Continental Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

Continental Seafood is quite a large and spacious Chinese restaurant located in Richmond and they are one of the few dim sum restaurants that still use push carts. Apparently, they also have menus that you can order from but we didn’t receive a menu and had to rely on their push cart service.

The thing that I found a bit annoying was that, unlike other dim sum restaurants that use push carts, their servers rarely announced what dishes they were hawking.

We started out with the Steamed Beef Balls. As with many of the dishes here, the beef balls had a definite meaty and firm texture.

The Steamed Siu Mai echoed what we experienced with the beef balls… only with a fairly firm and meaty pork filling.

The next dish that we ordered was the Ham Sui Gok which has the shape of a football and a meat filling that’s stuffed inside the crisp and chewy glutinous rice flour dough that’s been deep-fried.

The Steamed Spare Ribs were fairly good as the meaty pieces fell off the bone easily and there wasn’t much cartilage.

The Steamed Beef Rice Rolls were velvety smooth (which made it a bit difficult to pick up) and filled with a mix of minced beef and cilantro filling.

The last dish for us was the Fried Squid. There was a generous portion of golden-hued squid pieces with some minced garlic and hot peppers. While the first piece that I ate was a bit chewy, the rest of the pieces turned out pretty good. Our meal came out to $43.55 before taxes so it’s a bit on the higher end when compared to some other dim sum restaurants (most of the dishes were medium except for the squid which priced as a special dish).

Even given the size of the restaurant, there was a bit of a wait by the time we left. However, I think this might be more of an indication of their lack of efficiency. If you’re looking for a dim sum restaurant that still serves push cart dim sum, it’s not a bad place to try out. But if you’re looking for a specific dim sum dish, it might be better to order the dish off the menu instead of waiting for it to come out.

UPDATE - March 2025: Still one of the few places that does push cart dim sum. Restaurant is large but parking lot is always busy. Taro dumplings are a bit dry on the inside. Shrimp and chive dumplings were meaty. Chicken feet sauce were a bit spicy but the chicken feet were not the most tender. Eggplant and tofu stuffed with shrimp paste was pretty good with a light crispness. The crab claws were also pretty good and nice to see at dim sum service. The beef rice rolls were busy standard and also ordered...

The number of authentic Chinese food where I live in the states is a rather sad amount, hence why we drive for a while to a whole different country for some hella authentic food. Been going here for many years, quality has never changed; definitely the go-to spot for Dim Sum. Sure, there might be runner-ups, but their vibes just aren't the same.

Atmosphere: see, what I mean by vibes are the carts that wheel the Dim Sum by, the long wait lines (you got people lining up even at three or four o'clock), and the owner somehow managing to bid a customer goodbye, take an order, and holler out a name for the next person up in line to come on up.

Service: ooh, might I also mention, best to call in and reserve a spot ahead of time. That might cut down your wait time from half to one hour to the five to fifteen minutes I usually have to wait. Since it's so busy, do expect a slight delay in service if you want to order something specific or get your tea refilled. It's alright, it's understandable. Oh, also, they do take extra requests! For example, my family and I don't like stuff too heavy on salt or oil, so we asked if we could get the fried beef noodles (干炒牛河粉) with less salt and oil, it did come waaay lighter. Thanks!

Food: now... if I were to write down every single food and my corresponding rating, I might hit the review character limit... just trust me on this! You can't go wrong with anything, so whether you're looking for an authentic vibe and experience or you have zero idea what to try, you really can't go wrong! Everything's amazing.

There's a reason there are thousands of reviews of this place, and I know many restaurants that have hiked up prices or lowered their quality after getting a bit more popular. In my experience, the food quality has pretty much stayed the same. Commendable!

Is it worth driving over three hours just to...

Super scarce, traditional, all push-cart Cantonese Dim Sum service!

Due to convenience, our friend took us to this nearby traditional, Cantonese Dim Sum restaurant for lunch. Featuring entirely of push-cart service, the vibe and product offerings were packed full of colonial Hong Kong nostalgia!. My expectation for the food quality of the place was not high due to its lack of mention on social media. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised by the more than acceptable rustic and old school offerings. Though most menu items lacked refinement and were crafted with an edge ( eg., Giant size Har-Gow or Scallops dumpling in thickish wrappers…etc ), some actually turned out to be quite tasty and enjoyable! The Fried Taro Croquette with light, fluffy cocoon and generous saucy filling was one such stand-out!

Being in BC, I was also delighted to see ‘Stirred fry BC clams in black bean sauce’ featured as a Dim Sum item! Size of those bi-valves was huge! A few banquet style dishes like ‘Deep fried stuffed Crab Claws’ also made unexpected appearances. However, the rarely seen “ Hand scooped, Silky Tofu desserts in wooden barrel crate “ absolutely thrilled my wife! Together with the availability of her beloved ‘Coconut jello pudding’ they really made her day! For me, the sight of my favorite Hong Kong street-side food - ‘Braised Chu-Hau Beef Offals’ presented in a mobile cart version brought back fond childhood memories.

All in all, a surprisingly memorable and acceptable garden-variety Dim-Sum lunch!

One last word! Unlike the extremely attractive pricing of the western style dinner we had the night before. Compared to Toronto’s ( Richmond Hill/Markham ) norm, we noticed the average price point for Dim-Sum dishes in Vancouver was a whopping 70%+...