Kirin Restaurant - Downtown

Name-brand Dim Sum at a high price doesn't guarantee the best food.  I've heard a lot about the Kirin chain, but haven't tried any until now.  Some of my friends told me their dim sum was good, but I was skeptical right away when they told me there were no dim-sum carts.  For me, dim sum has to have the carts, the restaurant has to be a bit mangy, service should be a bit crappy to God-awful, and it should be cheap.  Kirin downtown is none of these, so you can see how I was a bit skeptical at first.

The restaurant is kind of in a strange place, and it looks like the location was a complete afterthought.  The dining area seems to be a converted lobby/atrium of a business tower or something.  Anyway, it's a bit fancier than what I'm used to, and holy cow was this place clean.  Even the washrooms were pristine, which blew me away.  The cleanest washrooms I've ever been to in a Chinese restaurant and I actually felt safe using the facilities.  There are no pictures of this, so you'll have to take my word for it.

....Fancy looking menu...

...Fancy looking settings....

...Fancy looking tea pot with warmer...

....Fancy sauces - X.O. sauce.....

.....not so fancy mustard and chili....

The sauces.  We got some XO sauce, the standard mustard (which looked like it maybe have been set the night before) and chili combo, plus some soy sauce for my Japanese friends (they like to have the soy suace and mustard combo with the hagow and siumai).

The spring rolls came with a fork and spoon which were perfect for my cracker friend Todd.  Well, I have to admit, even Chinese people sometimes have trouble with the standard-issue yellow-plastic Chinese chopsticks  seen in most restaurants, especially with a hard item like the spring roll.

The coating was nice and crispy, only a little bit too oily (but what do you expect, these suckers are deep-fried), and the filling tasted good for the most part....just one gripe....

.....the spring rolls were chock-full of stuff my food eats - veggies.

They called this the seafood salad roll.....or something like that.

Some kind of creamy concoction in the middle with some assorted bits of seafood.  I'm told the Kirin location on Cambie makes this one way better.  So, this would not be the first time I've heard complaints of consistancy with the Kirin Chain.

The hagow were okay this particular day, although they didn't really impress me as something to write home about.  Let's just say they weren't bad.

Ah, the steamed spareribs....not many black beans, but either way, tasted good....too bad there were so few of them.  Decent bone/cartilidge to meat ratio.

The siu mai were.....siu mai....just like the hagow, nothing to make these stand out over other places.

I couldn't find the yu gou (deep fried taro dumplings) on the menu, but there was a picture of it so I ordered it.  Tasted good, but same as any other place.

And now for some not so dim sum items.  Some of my friends wanted to try some other stuff:

The yang chow fried rice was nice and shiny, just the way I like it.  Tasted great, but again, barely enough for me.

Tan-tan noodles, I could have made better at home to be honest.

The siu long bao didn't have much soup in them.  Either it leaked out, or weren't made very well, but everyone said these were dry inside.  They tasted okay, but it's disappointed when you nibble open the skin and don't find the scalding hot soup inside.

Sweets:

This is the first time I saw these referred to as sesame balls.....what I usually think about as sesame balls is those deep-fried things covered in sesame....this was just your run of the mill-sesame paste-filled tang yuan, covered in that powder. 

Mango Pudding.......

......with Coconut cream.  The pudding tasted like it was made the same time the mustard was put out.  A bit disappointing.

It was nice to get a hot steaming cloth to wipe our hands after, and I didn't notice until I just posted this picture that was a curly black hair in it.....gross

$86.02 for 5 people.....what the $%@&*!@ #*#*!!!!!!!  Suffice to say, I was not impressed by our bill.  I thought that was a little steep for dim sum, but then I thought "Hmmmm.....that must be the price for clean washrooms a downtown location".  Maybe the highrollers living in downtown Vancouver/Cole Harbour/Shangrila are used to prices like this, but it was a bit too much for my tax bracket.  Yeah, the food was okay, not bad, but not that great, yeah the washrooms were clean enought to eat in, and yeah, the rest of the place was clean and there were a few extras here and there, but I don't think I'll go back unless suddenly find myself in the next tax bracket, or I'm out with Young and Todd and can't convince them to come to the dives I prefer to eat in.

Seoul Express - Yaohan

The last stop I have on the Chinese food court tour isn't Chinese, it's Korean.  Haha, but it's in a prodominantly Chinese food court and they have good Korean food so it's on this list.  In an earlier post, my pal Vince warned me about claims to authenticity and the word "Express" in the name of the shop, but there's no doubt that Seoul Express' proprietors are very, very Korean.

Seoul Express has been a member of the Yaohan food court for years, and I occasionally go there when I need hangover food or something to burn a hole in my guts. 

I usually get their stone bowl bi bim bap.

This is a boiling vat of I-don't-know-what, but it looked very terrifying and angry so I took a picture of it.

My stone bowl with a good amount of chili sauce.  It really gives the meal character. 

It comes with a bowl of soup, side veg and a cup of tea, all required to enhance your experience with ring of fire later on.

Like I said, the place is pretty good and it's kind of a surprise to find it at the Yaohan food court of all places.  The service is is friendly enough  and the food comes fairly quick considering the prep work behind some of the dishes.....best thing of all, food court prices!

Pak Tak Chiu Restaurant - Yaohan

Okay, back to the Chinese food court theme.  It's funny how you're there to do a review (a good one) of a place and the staff are giving you grief about taking pictures.  I tried to explain it to them, and they still gave me a hard time.  Pak Tak and the two places next to it practically have the exact same menu and the exact same prices (and even change prices at the end of the day at the exact same time), so I don't know what the big secret is if I snap a few pictures.  Anyway, I like to eat here.

The special combo here is pretty good going during the day, but near the end of the day, the prices drop, along with their two competitors.  Despite being given a hard time about the pictures, the service here on the corner is marginally better than the other two, so I prefer eating at Pak Tak.

My favourite heart-stopper is the wu hua rou.  Yes, it will probably kill you faster than smoking, but damn, it tastes good. 

Deep fried squid, another major cause for cardiac arrest, but oh so delicious.

Deep fried prawns - these suckers are huge and the staff are quite generous on the portions.

Deep friend smelt.....starting to see a trend here with the deep-fried?

Then you take all of that greasy goodness and pile it on top of some sticky rice for an extra 50 cents, who wants to live forever?

Like I said, the food is good here, and for 6 bucks, it comes in just under a meal and McPukes, and way under for BK or A&W.  Of course, there are way healthier options available at Pak Tak, but it's far more satisfying to eat what I eat, trust me.