Lumi - Latin meets Asian~

I went to Lumi - Empanada & Dumpling Kitchen for a birthday dinner this past weekend.

3407 McKinney Avenue
Dallas, TX 75204
(214) 979-2424
http://www.lumikitchen.com/
Price: $-$$

I've been wanting to try this place for awhile. When I first heard about it I was very interested in how they put latin and asian food together. I love latin food so I always like trying new places.

It was a fairly small restaurant and it was packed!! That was a good sign. The decor was clean/bright and modern. One bad thing with all those people was that it was REALLY loud in there. The acoustics in the restaurant wasn't designed very well... it was hard to talk and hear even people sitting across from me.

They mainly do dishes in tapa style (smaller portions and they serve it as it comes out of the kitchen) and everyone kinda shares.

We started with the Sal Picõ Tower (Tasty chicken, sautéed red and green bell peppers piled high and dressed in a creamy aioli dressing) $9~
This was very interesting. It was basically chicken salad but they topped it with crushed sour cream and onion potato chips. That added a nice crunch and different texture to the tender chicken and the crispy bell peppers and carrots. I personally hate carrots and try not to order anything with carrots in it. I don't really even eat carrot cake just because there's carrots in there. But I ate every bite of this dish. The dressing was very flavorful so I couldn't taste the carrots. The fact that I didn't pick them out was a really big deal. I really liked it. I think it could've been even better in the middle of a croissant! :P

Next we go the Spinach, Mozrella & Portabello Empanadas (Served with cilantro cream sauce) $6.50~ and Hearty Beef & Yukon Potato Empanadas (Served with ancho cream sauce) $6.50~ (they look the same so I only took 1 picture) I liked the empanadas a lot. They were fried, not like the typical baked empanadas I've had in the past. The shell was nice and crispy and the filling was very tasty. Both were good but I think I liked the Spinach one better. The cheese was all melted inside and it was hot and gooey! One thing I would suggest is that they put a little more filling in the empanadas. They were a little flat...

We also ordered a couple dumplings. The dumplings took longer to prepare and we waited quite a while for them to come out. You can order the dumplings either steamed or fried so we got one of each. We got the Chinese 5 Spice Duck & Leek Dumplings (Fried; Served with spicy plum sauce) $7.50~ and Thai Panang Curry Chicken Dumplings (Steamed; Served with our coconut-curry sauce) $7~ The dumplings were...ok. I was very excited to try the curry dumpling because I love thai curry. But it was alright. The dumpling was normal (I'm sure if you are asian you've had dumplings some time in your life...). The skin was thin which I liked but it dried out very quickly after being served and the top edges became kinda hard. Also the sauce for the curry dumpling had wayy to much ginger flavor. I didn't really care for that. I liked the duck dumpling better. I think maybe because it was fried. :P Fried is always more tasty..haha. But the sauce was REALLY sweet. I didn't really taste any spiciness. Luckily I liked the sweet sauce with the duck, but some of my friends didn't like it at all. I wouldn't recommend the dumplings. They were ok and I felt like anyone can make those dumplings.

I was able to try some other dishes other people ordered.

The Thai Blue Crab Fried Rice (Lightly battered soft shell crab served over savory blue crab fried rice) $16~ I heard the fried rice was really good and it was talked about on a lot of the reviews of this restaurant. I thought it was really cool that they had an entire small fried crab with the rice. The rice had a lot of flavor and was pretty good. But it wasn't that special of a fried rice... I definitely don't think it's worth $16.


I also got to try the Ba Noi Egg Rolls (Pork and shrimp rolled in a flaky & crispy wrapper) $7~ If you've ever had a vietnamese egg roll, this is basically it. Same flavors, same ingredients...just skinnier. It was good because I love vietnamese egg rolls, but I can get that at any Pho place for $2 instead of $7 here.

Overall I enjoyed the dinner. The food was pretty good and I was in great company! But I definitely think that it wasn't worth the price. It's a cool little place to just go check out at least once, but I don't think I would go back again.

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~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~