Kirin Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Kirin on Alberni is supposed to be a fine dining kind of dim sum, or a fancier one downtown.

This was only my second time over the past few years and I recalled the quality of dim sum was good but the price was more the upper end which was fair due to its higher quality.

The food was not disappointing. However, the two friends that I brought complained the portion was not big enough. I understood that we they had not been to a lot of dim sum places. To be fair though, we could not finish all we ordered and the price was more reasonable than I expected.

1. Deep-fried fish fingers. I forgot what it was called exactly, but the style was supposed to be a bit spicy. This was a great appetizer to start with as it was really appetizing.

2. Combination of taro cake and radish cake. Radish cake is my favourite food of all times, so I was a bit sad that they did not have the standalone one but combined it with taro cake. This was delicious, though. However, since radish cake was only halved, I was tempted to get another one.

3. Siu Mai. You know the food is good when no one remember to take the picture.

4. Chinese donut. It was crispy and but not too crunch so it was still a bit chewy. It was fairly cheap and apparently only available at the weekends.

5. Stew noodles with beef brisket and tendon in a clay pot. Again, I forgot what this dish was called exactly. I ordered this mainly because it was a rare item to see on the menu of restaurants in Vancoucer. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise - it was like a stew and served in a clay pot. It was flavourful and the beef was tender.

6. BBQ pork in a pastry. This was like having the BBQ pork bun but without the bun and served in a pastry. This often is a dim sum that everyone enjoys.

7. Steam sore pork ribs - flavourful and very smooth and tender.

The dim sums overall were great. The service was not bad but slightly disappointing for a couple of reasons. First, they forgot one of our dim sum once. Second, one dim sum took so long that we decided to go as our 1.5 hours of parking was running out. Then, here the dim sum came to the table and we had to finish it in a rush. This last incident made my guests not happy. They thought I could have just refused to pay for the last dim sum.

Parking was expensive but they validated us...

I'm not one to typically put a bad review on google but I was so disappointed and upset with my visit today that I had to share with everyone my experience here. If I could, I would rate it as zero stars!

First of all, we had a reservation and arrived on time but had to wait quite a while at the entrance. We were only a group of 3 and there were several other groups after us who got seated first.

Second, the food was below average and not worth the price. We ordered the steamed prawn dumpling (har gao), sticky rice with pork and scallops, deep fried prawn pork and scallion beancurd roll, egg tart, and steamed prawn and pork dumpling (siew mai). The sticky rice was way too watery and mushy and the prawn dumpling was very bland. The only thing that was decent was the siew mai and egg tart.

The last and the most disappointing of them all is when we were about to pay. I heard that we could get our parking reimbursed and so I called the restaurant before making my reservation to check that it will indeed be reimbursed. The restaurant confirmed that they would reimburse us for 2 hours of parking and that we would just need to show our receipt. No specific details around where we were to park was mentioned. When I was about to pay, I asked about the reimbursement of my parking and had the receipt to proof this. The waitress (name tag first name: B**) said that she could not reimburse our parking. I told her that I called earlier to check this and that they had CONFIRMED that we would get reimbursed. She just said that they only reimburse if we parked at their back parking area and walked off. No apologies, no inquiries made to a manager, nothing! Not only did they go against their word but the customer service we received for their error was just plain shocking.

I used to hear from others that kirin was a good restaurant, but this experience has completely changed my perspective. If any of you are thinking of coming here, I would strongly urge you to reconsider. You will definitely be utterly disappointed with...

When we planned our Vancouver trip, this restaurant is in our must to visit list based on recommendation. Unfortunately we decided to ignore the negative reviews from google since we thought we might tolerate the bad service if it is excellent food. We were so disappointed. First the food is not authentic Cantonese food at all. We ordered 5 dishes. After we tried the first one, we hoped that the next dishes would be better. We agreed as a team (table of 4), the food quality is significantly below average. Very salty food and they even used canned vegetables for vegetable dish. The service is unbelievable under average! The waiter didn't add any water/tea the entire dinner and didn't bother to ask us if we needed more the entire dinner (about 1.5+ hours). We became a little impatient and didn't bother to ask for water/tea even though we felt so thirsty after the over salted meals. The worst part is when we pay for bill, I decided to only give $20 tip (the total meal charge is around $198) because of bad service. I explained to the waiter why and he insisted that the minimum tip is 15% which is around $31 (based on after tax charge of course). He wouldn't leave till I pressed the 15% tip. I told him tipping is not mandatory and we gave our tip based on the service we received. He still made sure I gave 15% tip and told me this is the minimum tip possible. We just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible and I gave the 15% tip (just to clarify we normally give 20% tip for dinner for normal service). The only highlight is that their restroom is clean. In summary, food quality, food price, and service are significantly below average for a typical Chinese restaurant. The second day we went to the restaurant next door on the same street (Neptune Chinese Kitchen). We ordered Dim Sum and other dishes which are significantly better than Kirin and the price is very...