff upon seated. Food came out fast and hot. I loved their har gows, which had thin skins, and fresh shrimp stuffing. The BBQ pork cheung fun was also good. The turnip cakes and fried Chinese bread were delicious too. The supreme soy sauce fried noodles was good. However, the pork and preserved egg congee was a letdown. There was barely any pork in the congee. The congee was flavorless too. Another disappointing dish was the steamed mini bun with juicy pork. The pork filling wasn’t juicy at all. There were only two staff on the floor. It was hard to catch the staff’s attention. The restaurant is small, and they do not take reservation. I would avoid peak hours.

All the dim sum were made in house. It was delicious and food was quick to serve. They had various types of tea that you can order as well. We had the tie guan yin tea and ordered chicken feet, fried taro, turnip cake, siu mai, eggplant, custard buns, cheong fun shrimp. Everything was delicious and I recommend all the dishes we tried.

Took a 2hr drive out to Houston to try this dim sum place. It really called Fine River, despite what WAZE says! The staff was friendly, the dim sum was good, we had 7 different items, the best was the BBQ pork steamed buns and sesame balls. They didn't have any desert dim sum, the egg custard or rice cake, which was kinda disappointing. It was good, I'd go back after trying a few others first to compare.

$60 for 4 people? You gotta be kidding me! This place is probably the cheapest in Houston right now. And, I love that it's authentic dim sum. This might probably be my new favorite place for dim sum. We ordered: chrysanthemum tea, steamed shrimp dumplings, siu mai, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, spare rib w/ black bean, crispy fried shrimp ball, shrimp cheung fun, BBQ pork cheung fun. I liked everything, except the sticky rice. The sticky rice is good, just not something I would order myself again. The cheung fun was delicious! Honestly, I was not expecting a lot of people since there's barely any Yelp reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised. This place if definitely a hole in a wall; if you know, you know! I came on a Sunday and the restaurant was filled with happy customers.

I wish I could give them more stars, but unfortunately I cannot. I don't have high expectations for service in a place like this, but I expect the food to speak for itself. In this instance, most of our dishes were quite a missed opportunity despite how robust this place was. All tables were full but we were able to get seated after about a 5 to 10 minute wait in the lobby. THE GOOD:::: Foodwise, my favorite was the BBQ pork Cheung Fun! It was seasoned well, and bursting with flavor. The shrimp variant performs similarly as well. Chicken feet was not bad, not my personal best ever but still quite enjoyable. Braised Eggplant Stuff with Shrimp was another well deserved dish, packing with sweet and savory flavors. The fried fish fillet were quite enjoyable with a dipping sauce. It felt fresh and seasoned just right for you to enjoy it as is or with a sauce if you're looking for more. THE UGLY:::::: To my biggest disappointment, the Turnip Cake was overly burnt and too charred, yet it was so sloppy and loose that it broke apart the moment I attempted to pick it up. A complete failure. I suspect it was either overcooked to begin with, or it was reheated several times over and over to where the structure compromised, gave way, and crashed at first touch. The Beef Short Ribs were another huge disaster.... the meat was extremely beefy with a gamey smell along with an extremely chewy texture that was incredibly difficult to eat. I wouldn't be surprised if the table next to us could probably hear how hard I was chewing through the beef like a cow on grass. The Fried Bird Nest was cooked well, but the shrimp/fishcake filling was too loose, lacked the typical bounce back you'd expect from descent quality fishcake filling, and had an aged-like seafood odor in the aftertaste. The Chinese Brocoli was also a disaapointment, probably a result of their cooking method. It was a watered down stir fry lacking in that sweet vegetable flavor, instead of a crispy product of a quick blanch with an oil coating to preserve the flavor that is typically done in most other dim sum places. Unfortunately, it is likely that Fine Rivers and I may never meet again.

Hole in the wall dimsum located in the Bellaire area. I have mixed experiences with all of their doing some options. A few they do really well, some are very standard, and some are quite the disappointment. Raise eggplant and shrimp filling is a must try! It's well seasoned and the sweet flavors of the eggplant grow really well with the shrimp. Rice rolls with shrimp or rice rolls with pork or done really well! They rice flour feels fresh and retains its shape very well. The pork filling verion is bursting with flavor and compliments the role really well. Turnip cake was definitely a miss. It falls apart too easily the moment it meets your chopsticks. Also overly burnt on the outside. The fried shrimp ball with another disappointment. The feeling feels very clumsy and two loose, laxking in chewy textures. It also gives off a overly aged or fermented Seafood odor but I do not think is intended for the dish. There was no issues with service. Our food came out rather quickly and was very accurate. They'll bring you a copy of your old receipt that you can use to bring up at the cashier when you're ready to pay out.

