Poseidon Oyster & Sushi Bar, the late-night sushi and karaoke spot on the ground floor of The Carol Condominiums at 2100 St. Charles Ave., has quietly turned itself into a daytime dim sum destination too. Proprietor Dong Mei, who is from China, added the dim sum service this month as a way to put the restaurant's kitchen to work during the hours it used to sit idle.
Poseidon has been open for nearly a dozen years in the Lower Garden District, building a reputation on oysters, sushi rolls, miso soup and seasonal crawfish, according to NOLA.com. Mei saw dim sum as a way to expand the business into daytime hours, and the new menu now runs from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday through Monday, per the same report. The restaurant remains closed on Tuesdays.
A Full Menu Beyond the Late-Night Rolls
The dim sum offerings include dumplings, steamed buns, shrimp wonton soup, egg tarts, potstickers and Chinese broccoli, the report notes. Diners can also order shrimp and chive dumplings, xiao long bao soup dumplings, bean curd rolls filled with seasoned pork, chicken feet and beef tripe. Diners can ask for Chinese vinegar and garlic chili crisp at the table. Beverage options during the day include green tea alongside the restaurant's full bar.
Once the sun goes down, Poseidon reverts to its familiar identity. Sushi service runs from 4 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. most nights and until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, with a daily happy hour from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The restaurant's karaoke rooms remain part of the draw, giving the building on the St. Charles streetcar line a rare split personality: dumplings and tea by day, sushi and private singing rooms by night.
New Orleans' Dim Sum Landscape Is Shifting
Poseidon's move lands amid what NOLA.com describes as several new restaurants specializing in dim sum opening around the city. Dim sum has traditionally been treated as a breakfast and brunch service, and Uptown and the Lower Garden District are seeing a fresh wave of operators betting on that format.
Just blocks away on Magazine Street, Shang Kitchen opened in August at 2917 Magazine St. with housemade soup dumplings and other Chinese dishes, according to Axios. Farther down the corridor at 5538 Magazine St., Tsang's Dim Sum & Bar is slated to open this fall in the former Medium Rare space, run by co-owners Bonnie Ceng and her mother Judy Ceng, as reported by WhatNow New Orleans. Tsang's is planned to offer dim sum service and a bar.
Miss Shirley's Chinese Restaurant, at 3009 Magazine St., adds another layer of local history to the strip. Owner Shirley Lee opened the restaurant there in 2022; she had immigrated from Hong Kong and sold Royal China in Metairie in 2021, according to New Orleans Tourism.
Comparing Suburban Carts to Urban Table Service
Traditional pushcart-style dim sum still has a home in the metro area at Panda King Fine Dining, located at 925 Behrman Hwy. in Gretna next to the Hong Kong Market on the West Bank. Panda King serves that classic rolling-cart format every Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., a model that stands in contrast to the order-from-menu daytime approach now offered at Poseidon.
Downtown, dim sum has had its own foothold for years. Dian Xin opened on Decatur Street in the French Quarter in 2019, bringing dim sum to the historic downtown streets.
For now, Poseidon's bet is that streetcar riders and Lower Garden District residents will embrace dumplings with their morning tea just as readily as they've embraced late-night sushi rolls and karaoke. Whether the neighborhood can support this many dim sum kitchens within a few blocks of each other remains an open question as Tsang's prepares to join the mix this fall.
