Jade Seafood Restaurant (8511 Alexandra Rd., 60) Perhaps my top pick for dim sum in Vancouver. (If duck tongue is on the menu, I recommend it as well.) 3 Rd., 60) I try har gow wherever I eat dim sum, but year after year I return to Shiang Garden for what I believe are the best in Richmond, sometimes ordering a basket of them and little more before moving on to another restaurant. Maybe even try something out of your comfort zone, like tripe or chicken feet. For every fried spring roll, get a slippery rice roll. Chinese food is about texture as much as flavor, so diversify your dishes. Order as few or as many items as you’d like, at whatever pace feels right. In Cantonese, dim sum is called yum cha, which translates to “drink(ing) tea.” Tea is really the crux of the dim sum experience, with all those dumplings and such serving as snacks to accompany it. To help, here are tips on where to go, what to order, and how to do dim sum right in Richmond, especially with Chinese New Year just around the corner.Įven minus the carts, it’s still easy to over-order, getting too much food too fast. But the food makes it worth conquering the fear factor. With the traffic, the crowds, and the sheer number of restaurants-usually with signage and menus full of Chinese characters-it’s easy to feel like a stranger in a strange land. As for that shrimp, Seattle’s tends to be a bland clump that’s almost unrecognizable, whereas in Richmond you’ll find large pieces which taste fresh and sweet, with a tell-tale snap when you bite into them.īut Richmond can be intimidating, even for people just across the Fraser River in Vancouver. In Richmond, these dumplings have translucent wrappers that are delicate and yet sturdy enough to support the shrimp inside. Take, for example, har gow (shrimp dumplings)-the benchmark of quality at a dim sum establishment. In addition, there’s better attention to such details as the crimping of dumplings. Perhaps because the chefs are from Hong Kong, the mecca of dim sum, I find the flavors to be cleaner and better-balanced than in Seattle, the food less greasy. Competition translates into culinary quality. There, a thriving Chinese population eats out regularly and demands the best for its dollars. Sure, dim sum is just dandy here compared to most of the country, but the bao and other delicacies are simply much better to the north in Richmond, B.C. Back to Chinatown I go.I’m constantly apologizing to my Seattle-area friends for turning down dim sum invitations. O, and they never brought us the salt and pepper squid we ordered, but based on the other food it probably wouldn't have been that good anyway. The bill for 5 adults and one 6 yr old came to $79, just a tad less than what we would have spent in Chintatown. There were 2 items that were very good and although I don't know the names, I can describe them: a deep fried shrimp ball and an egg battered shrimp and mustard green pancake. The dishes that were on the OK and acceptable side were the pork Sui Mai, the shrimp in green pepper, the lotus wrapped sticky rice and the noodle rolls stuffed with chasu pork. The shrimp in the shrimp dumplings were overcooked and chewy. Many of the dishes were bland, from the shrimp noodle rolls to the baked pork buns. I get that, the less people, the less need for dim sum carts, but if only the food were good enough to make up for it. This is a really big place with a lot of tables so it takes a while for the few carts to get to each table. There was no wait, however, the carts going around really started to slow as well. We got there around 1pm on a Saturday so it was right after the lunch rush. Always in search of a good dim sum place outside of Chintatown, for those times we don't want to drive into downtown, search and pay for parking, wait 30-90 min for a table.įirst time to Joys.
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