We just returned from Italy, and the first thing we did upon arriving at YVR was head to this…read morerestaurant on Victoria Drive for a dim sum lunch. It had received many good reviews. We arrived on a Thursday afternoon around 1:30 pm, and it wasn't full after the lunch rush, I guessed. We were seated within minutes. Since my wife is Chinese and speaks the language fluently, I let her place the order. We picked, in order of serving: steamed rice flour rolls with beef, steamed prawn dumplings, steamed beef balls, and lastly, steamed rice with chicken and Chinese sausage.
Overall, the food was good, but there is room for improvement. None of the three dishes were hot--though not piping hot, as we were aware it was near the end of the dim sum serving time slot. Everything was lukewarm, to say the least. Their prawn dumplings are renowned for their size, and indeed they are the size of a ping pong ball, but the wrapper came loose. This is often caused by the mixed ratio of prawn meat and pork, plus over-steaming. I lived in Hong Kong for almost eight years before we moved to Canada. I don't know if their dumplings were handmade on site or mass-produced in a Richmond factory. High-end dumplings have a minimum of ten folds, some up to thirteen along the edge. It's a skill as well as an art that can only be obtained through years of training and practice. However, the beef balls are kind of huge, with a hunk of old orange peel inside but no water chestnuts. They are almost the size of tennis balls. Sadly, the must-have Worcestershire sauce was minuscule--less than two teaspoonfuls. It's alright; we did not plan to eat everything on the table. The saving grace was probably the steamed rice with chicken and Chinese sausage. Yes, I would say it was piping hot, with a large portion of chicken meat but a very tiny portion of sausage. The two Chinese broccoli florets were cold, obviously not steamed together with the rice, and were put with the rice as a garnish.
We ordered Po Lee tea, a black tea that is supposedly good for men as well as digestion. However, the other pot of hot water became lukewarm when we needed to add water to our tea. Many restaurants would either place the water pot on a tea light warmer or simply take the empty teapot to the kitchen and fill it with hot boiling water, like they do in Hong Kong.
Overall, it was a decent dining experience, but perhaps we should have come earlier rather than near the end of the dim sum serving time. I would like to return for dinner one of these days for sure. Western Lake Restaurant is renowned for its food portions, and that's true. However, the top priority for improvement should be the food temperature. We saw that they suggest a 12% or more gratuity, but I left a fifty-dollar bill, which should be adequate.
Overall, I would give this 4 stars out of 5.
