Overall mid Chinese food, with nice presentation but very muted flavors. Serviceable and not a terrible option on 4th Street, but not something to seek out if you're not already there doing a day of shopping. We were hungry on a Sunday at 1 and thought the menu at Dumpling Time looked appealing. We were added to a waitlist and waited about 20 minutes for an outdoor table (which really could have used more shade). We ordered the Tom Yum soup dumplings, BBQ pork bao, wagyu beef gyoza, and Beijing noodles. I'm used to pretty punchy, salty Beijing noodles (za jiang mian) but these were fairly plain. They were decent with copious amounts of chili oil and soy sauce. This was a theme with all of our dishes, needing lots of doctoring to be more flavorful. When looking at the menu again for my photo captions, I was surprised to be reminded of what ingredients were supposed to be present - I couldn't get any coconut milk, and the "chili butter sauce" added nothing but color. The tom yum soup dumplings sounded like a intriguing dish, but I couldn't taste any tom yum flavor. "Lemongrass pork soup dumplings" might have been more accurate. The wagyu beef gyoza and seared BBQ pork bao were also decent, but again, needed lots of oils and sauces to get the strong flavor we're used to with dim sum/Chinese food. There are definitely better options for Chinese food in Berkeley. read more