Chef Tony Edmonton opened in the last week, taking over Tropika space in the west end. We arrived 15 minutes to 11 on a Saturday, and it was quite busy. But not nearly as busy as it would get in the next hour or so. By the time we were leaving, the line was pretty much out the door. Fortunately, we sort of beat the rush and were seated within 15 minutes. Ideally , we would have arrived closer to opening. I'll also note that we were also only a party of 2, so were seated a lot faster than a larger group we would have been.
Once you are seated, they hand you with a menu and a sheet and ask which kind of tea you would like. Tea is an additional charge, as opposed to being included. Dimsum is ordered via marking off the items on the sheet, as opposed to having carts with dimsum being rolled around. There is also an accompanying menu with pictures if you're not fluent in Cantonese (as it seemed this was mostly spoken by the staff. I didn't try speaking mandarin or english, but I'm sure if you spoke either, you would have survived just fine as well) and can't read Chinese. Once you've made your selections, you wave down a waittress to give them your sheet, so they can put in your order.
The dim sum dishes are categorized into 4 different price categories, as marked by size next to each of the dishes on the sheet. But most dishes on average were ~$7, slightly pricier than other dim sum places in the city.
We ordered the 5 standard dishes we generally order when going to dim sum with a bit of a Chef Tony twist. The har gow, the shu mai, radish cake, ham sui gok, & and lava steamed buns. The cuttlefish hard gow, shu mai, and lava steamed buns all made appearances after a reasonable amount of time. And then there probably was a good 15-20 minute lag before we saw the radish cakes show up. We ended up cancelling the ham sui gok; however, as after an hour and 15 minutes we were still waiting on this dish to make an appearance, and decided we didn't want to hog the table any longer!
Service was a little slow because this was their first weekend open, and I assume because because they are still working out the kinks in service as well it being during a lunch rush on a weekend. I think part of the line up had to do with tables waiting for dishes to show up due to the kitchen being backed up and not being able to keep up, as opposed to diners casually chatting and taking their time dining. Perhaps service would be a lot quicker on a weekday when it should be less busy, but I can't confirm that.
There were a few times, there were lulls when we didn't see any servers to check in on missing dishes, but I will note that at least our teapot was refilled at least once without us having to promptmone of the servers.
The presentation of the dishes was a little off. I suspect because the kitchen was slammed and behind, they were more concerned with getting things out of the kitchen than ensuring everything was plated nicely. There were a few dishes that I repositioned food prior to getting my shots!
I would say Chef Tony is worth a visit, but maybe wait a couple weeks before swinging by after the hype dies down and hopefully service issues have been resolved. read more