The Largest Dim Sum Restaurant In The US Can Seat 800 People - Here's Where To Find It

If you live in a decent-sized town, there's a good chance there's a Chinese restaurant — but unless you live in an area with a major Chinese-American population, the likelihood of you encountering dim sum is fairly slim. If you've never heard of dim sum, it's like a more ritualized version of tapas, where people can eat small portions of traditional Chinese food (usually Cantonese) while drinking tea. In cities with major Chinese populations, like New York City or San Francisco, dim sum is often served in huge banquet halls that can seat hundreds of people, with America's very largest, HL Peninsula, being located in Castro Valley, California.

Castro Valley is a census-designated place in Alameda County, just outside of Oakland. In recent years, the Chinese population has sharply increased in Alameda County, which makes catering to that demographic a savvy business move indeed. HL Peninsula, a Cantonese dim sum chain, made itself at home in a building that used to house a Rite Aid, establishing a huge banquet hall that can seat up to 800 people. Unlike many other dim sum restaurants, HL Peninsula makes everything made-to-order, so there's no need to worry about ordering too much dim sum off the dining cart and denying other diners the chance to eat their favorite dish.

So what can you expect from the country's largest dim sum restaurant? Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, it's big — like, 28,000 square feet big, with ceilings so high it makes you feel like you're in some kind of dumpling-honoring cathedral. If you've ever eaten at a dim sum restaurant, the menu probably won't surprise you, ranging from food familiar to Western palates, like fried rice and General Tso's chicken, to more acquired tastes like chicken feet with black bean sauce and sauteed pork intestine. Offal remains awful to Americans, even though the rest of the world has no problem with it.

If you'd rather not deal with the ritual of dim sum (or if you're not much of a tea drinker), you can always get a regular dinner, or order off the set menu — and HL Peninsula boasts both an express option and a bakery option if you want to try something on the go. But if you want to give it a try, you can always consult our guide and dine on dim sum like an expert.