Jade Palace Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Burnaby

If there was any way possible to rate their service as awful, I would. A friend and I were there this afternoon at approximately 2:30 pm, and the room was less than half full. All the other patrons were already enjoying their meals, which tells me that we didn't arrive at a busy time.

Firstly, it took a long time for us to even receive a menu or be offered some tea. The only reason we were brought menus was because I caught the attention of one of the servers and asked for two of them. She begrudgingly pretty much threw them on our table.

We had to again catch a server's attention to place our order, but that would prove to be a challenge, as the server couldn't speak a word of English — not even enough to explain how the dim sum menu was priced. Meanwhile, the other patrons, who could speak the same language as the staff, were getting prompt service and didn't have to wait for an unordinary length of time to be able to get help from the staff.

About 10 minutes later another server (one who could speak English) was sent to our table and answered our questions. We placed our order: mine, beef with black bean sauce. My friend opted for one of their soups.

After receiving our dishes, not once did any of the staff come back to check if we needed anything else. They also thought it was acceptable to be quite loud as they set up tables for their dinner guests (and it wasn't even 3:30 pm yet by that point). My friend and I were totally invisible to them — so much so that we had to get up and pay for the bill at the entrance.

Although the food was good (not exceptional), the awful service was enough to make me never go back to this place. It was not one of those charming places that you return to in spite of the service, just because of the excellent food (think "no soup for you!"): food at Wah Lun is only ok, and certainly not good enough to justify the very poor service that my friend and I received.

In summary: Wah Lun is far from a welcoming place if you can't speak the staff's language, and the food doesn't...

Day Date! Found ourselves @ Ryan's Chinese Restaurant aka Wah Lun. This is an unassuming restaurant, both inside & out, but omgoodness the dim sum was amazing! Having a Chinese Grandma & growing up in Vancouver I've been to my fair share of dim sum restaurants, but we always tend to get the same stuff. As it was just myself & @proud_poppa5 we decided to try mostly new dishes. We ordered the following:

Deep Fried Shrimp Purée Dumpling - These dumplings were huge! They had so much shrimp filling & they were not greasy at all. They had a great crunch to them & the sweet sauce was a nice accompaniment.

Deep Fried Squid w/Peppery Salt - This dish is actually one we always order & this place does it fantastically! The squid was perfectly cooked with a nice light crunchy batter. The chilli, onion, garlic mixture was delicious. We cleaned that plate😁 if I wasn't so full I would have ordered another one.

Deep Fried Taro Paste w/Portuguese Sauce - I'm not a huge fan of this dish, in other restaurants I've had it at it's always been cold. Here it was lava hot! While I'm still not 100% sold on this dish, if you're a fan of it elsewhere you'll love it here.

Steamed Milky Bun w/Egg Yolk - omgoodness, I could not stop eating these! These were the best I have ever had & even better than some of the fancy dim sum restaurants. The bun was very light & melted in your mouth. The egg yolk was a little sweet & a little salty & oh so delicious!

Rice Flour Rolls w/Crispy Bean Curd & Fish Paste - this was our final dish & unfortunately I was full at that point to fully enjoy & appreciate it. I did love the different textures of this dish. The smooth rice roll, the crunchy bean curd & the fluffy savoury fish paste.

The service was quick & courteous, somewhat typical for a dim sum place. The prices are very reasonable, although they do charge $2 for tea & hot water. Definitely a hidden gem that I would visit again. Maybe next time we'll bring the...

Updated in 2025. This place has changed its name multiple times, but it's been consistently bad. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re prepared to wait for hours. When we expressed our frustration about the excessive wait time, the server responded that another table had been waiting for three hours—as if that made it acceptable. The food was disappointing and not worth the wait. Total rip-off.

Review for Wah Lun: I tried this place when it operated under the name Wah Lun. They served us icy cold chicken, and when we complained, they refused to warm it up, claiming that heating it would change the texture. The chicken wasn’t just cold—it was practically half-frozen. Currently operating as Jade Palace.

Review from 6 years ago when it operated as Ryan's: They missed part of our order and refused to cancel it, which seems to have happened to others as well. We received our first two dishes fairly quickly, but the rest took another 40 minutes—long after we had finished eating. When we asked a server if we could cancel the remaining dishes since they hadn't arrived yet, she almost yelled, insisting it had "only been 30 minutes" and that we should wait. The food finally arrived 15 minutes later, making me wonder—if she doesn’t want to serve customers, why work as a server?

Someone also mentioned their group never received a bowl of plain rice, only to find it packed to go instead. If we had ordered plain rice, the same thing might have happened to us—ridiculous.

To top it off, they charged $0.70 per person for water and tea, even counting our 2-month-old baby, who was asleep in the stroller. When we pointed it out, we had to repeat ourselves to three different people just to get the bill corrected. In the end, we had to pay at the counter. Terrible...