Kalvin's Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Kalvin's Szechuen Restaurant is a specialty Chinese restaurant located in Kensington. From the outside, the restaurant looks like any other dated restaurant, but on the inside, it looked much better. The restaurant is well lit and follows your traditional Chinese restaurant theme. The restaurant is medium sized and will seat around upwards of 50 people.

We arrived at 5:45PM on a Thursday night and the restaurant already had 3 other tables seated and eating. We were quickly seated and shown the menus. Tea arrived instantaneously and our order was quickly taken. We noticed that service at this restaurant is top notch. They are friendly, quick, and do all the little things right. We ordered the Xiao Long Bao and the Shredded Pork Fried Rice Cake. These are our standard go-to for Szechuen Restaurants.

The Shredded Pork Fried Rice Cake arrived first. It was steaming hot and looked very good. We noticed that Kalvin's does it differently than other places. The fried rice cakes aren't really even fried but likely just tossed around the wok. There wasn't that fried taste to it either but rather a saucy smooth taste. There was a lot of veggies and everything tasted pretty good. The rice cakes were soft and chewy while the veggies provided a nice crunch. However, we noticed a hair on this dish but just removed this piece. It isn't a deal breaker but we were a lot more careful when we ate anything else.

The Xiao Long Baos were totally disappointing. By simply looking at it, we noticed that they were frozen and then just steamed up. The tips of the Xiao Long Bao had frost bite and caused it to be hard and chewy. Other than the tip, the shell was thick and pretty hard to get through. It definitely didn't taste fresh. The broth that the Xiao Long Bao provided was good but the filling was pretty tough as well. Again, this indicated to us that it was frozen some time ago and only steamed up to serve.

Kalvin's Szechuen Restaurant has amazing service. Our tea was poured for us and refilled without even indicating that it needed to be. The wait staff were simply amazing and some of the best we've had. This makes it all the more disappointing when the food isn't up to snuff. Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes and should have gone for their more staple items but everything was so underwhelming and disappointing that we don't think we can give this place another shot.

The restaurant also sells Xiao Long Baos and other frozen dim sum items on the side and they actually have great value in that purchase. However, when it came to actual food they provided and cooked, it...

A mediocre yet surprisingly busy restaurant. After hearing so many people recommending this place I've decided to give it a go. Sadly, we were very disappointed. When we arrived there were only one big table available. So we have to share table with someone else and we were told that there is a reservation so we have to finish ordering and eating within an hour or so. And we should order certain item like the "xiao long bao" asap because they took the longest. So I hastily ordered a "xiao long bao" and a "five spice beef in Chinese pan cake" just as we were sitting down. Now the menu were a bit extensive (7 pages long), and in my hindsight I should have seen it coming but we've invited a non-chinese friend whom have zero experience eating at an authentic Taiwanese restaurant before. So the ordering process is lengthy because we have to explain everything to him. And the waiter comes over every few minute to try to get us to order. Suffice to say that did not help with the dining experience.

Lastly, the food. I dunno if, as an Taiwanese, I'm just used to Taiwanese food, but the food tasted pretty average. Or a little below average imho. Authentic Taiwanese places could probably be considered a pretty rare commodity here in Vancouver but compare to similar places back in Taiwan this places serves food so mediocre it's review score threatens to collapse onto itself and created some sort of singularity.

The "xiao long bao" is just luke warm when it gets to our table, and the filling is kind of mushy for some reason. The beef and pancakes were delicious but successfully frying a chinese pancakes and add some beef to it isn't what I'd considered a technical dish that deserves praising. The chicken nugget were okay, but I could easily think of half a dozen places that serves chicken nugget just like this if not better. And last but not least, the pan fried vegetables and pan fried noodle. Both tasted pretty average imo.

All in all I think our dining experience was leagues apart and nowhere near what some would claim to be "The best food in Vancouver. Period." I heard that the owner have opened up new location since he started so maybe that's one of the reason why the quality of this location have slipped drastically since.

In short. If you must visit during dinner time make reservations and bring some cash. Because they don't take credit cards. And I think there are better choices out there. (Such as Myst...

I've been wanting to go to this restaurant for quite some time as I heard a lot of good comments from my friends. It's a Saturday night and the restaurant was so busy that no seats were available without booking. We ordered 6 dishes to share among the 6 of us. The portion was not crazy big but good enough to get us home with full and satisfied tummies (4 men & 2 women). Spicy pork blood and intestines stew - this is my favorite dish. Intestines were very tender and pork blood were soft and smooth. The medium spicy sauce made me finish a bowl of rice in no time. Three Cup Chicken - one of the most favorite Taiwanese dishes. Chicken was cooked with one cup of soy sauce, sugar and cooking wine each. Unlike most other restaurants, this dish is neither too sweet or salty. The flavor is delicately balanced that one could keep eating without feeling greasy. Shrimps in salty egg sauce - I like the twist that the chef put into this dish. The Cantonese has have this dish, but the Taiwanese style has put in some deep fried garlic and chili, making this dish even more enticing to the palate. Fried fish meat with chives - pretty good but not particularly special The fish is fresh and the chives are aromatic. Pork belly in brown sauce - the success of this dish lies on the choice of meat. It has to have several layers of fat and meat. This dish was fairly well cooked, and the sweetness of the sauce is on the dot. I just wish the meat has a little bit more fat in it coz the size piece was a bit dry. Sakura shrimps fried rice - simple but good! The rice was very well fried so you could see each and every grain of rice. The sakura shrimps adds saltiness and aroma to the rice. Delicious!

There are so many other dishes I want to try. Will definitely visit again. I'm sure this restaurant has...