What constitutes an empire? In the popular imagination, there’s the Galactic Empire, represented visually by a heavy-breathing incel with weird taste in headwear. There’s the Holy Roman Empire, which, according to Voltaire, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, but was historically significant in fairly obvious ways. There’s the British Empire; the less we say about that, the better, apart from pointing out its profound influence on art, music, literature. The defining characteristic of an empire, it seems, is a loose confederation of territories overseen by a single authority. But empires also shape cultures in an ever-expanding sphere of influence.
And that, friends, is why chef Ling Qi Wu is the nascent empress of Austin dining, as evidenced by her rapidly growing collection of high-end Chinese restaurants scattered across the city. Ling Wu at the Grove is the fifth and latest – and last, for now – installation in Wu’s empire, and it underscores what Wu does best: dim sum and dumplings.
Formerly the dim sum chef at Downtown modern Chinese joint Wu Chow, Wu opened her first restaurant, Lin Asian Bar, in 2018. A family favorite of ours, it’s the destination for high-quality, high-end dim sum. As such, I planned our first visit to the new Oakmont Heights location for Sunday dim sum brunch.
We arrived around noon, expecting the place to be mobbed like Lin Asian Bar usually is, but it was only about half full, which was a surprise. We had a few minutes between being seated and placing our order for drinks and food, giving us plenty of time to scan the interior, bearing a vaguely nautical theme with ropes and Chinese dragons, and peruse the dim sum menu and make our preliminary selections.
Because it was just my spouse and me, we ordered conservatively, opting for a small assortment of our faves from Lin and a few things we hadn’t tried before. The scallion pancake is one of my favorite menu items; the curry itself is both the star of this dish and would comprise the perfect lunch on a cold January day. One crispy scallion pancake, quartered, is served on a tray alongside a small bowl of red curry. It’s the equivalent of tomato soup and grilled cheese: dippable, delicious, and the ultimate in comfort food.
The salt and pepper shrimp were lightly breaded and generously portioned, served in a bowl and topped with a riot of evenly sliced red, yellow, orange, and green jalapeño peppers, and diced onions. The basil chicken dumplings, four crispy triangles stuffed with water chestnuts, shiitake mushrooms, basil, and ground chicken thighs, bore a nicely balanced flavor and weren’t as basil-forward as one might expect given the herb’s marquee billing. The shrimp har kaw – a classic dim sum dish – were large, very shrimpy, and salty in a good way. Is it possible to make bad shrimp har kaw? Probably. We enjoyed Ling Wu’s version very much.
Let’s talk about soup dumplings. The best soup dumplings I’ve ever had were at Din Tai Fung in Seattle. Those are the bar for me, and I’ve not found an equivalent to their quality. Ling Wu’s are good: plump, juicy, and porky, but don’t reach my personal Platonic soup dumpling ideal. Your personal Platonic ideal may be different.
Because it was brunch, I treated myself to the Perfect Pear cocktail, a tartly sophisticated mixture of Skyy vodka, Mathilde Poire D’Anjou pear liqueur, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, and lemon.
Ling Wu at the Grove offers an elegant and elevated dim sum experience that also manages to be down-to-earth, as evidenced by the green enamelware camping cups, along with the continuum of workout clothes to church clothes on display in the dining room. The service was friendly but not warm, and was marginally attentive, an ethos that carried over into our next, less triumphant, visit.
The scallion pancake is one of my favorite menu items; the curry itself is both the star of this dish and would comprise the perfect lunch of a cold January day.
Back in the day, I very much enjoyed the lettuce wraps at P.F. Chang’s. So, when I saw that Ling Wu offered something called “minced meat butter lettuce wrapped,” my curiosity – and nostalgia – were piqued. I should have picked up on the server’s cues on this one – they were subdued in their description of the dish, comprising ground beef, pork, Chinese sausage, and lamb topped with diced apples and onions. Reader, I did not care for this dish at all. I was expecting a juicy blend of salty-umami meat that danced delectably with the cool crunch of butter lettuce, but the mixture was instead weirdly sweet and tragically dry. Avoid.
We recovered with the roasted duck pancake, a scallion pancake topped with roast duck and plum sauce, like tiny little delicious duck nachos. Those were a nice little bright spot in a series of wrong turns on the menu. Our lobster dumplings were cute: shaped and dyed to look vaguely birdlike. However, the texture was off-putting; while shrimp transforms well into paste for har gaw, lobster becomes too sweet and, well, pasty. Another loser (your mileage may vary, though; our server said that they were very popular).
The yellowtail and salmon green mango salad was a mixed bag: I loved the yellowtail sashimi and the shredded green mango and papaya, but the salmon was mealy and tasted slightly off. Thankfully, our last dish of the night, the Jing-do Berkshire pork loin, was delicious. The meat was lightly breaded and dressed in a sweet and sour Peking sauce, cut with some tart lemon; it was basically an elevated American Chinese dish and a fun way to wrap up our meal. We didn’t try any dessert (we weren’t offered any and were too full to pursue the matter), but my lychee martini – its blend of Tito’s vodka, lychee, and cranberry approximating a lychee cosmo – was light, pink, girly, and refreshing. No additional treats necessary. All told, our dinner visit was something of a disappointment, having sampled multiple dishes that did not live up to our expectations of a chef Ling Qi Wu establishment.
Such is the problem with empires: Branching out can often lead to diminishing returns. But one disappointing meal won’t topple an empire; there are plenty of consistent, high-quality favorites to keep the subjects happy.
Ling Wu at the Grove
2625 Perseverance Dr.
This article appears in November 15 • 2024.