Hei La Moon is the classic dim sum restaurant. The dining hall is large and spacious, and there are the carts of food that are circulating the hall.

Food I've tried: (* = my favorite)

• In general, their food is pretty standard dim sum food. I always enjoy getting the food here, but I don't think I have found a specific menu that Hei La Moon does particularly well compared to other dim sum restaurants in the area.
• For around ~$20 you can have a very filling, carb and oil loaded, food coma inducing meal.
• CHEONG FUN* (~$7 - exact price not on menu): by far my favorite dish. It is large sheets of glutinous noodles, usually with shrimp wrapped inside. It comes with a sweet salty soy sauce. If you love carbs, this is definitely one to try.
• CHICKEN FEET ($5.50): the bones are more cartilage than bone, which provides a nice crunchiness in texture.
• PAN FRIED TURNIP CAKE* ($5.50): the exterior is crispy, and the inside is nice and mushy. It comes with a salty sweet sauce.
• PARSLEY PORK AND SHRIMP DUMLING* ($5.50): the skin is very chewy and glutinous.
• BONELESS SPARE RIBS ($9): the meat is very tender, the bones are a lot shorter than the standard American ribs. The seasoning is very umami.
• STICKY RICE IN LOTUS LEAF ($5.50): the rice comes wrapped in lotus leaf that you unwrap. Texture wise it is well cooked. Flavor wise, it is very savory.
• SWEET & EGG YOLK BUN ($5.50): fried bun that has a little explosion of egg filling when you bite into it. The filling is on the liquid-y side, but is not overly sweet.
• BAKED EGG CUSTARD TART ($5.50): standard egg custard, not overly sweet. I like the texture difference between the filling and the crust.
• SESAME BALL ($5.50): very umami, essentially a ball of fried dough.
• CURRY BEEF TRIPE ($5.50): the curry flavor doesn't really come through, but the tripe is well prepared and cooked. It has a nice crunchy texture when chewing.
• Note that the standard drink that will be provided at the table is hot tea. The tea itself is very good and floral. But be careful when pouring because the kettle has a propensity to dribble when pouring. If you want water you will have to ask the waiter separately for it.

Atmosphere:

• Usually very very crowded. For larger parties (8+ people) you definitely need a reservation.

Service:

• Having someone at the table who can speak Chinese definitely helps, because most of the waiters do not speak English. Usually I can get by with pointing and gestures, but the staff can get impatient with your attempts to communicate.
• My experience with Hei La Moon is solely based on the dim sum experience. Instead of ordering like a traditional restaurant, you scope out what you want based on the circulating carts. You can pick out what you want out of the carts, and the staff will stamp the little paper on your table that keeps track of what you ordered.
• Note that sometimes the food items that you want will be hidden in the plates. There were times that I did not see what I had wanted for a while, and only when I asked the staff they revealed that a silver cover had been hiding the food item on certain carts.
• I usually base my ratings mostly on the food flavors, but this is one of the few times where the service component really affected why I gave 2 star rating. I definitely visited during peak hours, because when I arrived there was a long line out the door. Thankfully we had a reservation so we were able to get seated promptly. Note, that they don't seat everyone unless everyone is present and they are pretty strict about keeping to your reservation time. We were a large group of 10 people, and definitely hungry. Unfortunately, there was a severe lack of food carts compared to the number of people in the dining hall. There was around a 10 minute interlude between each cart, and often the carts would not have enough food by the time it came to our table. Also, by the end of the meal there were definitely items that I was not able to get because they were not available. In looking at the complete menu on the Hei La Moon website, I did not see around 25% of the menu items. I do understand that the restaurant was busy, and I am not one to make a big deal about having to wait. But in this case, I felt that the restaurant management could better manage their service model (perhaps by increasing the number of circulating carts) because I spent a majority of my dining experience hungry and waiting for the next dish.
• Overall, given the imbalance in customer to staff ratio, everything felt chaotic.

Overall:

• Food is standard, price is higher than others.
• Service wise, I would recommend either 1) visit Hei La Moon only when they are not in their peak dining hours 2) visit the other dim sum places in the area if it is peak dining hours.
• Personally, as someone that does not speak Chinese I find it easier and less intimidating going to other dim sum places that offer menus with pictures rather than the circulating cart model.