For the Love of...: ...Kirin Restaurant (Richmond, BC)

Last week we went to Vancouver for a short trip and as usual, we made a point to schedule our days around which restaurants we wanted to try.  We heard that Kirin Restaurant (which has multiple locations) gets quite busy and when we tried to get a table for dim sum last February we were turned away.  So this time we reserved a table weeks in advance for dim sum and were comfortably seated at a table next to the window.

At Kirin the server takes down your order and brings you the baskets of food, so those who want the experience of ordering from the roving carts may feel slightly disappointed.  However, the food more than makes up for it.  All the dim sum we had ranged from good to amazing; our favourites out of the savoury dishes were the shrimp dumplings (har gow), sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf (nor mai tai), and BBQ pork puffs (char siu soh). 

Shrimp dumplings (har gow)

Sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf

BBQ pork puffs

We found the pork and chive fried rolls to be unique, but I'm not keen on deep fried dim sum so it wasn't my favourite.  The pork dumplings (siu mai) was good but not overly special in comparison to what we have in Calgary.

Pork and chive fried rolls

Pork dumplings (siu mai)

The noodle wrapped donut roll was a little disappointing, in that the texture was chewier and harder than what you would expect a fresh Chinese donut to taste.

Chinese donut wrapped with noodle served with peanut and hoisin sauce

Our little S loves any dish with noodles so we ordered a scallop e-fu noodle stir fry.  The dish was surprisingly free of the gratuitous oil that usually accompanies a stir fry noodle dish which was perfect for our toddler.  The adults enjoyed the tender scallops, bean sprouts and the flavour of the chives.

A dim sum classic are the egg tarts which were very good here at Kirin.

Egg tarts

We had done some research ahead of time and knew we would be getting two things for sure; the durian mochi and the thousand layer cake.  Both lived up to our expectations.  The durian mochi was pillowy soft with a cold, sweet durian center that was not overly powerful.  Most people dislike the scent but I found it to be subtle and not at all offensive.  

The thousand layer cake, as the name suggests layers a sponge with a sweet egg yolk custard and coconut mixture.  It comes nice and hot and the portion is large enough to share.

Overall a great experience and we would recommend Kirin to anyone looking to try dim sum in Vancouver or Richmond.