mindless ramblings

Having family visiting is always great. You get to show them the sights and usually take in some good food too. Over the last couple of days, I’ve had the opportunity to have dim sum at Kirin and Sun Sui Wah,two of the more well known dim sum restaurants in Vancouver. Both of them have been around for a long time, Kirin since 1987 while Sun Sui Wah has its roots in Hong Kong over 30 years ago. This post will focus on Kirin, while the next one will be about Sun Sui Wah.

Arriving 20 minutes early for our table, it was immediately obvious that the restaurant was packed to the gills with families out for their usual Sunday lunch. We got our table after 20 minutes of waiting (nice seats while waiting too) and looked over the menu. Kirin does not have those ladies pushing dim sum trollies around. Instead, a waiter comes and takes your order when needed. Some might say it detracts from the dim sum experience, but I think it’s better as the food is prepared fresh, rather than sitting on a steamer for long periods of time. We ordered the usual dim sum foods, ha gow (蝦餃), siew mai (燒賣), cha siew bau (叉燒包), cheong fun (腸粉) with shrimp, lor mai kai (糯米雞) egg tarts (蛋撻) and mango pudding (芒果布甸).

A interesting dish (whose name I do not know!) that we tried was somewhat like a wonton, but filled with minced meat and placed in a chicken broth with sharks fin. According to my uncle, this is actually the wrong way to prepare it. The proper way is to place the soup inside the wonton. Thus when you bite into it, all the intense flavour of the soup comes bursting out into your mouth. Nevertheless this version was wonderful too!

The rest of the dishes were excellent. The shrimps in the ha gow and cheong fun were large and very fresh. The cheong fun was also very smooth; no mushiness or stickiness. The accompanying soy sauce had a hint of sweetness to it too, a nice touch. The mango pudding had fresh mango in it, another nice touch! Although the lor mai kai was tiny, it was cooked to the right amount of stickiness.

Judging by the quality of food we ate, and the hordes of people eating there, Kirin should be near the top of your list if you want good dim sum. It may not be very cheap, but the food sure makes up for it!