Hi, I noticed last week that Gar Wah, a new Chinese (Cantonese/Hong Kong, according to their menu) restaurant in the Osco Drug plaza on Brighton Avenue in Allston, has a dim sum buffet on Saturday and Sunday for eight dollars. Unable to resist, a friend and I tried it on Saturday. This was my first visit to Gar Wah, and I liked the look of the restaurant quite a lot. The room was pleasant and well-lit. The buffet dishes were against the wall in the back, and, in addition, a waitress wheeled around a cart from time to time with the traditional metal dishes. The buffet included Peking ravioli, scallion pancakes, egg rolls, chow foon, rice noodles, and a couple of vegetable dishes which were certainly not traditional dim sum, but which nicely balanced out the usual fare (which I find a bit heavy and greasy). The Peking ravioli and scallion pancakes obviously suffered from sitting in the steam table for too long, but were acceptable when eaten fresh from the kitchen. The egg rolls were magnificent. The noodles were fair. The carts included sticky rice (not my favorite, and here done even worse than usual), eggplant and green peppers stuffed with shrimp, shu mai (too chewy), shrimp wrapped in noodles (extremely good), and pork buns (average). Overall summary: better than the worst places in Chinatown, not as good as the best, free parking helps, price helps. My friend and I were the only non-Asian group in the room, so I think that there's hope for improvement.--Rob
Boston, MA