If you have decided to have lunch at Golden Wok, you are likely to work up quite an appetite just driving around looking for a parking place. This is a good thing, for the food alone is not enough to get that anticipatory glow going. Oh, the standard-issue Chinese is perfectly passable (the “Pan-Asian” claim is justified primarily by dishes such as “Mango Chicken”), but there’s nothing that excites. The “Cool Lettuce Wrap” appetizer of wok-seared chopped chicken and various vegetables is served with huge leaves of iceberg and is neither better nor worse than elsewhere. And if heading for a chef specialty such as “Garlic Black Bean Fish” might seem a way to escape the likes of lo mein, well, it’s only slightly so; the bean sauce comes across as merely salty, though copious green onion tops do add appeal.

However…the pleasant décor on Wurzbach is more than a cut above the tasseled-lantern genre, and GW is the city’s only serious remaining dim sum parlor. The double dozen on the menu should be available all day every day, but the carts come out on Saturday and Sunday, and this is when it gets fun: just point and slurp. There are even chicken feet for the fearless feeder.