Uncle Yip's Restaurant

Uncle Yip's is a true gem! Great Dim Sum! We tried 11 different plates and they were all super good. very friendly and wonderful customer service.

This is still one of favorite places to eat. We've been coming here for over 16 years and have been regulars for the last 10 years that Vera has own it. We're here a few times a month - sometimes once a week.
The food here is consistently delicious and the service good. The staff are welcoming and Vera treats everyone like family coming to visit.
Our visit this week I had one of my favorite dishes here - Cumin Beef. My husband had the Tiao Tiao Fish, another favorite. Both very flavorful dishes!
We also had the Stuffed Chili Pepper with Shrimp for an appetizer, off of the Dim Sum menu.

I cannot comment on service or ambiance as I've only gotten takeout from Uncle Yip's.

Overall, I would rate them on the higher end of average for Chinese food in the Cincinnati area. They have a dry chili chicken which is one of my favorite Chinese dishes and is harder than I would expect to find in restaurants. They have a good spice level, particularly in the dry chili chicken dish.

One of these days, we'll have to make it out there for dine-in, but in the meantime, we'll definitely still plan to get them for takeout Chinese and keep exploring their menu.

Uncle Yip's is very nice inside, which was surprising given the state of the strip mall in which it sits.

We were there today, Thursday, at noon. Business was steady, but it was nowhere near packed.

We were there with friends and I didn't check in with them on their meals. One ordered Steam Shrimp Dumplings for the table. They were very good. The shrimp flavor was clean and the dumpling was tasty.

I had the Ma Po Tofu. I saw a picture of it here on Yelp and I was sold before we even got to the restaurant. I noticed the meal had a chili pepper next to it on the menu, which gave me pause. I'm glad I ordered it anyway. It was not spicy, but still very flavorful. It did appear to have chili sauce in it, but again, it wasn't overly spicy by anyone's standards. The bowl was chock full of tofu. So much tofu! The nice thing about tofu is that it's not super filling. Even though it was a lot of food, I was the only one at the table that cleared my plate (bowl).

Mark thought the General Tso's Chicken was okay.

Service was good. The guy running the show did a good job of keeping up with everyone and everything.

I'm happy that i finally discovered this place. The menu looks authentic Chinese, and although it's 40 mins drive from home, we think it worth the drive. The food is great. The Dim sum is not the best i have tasted in China, but it's much better than most of the Chinese restaurants. The soup dumpling is nice, filling taste good. The shirmp dumpling, the outside wrap is a little too thick, could make some improvement there. Turnip cake taste good, that's husband's favorite. I also had their chicken feet, yummy. The spicy chili fish taste good, i almost finish the whole plate but I'm too full.

Food is always tasty and fresh! I took a chance a few weeks ag. Very glad I did!! The Pad Thai is my favorite!!

I came here for dim sum and it was pretty good. I hate that I have to say this, but I am from Southern California and so the dim sum selection is very large and strong in Southern California. This is my second dim sum place in Cincinnati that I've tried and it was pretty good. We ordered a variety of things like shrimp shumai, eggplant, short ribs, and I ordered a few items off the dim sum menu and ordered from the regular menu.

To be honest I was really excited to come here because this restaurant actually has honey walnut shrimp. I don't know if it's not a thing here in Ohio, but it's pretty common in California and I was kind of shocked that it was hard to find a Chinese restaurant that offered honey walnut and shrimp. It's such a good dish!

Overall everything was good but nothing spectacular. The dim sum is good but again nothing crazy. I will though give this restaurant four stars for the Honey Walnut shrimp because 1) they actually offer the dish here and 2) It was very tasty.

This has come up a few times as a place recommended, and finally I decided to go to cincy to try it.

The place is located in the back of a strip mall, so a bit hard to see depending on which direction you are coming from. The restaurant itself seemed nice inside. I walked up to the register line and waited my turn, and they sat me and my daughter down. I recognized they spoke mandarin here, which is not important but just unusual for me as most places I go sprak mandarin. No impact to service or experience, just interesting side note for my felloe Chinese speakers!

They had about 4 carts circling. We got a few things? Since it was just me and one toddler. I think each dish was about 5.99? And special dishes their own prices. I personally feel the carts were not steaming hot eligh, my food temp was just... meh. My lo mai gai .. the middle was.... cool and had pockets of something wet (like you get frozen thaws?). Nothing wowing when compared to TY Ginger in columbus.

