Joyful Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Burnaby

Joyful Seafood Restaurant is the name of the latest restaurant to occupy the spot on Kingsway in Burnaby that used to be New Starlet and Po King before that. We visited in early April and the place was already hopping on a Saturday morning (there’s not many dim sum options in Burnaby). The wait was about 30+ minutes and partly due to the fact that the restaurant is a bit smallish. The other reason was probably all of the patrons who tried to cut the line by sitting themselves down whenever they saw a table empty up.

We originally ordered the Beef Rice Roll ($6.58) based on the picture in the menu but what arrived at our table was far from what we saw in the picture. Still, the somewhat deconstructed version was fairly tasty but difficult to pick up.

You’d think by now that we’d know better than to order a Shanghai dish from a restaurant that doesn’t specialize in Shanghainese cuisine. However, we wound up ordering the Pan Fried Pork Buns ($6.58) here and I was a bit disappointed that it lacked the juicy pork filling and the noticeable char on the bottom of the buns. Instead, the bun was quite soft and fluffy (which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing) but the filling was far from moist.

If you’re like me, anything deep-fried is probably a winner. The Deep Fried Silver Thread Roll with condensed milk ($4.98) is a bit of a confusing name for a dish but is basically a bun which has been deep-fried to a crisp and golden-hue. On the inside, layers (or threads) of soft, fluffy, white bread are just waiting to be dipped in the condensed milk.

This big mountain of noodles is their Singapore-Style Rice Vermicelli ($16.98) and, as you can tell, a massive serving.

The Eggplant Stuffed with Shrimp Paste ($6.58) turned out pretty good.

Beef Omasum in Ginger Garlic Sauce ($6.58) otherwise known as bible tripe.

The Chilled Osmanthus Gelatin ($4.98) actually arrived last – which is sometimes surprising as most Chinese restaurants just bring it out early on because it’s already made (not sure if it just wasn’t ready earlier or if they purposely waited until all of our other dishes were out).

I found that most of the items were pretty good but service is typical of a Chinese restaurant and we were a bit put off by all of the rude diners trying to cut the line. Despite this, we wound up coming back for a revisit about 3 months later. At around 11am on a Saturday, the place was already full and there was a bit of a lineup in front of us. They initially told us it would be a 45-min wait but, as we were just a table for 2, they managed to fit us in within about 5 minutes (although we had to sit at a table near the entrance).

We wound up ordering some of the same dishes that we had last time… such as the Beef Rice Roll ($6.98) and the Eggplant Stuffed with Shrimp Paste ($6.88)… both solid dishes (and I do appreciate that they cut the eggplant pieces the proper way).

We also ordered a couple of dishes that we hadn’t tried before… namely the Chicken Feet ($6.88), which was super tender, and the Har Gow ($6.88), which was stuffed with plump shrimp.

To satisfy our carb cravings, we also ordered the Deep-Fried Silver Thread Roll with Condensed Milk ($5.38) and Braised E-Fu Noodles with Mixed Seafood ($20.38).

Overall, some pretty good dim sum dishes here and they were still offering a 10% grand opening discount when we last visited. It does get quite busy here tho so best to come early.

Update: October 2024 - It's been 4-5 years since we last visited Joyful. One thing that hasn't changed is that it can be quite cold inside.

Ordered the vermicelli shredded pork and veggies ($28.98), rice rolls prawns and golden chives ($9.68), beef meat balls ($8.68), minced meat with peanut dumplings ($8.38), chicken feet in bean sauce ($8.98).

The chiu chow dumplings were a bit more compact and you could taste the peanuts more (had better elsewhere). Chicken feet were tender with good sauce.

Dim sum was 10% off and the process here are relatively cheaper than most...

edit: their waiters were so skillful but their chefs clearly werent... we got their set meal and everything was not for human consumption unlike their dimsum... we started off w their cold squid which tasted like it came from toilet water 0/5 then some cold beef which didnt hsve enough spice but they tried 2/5 then some cold pork that just tasted like its boiled with not even salt 0/5 next off is their one and only lobster which tasted like a one week old corpse soaked in msg and msg alone with NO flavour at all 0.5/5 next off is their fish: it just tasted like it was blanched cuz the soy sauce was so bland i thought its just there for decorative purposes, and the meat was grassy 0/5 their soy sauce chicken meat wasnt fragrant and its too sweet with a flat one dimensional flavour profile 1/5 and their sweet and sour pork was so sweet i couldnt even eat it, but its also sour in the worst way (like ur vomit). combined with the meat being as tough as a sponge even a dog would run away from it instead of consuming it (-5)/5 and we ended off with their dessert/糖水 which tasted like sugar water with 1 by 1 cm taro bits which even an american would call too sweet. hows it both sweet and bland??? 0/5 their soup tasted like water infused with msg and tapioca starch 0/5 overall 0/5 what did i just consume i wanna throw up

old review they havent changed since like five years ago, and its good that their consistent. their price point is decent and their food is mid to bad. while some were mid, their deep fried taro- which was filled with some sorta bland yellow substance was BELOW avrg. the whole thing was bland and tasted like veggie oil

just standard dimsum in vancouver...

First negative experience: When we signed in to the waiting list, the hostess (long hair in a ponytail) rolled her eyes at us and put our name down.

Second negative experience: We waited for over an hour and a half, and half an hour to 45 minutes inside the restaurant waiting area, and when we checked in to see where we're at in line, the hostess:

1. Claimed she called our name over 30 minutes ago and nobody responded, and we just walked in the door a minute ago (gaslighting). We were sitting in the waiting area for over 30 minutes waiting. She also came to the waiting area for other smaller parties to check if they were waiting. Chi did not happen for us.

2. She didn't even pronounce our name correctly. When we asked, she said "I called Wah, and Liu for 6 already. Nobody responded.", neither of which were the names we put down, but when we asked where our name was, she said there nobody under that name, and that it was already called???

3. After we pointed out all the mistakes, she still stuck with "You missed your name, then, it's too late, we don't have time to seat you, you can wait on the side and see.".

We were very unhappy with our treatment, so we are not coming back again. This place used to be our go-to for family dim sum, but after this, we are never coming back again. Especially being called liars when we called the hostess out on her repeated lies, and her story just changes each time.

We can handle if we missed our name, but if you're going to gaslight us, that is...