Definitely a bit of an off-the-path spot near bellaire but something i'm glad to have gotten the chance to try recently. I came here with a few of my friends that were far more familiar with ordering Dim Sum than I am, so I can't identify for certain everything that we ordered. My favorites, however, were these shrimp noodles and pork noodles, friend stuffed eggplant, and the fried squid claws. For a group of four, we ordered quite a lot of food that came out to about $30 a person and we all left VERY full. Not sure how it measures up to other Dim Sum restaurants yet but I am happy with the price! Service was also amazing here. Staff made sure that we didn't run out of green tea to drink throughout our meal and was overall attentive to our needs, checking in with us occasionally throughout our meal but not feeling overbearing either. There were a few dishes that didn't quite meet the expectations of the table, such as the turnip cakes and the BBQ Pork bun. Not much else was a miss, though, and we all left satisfied with the meal and the experience.

Honestly extremely happy that we decided to try this place today. We came in for lunch on a Sunday and there was no wait which is uncharacteristic for a dim sum place in china town. The service was fast and efficient, the restaurant was clean, and the food was amazing. Their siu mai was enormous, juicy, and seasoned perfectly. I love how they add some sort of cartilage to the mixture which makes an interesting texture. The cheung fun was also really good, the sauce was slightly sweet and seeped into the rolls very well. Lastly, their chili oil was also delicious, it kind of tastes like spicy nothing but everything all at once. Our bill came out to be 60 dollars for 4 people. Fine river is definitely a hidden gem with unbeatable prices for sure.

This place so so good! Stopped for lunch on a random Tuesday craving Chinese and they did not disappoint! Large menu options, budget friendly and delicious. Everything was good but the shrimp and chive pancakes were one of my favorite things--they were like little dumplings and full of flavor. The general tso chicken was also so good--had a good balance of sauce and crisp. The portions are pretty big so come with a group and try everything you can!

Came here during Sunday lunch time, and the place was packed. They have a clipboard at the front desk for customers to be on the waiting list when the tables are full. Self-filled in paper menu is also at the front. That paper serves as the customer's order form, and to be given to the staff upon seated. Food came out fast and hot. I loved their har gows, which had thin skins, and fresh shrimp stuffing. The BBQ pork cheung fun was also good. The turnip cakes and fried Chinese bread were delicious too. The supreme soy sauce fried noodles was good. However, the pork and preserved egg congee was a letdown. There was barely any pork in the congee. The congee was flavorless too. Another disappointing dish was the steamed mini bun with juicy pork. The pork filling wasn't juicy at all. There were only two staff on the floor. It was hard to catch the staff's attention. The restaurant is small, and they do not take reservation. I would avoid peak hours.

The addition of Fine River (缘来轩) is a welcome change to the already underwhelming dim sum scene, where despite not being overly impressive still provides a lot of value by their presence alone. It gives Houstonians another option and provides another level of competition to the mainstays that frankly could use the nudge. Ultimately, Fine River serves solid dim sum and should be revered more given their simple approach to all day dim sum offerings. While they boast that this is HK style dim sum, the family running this place is from Guangzhou and the name 缘来轩 is more akin to "Fate Pavillion" (#1). The service has been steady and friendly and has a bit of a mom-and-pop feel to the place. Decor wise is not going to impress anyone, but the fact they basically have their own dedicated parking lot (#2) is a huge win. Instead of operating like a big banquet hall, the menu would suggest otherwise. Their limited selection is no deal breaker, but it does mean that variety is not their strong suit. I ordered a number of their items: shrimp dumplings (蝦餃), various rice noodles (腸粉) but their fried bread rice noodle (炸兩), turnip cakes (蘿蔔糕), siu mai (燒賣), leaf wrapped glutinous rice (糯米雞), beef balls (牛肉丸) among a few other dishes. Nothing stood out exactly, but I will give them props on keeping it fresh and well priced. I even gave their wonton noodles (雲吞麵) a shot, which I was told the wontons were handmade. It appears to be the case, along with the piping hot broth, but something was off with the actual wontons. I've been spoiled by a number of bowls but I will have to come back to revisit this. The same boded for their beef chow fun (乾炒牛河) and Singapore fried noodles (星加坡炒米粉). Their Chinese broccoli (芥蘭) was not half bad. Folks paying cash can expect a 5% discount. I am definitely planning on trying their evening service at some point and am looking forward to seeing how they progress. They're off to a good start and I am hoping they continue to improve as time goes on. ____________ (#1) 如果你真係明白要意思請同我講... (#2) Or at least shared with the rest of the strip mall.

