Dong Tai Xiang Shanghai Dim Sum — Restaurant in Vancouver

New update： I changed my review to 5 stars I tried this restaurant a few times after the first attempt. Food is awesome! Very authentic shanghai food! Especially pan fired bun生煎包, soy sauced duck酱鸭, Braised Spareribs in Shanghai Local Flavour红烧大排, and Dried Shelled Shrimp With Spring Onion Sauce Stirred Noodle葱油拌面. A little bit pricey, but now all restaurants are pricey. I would prefer the ones with good taste. Service is still a bit slow.

rating 1 star from 3 years ago: Super chaotic management. Waiter and waitress have no idea what to do, some don’t know how to take orders, super slow services. Food is very ordinary! From a tradition “Shang Hai” background speaking. Not that attractive to make me come back again. 葱油面 onion noodle is horrible. Noodles that they use is flat Hong Kong style noodle? Not authentic Shang Hai style. They do not have onions on the onion noodle cuz it is out of stock. Onion oil flavour is not rich enough, very tasteless. We haven’t try pan fried bun 生煎包 yet because it was out of stock. Wonton is not that amazing. Other restaurants have similar taste and some have better taste. Food portion is extremely small. Price is expensive for its snack size portion. For 2 people we had $50 for 2 dishes and 2 side dishes, but we were not even full. Owner does not know how to run a restaurant. Our next table waited for 45mins for their last dish to come, but for 45mins nobody told them it was sold out. We went at around 1pm. We ordered a lot of food, but after 30mins we have to ask them several times, if they still have things that we ordered available. And their answer is nothing is available now. So basically we only ordered two dishes and waited for 1hr and 30mins. Everything thing was sold out, except noodles. We waited for about 1 hour for food to come. At that time, there were only a few customers in the restaurant. There is a lack of communication between the kitchen and waitress. Waiter and waitress have no idea what’s available what is not. I heard one of the waitress ( she is not the front receptionist) complained and said “it was not my job to take orders, why customers always asked me to take their orders.” That is really an attitude problem. If it is not your duty, then you can tell customers you can find another people who takes orders. Overall, staff is not trained properly. Kitchen is not well prepared. Owner should estimate the amount of customers you will have per day and prepare food accordingly. By the time of 1pm everything is sold out and restaurant opens till 9pm. Although they said they will have more things ready at around 5pm but there is no guarantee. Might come back later to try pan fried bun. But won’t come back recently due to...

Another restaurant on my list of places to visit after lockdown! This is a Shanghai style noodle & dim sum restaurant that has locations in Shanghai and Macau. Their first entry into N. America and they choose Vancouver as their testing ground.

This location tenanted several restaurants which did not do too well, hope Dong Tai Xiang will fair better luck!

On a Wednesday afternoon, the place was relatively empty with only 3 other tables, all spread out in the restaurant to keep social distancing, we were welcomed and seated in another area with a spacious table.

I noticed that our server was the only one on duty and she had been running around non-stop since we entered, I guess this is the new "normal" with less business, it is crucial to keep cost down, hence one server even during lunch time! She also had to take care of phone in orders, pick-up drivers, walk-in customers, and at the same time keep a relatively cheerful appearance!

After checking out the menu, noticed that they don't really have a big menu, only different ways to mix and match individual items to make your own combo.

Highlight: Noodles: I love their Shanghai style plain noodles, the texture reminded me of the ones I had when I was a kid in Hong Kong, when Shanghai food is very popular there! Braised Pork Chop: very very tender! Great item to pair with your noodles! Shenjian Mantou: Steamed & Pan Fried Dumplings, we ordered the one with Shrimp & Pork filling and I have to say it is one of the best around, the dough is not thick at all and with the juicy filling, one bite into it you will have almost the same experience of biting into a XLB, but this one has an extra texture, which is the crispy crunchy bottom!

I hope they would survive the hard economic situation as they are really trying hard to offer something authentic to the Vancouver food scene!

Oh, btw, kudos to our Server Lisa! She was able to single handedly managed the lunch service all by herself with flying colours! ( the place did get busy when our food started to arrive, and she did pre-warned us about a slight delay, which is a very...

Came at around 3pm on a weekend. The restaurant was empty and was greeted by servers wearing masks. We ordered the Sheng Jian Bao with shrimp, Shanghai summer noodles, green onion noodles, glutinous rice balls filled with Shanghai vegetable and pork and deep fried pork cutlet. They are famous for their sheng Jian Bao and for good reason. There isn't much soup inside but of what was inside it was very sweet which went well with the vinegar on the table. The outside skin of the bun/dumpling was crispy and unlike any other shengjianbao I've had before. It's less dumpling like and more like a deep fried mantou / bun. The meat inside was very sweet and soft. The whole shrimp inside was crisp and went well with the tenderness of the pork. The green onion noodles was a disappointment. The green onions were very chewy and hard to eat. The noodles were a bit over cooked but I liked the savouriness the dish had. I wish there was more green onion flavour as this is a green onion noodle dish. The Shanghai summer noodles, to me, was better than the green onion noodles. This dish was much smaller than the green onion noodles but the sesame flavoured sauce on top was nicely seasoned. If you aren't used to cold noodles this might not be the dish for you but if you do like it you might want to order this. The pork cutlet was another disappointment. It was crispy but very thin and dry. Would not order again. The savoury glutinous rice balls was surprisingly not bad. The Shanghai vegetable and pork filling saved this dish. The service was good - asked us for tea refill, dishes came quickly and everything was pretty organized. The food is a hit or miss. I would say the prices are on the steeper side and portions on the smaller side but for the location and the setting it's understandable. Overall would only recommend you try the pan fried dumplings. It's unique and...