Chef Tony Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

Sept 2018

At this time, I believe that Chef Tony's is the best Chinese restaurant in Vancouver/Richmond. I find it strange that they would receive a 3.9 average rating from over 400 reviewers.

The Kirin, Dynasty and Chef Tony's formed in my opinion the three great Chinese restaurants in Vancouver over the past 30 years.

We go to a lot of restaurants (about four to five nights per week). In this post I will summarize the three great Chinese restaurants in Vancouver from roughly 1995 till 2018. I will post basically the same entry for all three restaurants.

For each of the restaurants, we have made over dozens of visits. Kirin - well over 150 times Dynasty and Chef Tony's - well over 60 times each So we know each of these restaurants well.

For about 15 years (from roughly 1995), the Kirin Restaurant at Citysquare remained the number one Chinese restaurant in Vancouver. The dim sum was consistent at a very high level. Sometimes the dinner menu would falter. But overall, they had no real competitors. Others like Sun Sui Wah were pretty good.

There was a time when I knew the names of almost all of the servers and certainly the names of all the managers including Chris, Stephen, Trung and Terry.

Once when we had dim sum, we waited for 45 minutes for a table. Later I phoned one of the managers to complain that 45 minutes was too long when we had a reservation. I thought they would just play lip service to my complaint but after that one phone call, I noticed that they revamped their complete booking service and we never waited more than ten minutes (as long as we had a reservation). Not only that, they actually sent us a gift card for $300!!!! How many restaurants would do that??

Two other interesting tidbits:

Once they had a big celebration and the manager invited our family. I asked do we need some type of invitation? He smiled "your face is your passport." Whenever I would phone for a reservation (regardless from what phone I used - even a friend's phone), they would always recognize my voice. Pretty nice service.

Then around 2010 (plus or minus a few years), the food quality started to falter. The dinner quality fell a lot.

From about 2011 till 2016, Dynasty was about the best Chinese restaurant in Vancouver. The dumplings were amazing. They had some very memorable dinner dishes. So for about six years, Dynasty was our Chinese restaurant of choice. Then somewhat like the Kirin, things started to fall apart. But they had a great run on top of the food chain.

From roughly 2016 till now (2018), Chef Tony's is in our opinion has the very best dim sum in town. The dinners are also very good. I have mentioned to Wallace that his dim sum is without question the best dim sum ever in this city. Who else has truffle on shu mai or matsutake in the har gow? Right now Chef Tony remains my favourite Chinese restaurant.

Chef Tony's has an interesting dish of note. The dish goes back 50 years ago to a time when I was a kid. Our family (we are not Chinese) used to go to Chinatown (often Ho Inn and Ho Ho) and order deep fried rock cod in sweet and sour sauce. Chef Tony's sells that dish.

We have re-tested both the Kirin and Dynasty during 2018. They have both revived themselves a bit. I love the mango mochi at the Kirin (when they are in season - around August). Dynasty has an excellent steamed crab with egg white with the drippings used to make a noodle...

I have been wanting to try Chef Tony since it opened a few years ago. According to google maps it is "Chic outfit for Chinese Dishes and Dim Sum". I'm not sure what is chic about the repulsive decor or the ultra-bright supermarket lighting, but I decided to keep an open mind when I dined with a group of 5 this evening. Take sunglasses if you go.

I was the first to arrive and was shown to my seat. A scrawny waiter asked "what kind of tea you want?". Seriously, in a place in Richmond with $25 entrees in 2017? Not even a good evening?

Let's just say the service left something to be desired. Like service. I'm not exaggerating. Besides the manager taking our order, not a single staff member approached our table to ask us if everything was OK or if we needed assistance. We had to repeatedly flag down waiters by waving. One passed our table 3 times, noticing the raised teapot lid (this is a sign that we want our teapot refilled) and kept walking. My father got up and handed the teapot to a waitress to refill. Did I mention the dishes are around $25 in this place (most Chinese restaurants are about $10-15 in greater Vancouver).

Drinks? Good luck. At one point I was so fed up I walked up to the bar and said "Our table is being ignored. Can we please have two beers?"

Food was decent but portions are small compared to other greater Vancouver restaurants. This chef is innovative and the flavours were well balanced. It would have been nice if anyone had asked us if we were enjoying our meal.

We had to ask for our bill twice. No thank you. No "how was everything?"

The cherry on the cake? We paid our bill, leaving no tip and a manager approached my father and said "You didn't leave a tip!" After a few choice words, the manager understood.

We won't be back. Try the Jade up the Street if you want good food and good service in Richmond. This place...

My boyfriend mentioned of this place because of Food Insider so decided to make a trip to see if it lives up to the hype of the reviewer. I have to admit the dim sum without a doubt better tasting than any of dim sum restaurants in Vancouver Island but the prices are steep. I'm talking about just the two of us ordering about a dozen dishes amounting a bill to almost $150 before tip. Mind you, we tried some dishes that were mentioned in Food Insider to make a comparison. The gold flake dumpling is ridiculously overrated but the truffle siu mai is worth ordering. The chicken feet were standard but if you love durian, then the fried durian dumpling is an absolute gem that Food Insider left out in the review.

We would probably order 2/3 of the food we tried today on subsequent visits, but I would definitely come back with my daughters. We were the first people in the parking lot due to taking the earliest ferry sailing, but fifth in the line up because we were surprised once the first person lines up at the door, more people rushed out of cars and the line grew. My boyfriend and I didn't want to be stupid and be the first people standing but I guess clients were serious here and there was a ridiculously long line behind us by opening time. We didn't book a reservation but 90 minutes for us is more than plenty time to wait, eat, and go.

I would say this a place to eat for special occasions only because I'm not a golden goose and wing a heavy dim sum bill on a weekly basis but if I were to be a local, I'm fine eating with family for dim sum here once to twice a month as a treat. The servers were all nice, fast and extremely tentative to us at first wave but my boyfriend and I did notice others that may have been missed and we kindly pointed staff to neighbouring tables who needed attention, somewhat understandable because it was crazy packed and...