We came here as a group of friends after our afternoon worship. The place is tucked into a corner, and we arrived close to their closing time, but they still welcomed us, which we appreciated. The ordering system is a bit old-school--they give you a paper to fill out your order, which they then staple to the menu and your receipt. Personally, I think it's a bit of a paper waste, but it gets the job done. Dim sum is definitely their focus. My family and I ordered a good variety: shumai, pork BBQ buns, chicken feet, chicken spring rolls, fried taro dumplings, and a few others I can't quite remember. The food was good, and it came out surprisingly fast considering there were only two staff members on the floor handling everything. Our total bill came out to around $40, which felt reasonable since we left with some to-go items. The price point is fair, the quality is okay--not mind-blowing, but satisfying. I do hope they work on keeping the place a bit cleaner and fresher when you first walk in. That would definitely improve the overall vibe. But overall, if you're looking for some authentic dim sum, this is a spot worth checking out.

Wait 30 minutes to go my order Said order will be ready at 11:59. Got there at 12:00. Did not get my order till 12:30

This is a small dimsum restaurant but very busy. Food is good and service is fast. You have to expect to wait to get seated due to limited number of tables. The Siu mai, dumplings, sticky rice are good. Even the salted egg bun is good. It was a pleasant surprise for a dimsum restaurant not in bellaire area.

We ended up leaving after waiting for more than an hour and having 2 large parties cut in front of us. Apparently the two large parties (one had 11 people) were friends or family of the owners, so they arrived and got seated immediately while there was a wait list of customers waiting for a table. This place doesn't care about the customers or care to uphold any principles. What's the point of having a wait list if they're going to let their family and friends cut in line?

This is a new dim sum place my mother recommended to me. She's very picky, so I knew it must be good. The location is a bit off the beaten path, in a desolate shopping center on Wilcrest. Wasn't a fan of the interior decor, but the food is what really matters! It was raining when arrived on a Sunday during lunch. Business looked pretty decent as almost every table was filled and we didn't have to wait for a table. The menu was a folded sheet with colored pictures that doubled as an ordering sheet. The prices were very fair. We ordered some popular favorites and then some. I noticed there was quite the variety to chose from! The har gow and siu mai, both my favorites, were extra large and plump. The skin could have been thinner on the har gow, but the taste was there. The chicken feet were big and soft. Everything was pretty tasty. My favorite item was the beef chow fun. It was cooked very well with plenty of wok hei flavor, and it wasn't greasy at all. Definitely don't pass this up! I asked for some vinegar so I could make a dumpling sauce, and all they had was sweet red vinegar. Oh well... Since it was just the two of us, we didn't get to try everything we wanted despite the bill being $40 and having a small box of leftovers. We were both pretty stuffed. Overall an excellent choice if you want some dim sum without the wait and don't mind the simple setting. There weren't many tables, as this place is on the smaller size, but they did offer ample tables catering to larger groups. Would be happy to return!

Bellaire Boulevard has two large communities, Vietnamese and Chinese, commercial establishments, restaurants, services... This morning, I went to Fine River Dim Sum Restaurant. The restaurant space is small and beautiful, and all the tables are full because of the large number of customers, waiting for about 15 minutes to get a table to eat. Delicious dishes, good service.

I came here on a Sunday afternoon and was seated right away. There were booth and table seating. It's located in a plaza, so there's plenty of parking too. It's your standard dim sum, delicious and authentic! Pricing was also comparable to nearby dim sum restaurants. My favorite dishes were the crispy fried shrimp ball, bbq pork cheung fun and turnip cake. I would recommend and will be back!

The restaurant is on the smaller side. Definitely get there before 11. The decorations are sub par. As you walk in you out your name on a list, they give you a menu so you can start to prep your order. The food is good, nothing spectacular though. Plenty of parking

I've had plenty of dimsum in Houston and another great example of fresh high quality dim sum that doesn't have to be closeby to Bellaire where most Asian restaurants are and I like how I don't have to drive too far to get good dimsum. All the dishes average between $4-5.50 so good selection, the restaurant offers a full menu, The dishes offer great chew, crispy textures, firm shrimp, creamy eggplant, tart taste, salty from the soy sauce, so a must try.