Their egg tarts? I really enjoyed those, crispy and flakey outer shell. Turnip cake was decent and their egg custard bao was great! My daughter loved the bao.

Service was great! I would come again, but probably not as a trip just to come here. I would recommend it for those looking in this area

What an amazing, authentic treasure, hidden in a shopping strip off Reading Road in Evendale. I've gotten takeout there numerous times, and recently hosted 15 friends there. The interior is always clean, airy, and pleasant. They have a back section for large groups, separated by a tall screen, with two large, round tables that gave us the feeling of having our own private restaurant. I loved the tables and chairs, that had a solid but regal feel to them. As far as service, well, they seemed short-staffed that night, and our waiter was scarce most of the time. But -- here's what impressed me -- as the evening progressed, the chef himself came out to our table, to make sure we'd all been served, and quickly cooked and brought any missing dishes (there were 2 that hadn't arrived yet). And managed our checks himself at the end of the evening. Yes, we're seeing staffing problems in these post-COVID days, and need to be patient and understanding, especially when it's evident that chef and owners are going out of their way to remedy the situation. And the repast itself was phenomenal. It was brought out fresh, often still sizzling in the bowl and the aromas were tantalizing. My favorites, from this time and my friend's dishes (of course we all had to share!) were the shredded pork with hot garlic sauce (stellar, with complex flavors, and I believe their best dish), the beef with gai lan (Chinese broccoli, mild and savory), the Kung Pao Chicken, Authentic Style (made with dark meat chicken that was juicy and succulent), the Vegetable Delight with Tofu (fresh, crunchy, vibrant vegetables with generous chunks of fried tofu), and the crispy sesame ball with red bean filling, still hot from the fryer. All together, an amazing meal in a special place that takes dedicated care with their food and service!!

Well, I gave Uncle Yip's another chance last night. Instead of lunch alone, this time it was for dinner with a group of 16 people (two tables of 8) Most of our group enjoyed it, but my experience was unfortunately almost the same as last time. It was difficult to figure out who our server was. The first guy was kinda blase and after taking our drink orders, pretty much disappeared thereafter. Then an Oriental lady with a mask came and asked us if we had any questions about the menu. Remembering my last experience with the green peppers, I asked about what was in another dish, the Spicy Sizzling Beef. The mask muffled much of what she said, but she described it as hot and spicy, which I like. Then a third male server came and asked us if we were ready to order.A wide variety of dishes were ordered at our table. I again got egg rolls and hot and sour soup, which were good. I specifically asked for TWO dipping sauces for the egg rolls as one dinky container is not enough. But when it came, there was only one, so it took me 10 minutes to get someone's attention to bring another one. There was a major misstep involving the timing of our entrees. Ironically, mine was brought out first and fairly quickly. The remainder were brought out one at a time in such a fashion that the lady sitting next to me waited 20 minutes later to get hers. Not good. I all fairness, most people enjoyed their dishes, but mine unfortunately had some of the same problems as last time. It had a little heat (no hot peppers visible) and little spice. But AGAIN, it was about 60% GREEN PEPPERS with a minimal amount of beef and onion and 4 or 5 slivers of squash. No hot peppers were noted. I'm not sure exactly what the problem is with this place and green peppers, but as a result they have lost me as a future customer. Someone else ordered Kung Pau chicken which has no green peppers and is probably what I should have ordered. Then when it came time to get the checks, they seemed surprised that we wanted separate checks, except for 2 couples, one at each table. (They should have asked about the check arrangement at the beginning.) At least 20 or 25 minutes went by with no checks. Finally, our rep had to go up to the server and ask what the problem was. He told her that we would each have to stop at the register, tell them what they had and pay there. That worked OK but took quite a while.
I've seen some good reviews for this place, but it seems like hit or miss to me. Most of the food is well prepared, but there's a lot more to a good restaurant than just the quality of the food and Uncle Yip's misses on too many levels for me to return soon. I wish to emphasize that I am not a complainer and I do not look for things to criticize- most of my reviews are 4 stars-this is the longest negative review and update that I have ever written and I wish to caution future diners--don't order anything with green peppers in it or you will likely be disappointed. And don't be in a hurry.