Sunning Family Restaurant 新宁 (Dim Sum & Chinese Food) — Restaurant in Central Core

This post is based off of my 3 take out experiences in the last month and a half, but I clearly enjoyed the food enough to keep ordering.

My understanding of Yangming Chinese restaurant, from talking to the owner's, is that it's a small mom and pop immigrant's dream restaurant. The owners have wanted to open a restaurant for a long time and this is them living out their Canadian dream, which I thought was super sweet, and as a child who grew up surrounded by Asian immigrants living this dream (of opening up their own businesses) I found this very nostalgic.

The restaurant is located just on the corner of 104 and 116st (I think it used to a fish and chips restaurant) by the circle K. There is lots of parking as well.

In the several interactions and orders I've had with Yangming I have found the majority of the things I ordered to be pretty great. We've tried their house fried rice, 4 season's green bean, ma po tofu, beef chow fun, salt and pepper squid, dry ribs, szechuan beef and hot and sour soup. Our favorite by far is the Salt and Pepper squid and the green beans. This (squid) was absolutely awesome. We try this dish at most Chinese restaurants we go to but this was the best place we have had in years. It's deep fried but then stirfried with a mix of garlic, chilis and veggies. It's so good!

I noticed some of the other reviews made note of this place serving a more westernized Chinese food variety, and that is true, but the food is still good (also we live in Edmonton so unsure why that was a surprise or a negative thing). I would say like 80% is Westernized but there are some dishes that you would find at a more authentic Chinese restaurant as well (i.e 4 seasons green beans, ma po tofu, singapore noodles, and hot and sour soup). Also note that their "Szechuan Beef" is more like a typical westernized ginger beef than other szechuan beefs I've seen around. It's not a stirfried dish with slices of beef and veggies.

Their portion sizes are also quite generous when compared to many of the other restaurants in the Edmonton area, plus I think the restaurant stickers they put on the take out boxes to help keep them closed are really smart and cute.

I definitely recommend Yangming Chinese Restaurant to those of you who are looking for a new restaurant to check out, or are maybe just getting tired of your normal go to...

So I'll begin that i decided to check this location out, and wanted to have a good hope for some good Chinese food,

Sadly the location really let me down with the quality of the meat in the dishes, being a stringy and cheaper then cheap quality that would better be served as scraps fit for an animal,

The actual veggies in the dish did however add quite a boost in the taste, they tasted freshly cut and helped the dishes really well.

The sauces used in the dishes below had almost no flavor and as the chicken was almost non existant, as the black bean sauce did provide some flavor it was needing a bit more to add to the taste, a very mild heat to them did make them enjoyable.

The Fried Shrimp were a bit of a mixed bag and personally a bad choice on my part, the batter was a bit too thick and excessive turning a fried shrimp into basically a Corndog, the spicy mayo was good but perhaps not right for this dish, i would imagine a more tart or sour sauce as the other option would of been more enjoyable.

The spring rolls were such amazing quality that I've only seen a few other places match them.

The first dish we got was the egg fried rice and it was noticeable that it was quite (old) or stale as the rice was already forming clumps of balls from not being properly cooled or sealed properly

in the end of it, I don't think I'm motivated for a round two as a first time visit really sells it, and that did...

To be truly honest, we both had lunch specials which comes to a spring roll and chicken froed rice, but I felt the main select felt more like a small side dish in comparison to the side items (ma po tofu) which is sctually fullt vegetarian, not the traditional dish with pork and you really taste the difference as the savoury flavour isn'treally made up for with a substituted seasoning. Perhaps, had it been ordered as a single item, the portion size would have been much better per the other reviews and photos here.

The lemon chicken came across as having that somewhat reheated texture that readers can recall and identify when there's leftover. The vegetables were cooked well, and the chicken fried rice tasted great.

It's a shame because we initially intended to order food to go for later, but the experience largely changed our minds. We did try to order one item just to see if it would be better, but we were informed it was unavailable, which seemed odd to me since wontons are such a staple item whether on their own or in soup.

Keep in mind that I always leave an honest review and that the majority of them are especially positive.

This review is intended to provide constructive feedback for what is a very new restaurant and the comments I have made might be addressed in future, so do not let this review dissuade you from visiting, forming your own opinion(s), and supporting a...