A very solid Dim Sum spot! This is own of few spots that serve dim sum in the evening and I was very glad to try it. The service was quick and the interior was clean. They don't have more options than the typical dim sum spot but they had the standard. I would also say that the prices here are cheaper than the prices at other spots. My favorite was the pork Siu Mai was juicy and flavorful. The Shrimp Rice Roll was soft and perfectly cooked. The Hacao I would say is good but the wrapping around the shrimp felt sticky, but the taste was still there. The chicken feet could be more flavorful but it did the job. What struck me was the full enormous plate of General Tso chicken for $8.88 which is an insane deal at a restaurant. The price point, food quality, and service here are definitely on par. Overall, 8/10.

Service is absolutely terrible. Order was never put in and then we asked them to check the order, they didn't listen and just told us only 5 more minutes. But after another 20 minutes they realized the order was there never placed in their system and we know this from the timestamp on the receipt.

This is probably a new favorite dim sum spot of mine. Loved how there was no wait on a Sunday morning compared to the other dim sum restaurants in Chinatown. All the dishes were fresh and not too greasy which is important to me when it comes to dim sum. Very affordable prices and fast service too. My favorite dishes were probably the eggplant, turnip cake, and fried shrimp balls.

This is a cute little place with solid dim sum if you're looking to get away from the usual weekend crowds at the more well known places in Bellaire. You order off the sheet, the waiter retrieves it, and your dishes come out as they're ready. My group enjoyed trying this place out and would definitely recommend to others!

A new dim sum restaurant that took over a somewhat will known vegan restaurant space. Because the restaurant is pretty new the food came out very slow. For example we ordered everything and our shrimp dumpling came out last when we are all full. I would skip the shrimp dumpling even though it is a must have at a dim sum but the Sui Mai where really good size for the price. The Spare Rib with Black Bean was good also.

Fresh, tasty, great value dim sum. You order from a list and they bring the dim sum out as it's ready from the kitchen. Service is friendly and the dining area is clean and tidy. Casual place.

Fine river is a really great new dim sum restaurant. The food is amazing. Delicious Hong Kong style dim sum, served hot. The service is on point and friendly. Fine River is a small family owned and operated restaurant. The restaurant is great. The prices are more than fair. The portions are enormous. We are going back.

New favorite dim sum place in Houston. They have dim sum available for dinner too. Came here on a Saturday and it was quiet. The dim sum tastes like it is made fresh - and for proof we saw one of the staff members filling and making dumplings at a nearby empty table. They are not shy about portion sizes - the dumplings are meaty and stuffed. Favorites were the siu mai and BBQ pork cheung fun. Prices were very reasonable. We will be coming back and I hope this place gets some recognition!

I went for dimsum today with my family, we been waiting for a hour, when the table is available, they give it to one of their family who just walk in. End up they told us have to wait for next large table. I saw the other family behind us are so mad n leave. We followed the the other family leave also. I recommend not to go there for family dimsum at this restaurant.

Food was good. The prices are reasonable. Service was attentive. Gets pretty packed but was able to get right in.

Delicious no frills dim sum, on christmas day! Fast and friendly service, and a clean nice building. Ordered for six expecting small dumplings portions, but these are twice as large as other restaurants in the area. Definitely coming back.

The dimsum is fresh, tasty and not salty. The facility and furniture are dated and not cleaned!

Visiting Houston and decided to try Fine River. The restaurant did not disappoint! Great service and great food!!

Very delicious dim sum reasonable price great taste and good service we will be back again

This place used to be a vegetarian restaurant and has recently became a dim sum restaurant . Overall my family enjoyed their food and it's always nice to have more choices as far as dim sum goes.

My family was in Houston for the Christmas holiday and hoping for dim sum during the week. Most places only serve dim sum during the weekend but my brother in law found a newly opened family-run restaurant that sells primarily dim sum all the time. We came around 2pm the Friday after Christmas which was a bit of a slow time. We marked our order on their printed menu and soon had an amazing late lunch with really tasty dim sum!! Everything was steaming hot, fresh and tasty! Family favorites included the shrimp and chives dumplings, the crispy fried shrimp ball, the har gow, siu mai, and char siu baos. Service was fast and friendly. The jasmine tea was also delicious and frequently refreshed with hot water--we never had to ask for any refills of this or of water. We all over ordered and over ate and were incredibly happy! Taking some leftovers for later. All of this was fora reasonable price! Will definitely come back when we are next in Houston and will let all our Texas family know about this restaurant!