Brewery Bhavana is an interesting combination of flowers, books, beer and dim sum in one shop.  The Laotian siblings, Vanvisa and Vansana(since left) Nolintha, that owns the spot next door made friends with Patrick Woodson who brewed beer.  They decided to combine forces and also make room for friend Deana Nguyen that sells flower arrangments right across the street from historic Moore Square.  It’s a large striking space divided by sheer curtains.  A long bar is one wall and it has about that many taps for available draft beers.  Books are on one wall just to look at while you’re there and another cabinet of them is for sale.  The flower shop is in the middle space just behind the greeter station.  It is filled with lots of natural light from the windows along the street and from a massive skylight that is above the center room.  Music was in the background and staff were welcoming and super friendly.  While the food was good it was not great even though the prices were on the high side for dim sum.

Place

 

Food

The Jiaozi Chicken Dumpling were hand made dumplings filled with chicken, ginger, bok choy and water chestnut then pan-fried.  They came 5 to an order and the wrappers were on the thick side. The filling was good.  The house dipping sauce was brought to the table along with some pepper in oil. The sauce was mostly soy sauce.

 

Vegetable Curry Puff was baked pastries filled with curried cauliflower, spinach and sweet potato. They came 4 to an order and had nice curry flavor inside the fairly flakey pastry.  Lots of spinach was on the inside.

 

The Seafood Dumplings were filled with lobster, shrimp and scallops and served in a garlic and black mushroom sauce with fried Youtiao doughnuts.  They came 4 to an order and were in a ton of sauce which you were to dunk the doughnuts into.  They were like a churro to me with a fun texture but little flavor.  The sauce was good as were these dumplings but the mushrooms had the most flavor.

 

Siji Dou were stir-fried green beans with garlic and soy sauce.  The beans were lightly seasoned, not being sweet or spicy.  It was a generous dish but they came off a little dull, especially when compared to other stir-fried green beans I’ve had.

 

Lo Mein Noodles were stir-fried noodles with julienned shiitake mushrooms, choy sum greens, soy sauce and in our case Char Siu Pork (have choice there).  The pork was from various cuts of pork which varied in their tenderness and moistness factors.  There were a lot of mushrooms which all were nicely flavorful.  The noodles were the best part but other ingredients dominated the dish.

 

Pork and Chive Shumai were open face shrimp, pork and chive dumplings made daily by hand.  They are topped with Tobiko.  Not much shrimp in these but the wrappers were not as thick as the dumplings.  Some poppy seed and a bit of roe was on the top.  They stayed quite hot in the steamer.