Koon Bo Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Having read the good and bad reviews, I was more than a little worried about the long wait when our friends decided to meet here for dinner. She had pre-ordered the winter-melon soup and the BBQ duck. After we placed our order, the first dish Cold Pulled Chicken and Fried Noodles arrived quite quickly. It was a pleasant dish, the deep fried noodles were not greasy. But after that, nothing happened for at least half an hour. We can see that they did have a lot of take out business and that two other tables are getting their dishes regularly. The server apologized for the wait and explained that they were short staffed. I've read articles and heard from proprietors that the food service industry seems to have lost a lot of staff. One would think "the service was so slow here, do these people deserve to be in business?" Absolutely! I hope they stay in business and do well. They are really doing their best. Despite the slow service, I gave them four stars because the server was polite, apologetic, and not rude. But mostly because they served up the most tender, succulent, and properly spiced BBQ duck I've had for years. Before trying their duck, I had given up on BBQ ducks because I've had so many dry rubber ducks. The second dish Winter Melon Soup was superb. Full of unami, and the melon super tender. It was so good, we couldn't stop drinking it. The fourth dish was also unique to them. Deep fried tofu, but with the tofu mixed in with other things. At first I thought it was friend oysters because of the shape. The mixture inside even looks like fried oysters. But it was definitely tofu with meat. The outside is more like the fried taro Wo Gok dim sum. Very good. After these four delicious dishes, I'm done. Although the other dishes were equally well executed, I didn't need anything else. And BTW, I didn't detect MSG, which is a bonus! Actually, we quite enjoyed the leisurely dining with time in between dishes to catch up and have decent conversation. Too often, 'efficient' Chinese restaurants serve up all the dishes at once, with most of them getting cold before you can try them. As a result of the banquet style one-dish-at-a-time service, we all digested our food better and didn't feel that we over ate. I am really thankful for little restaurants like this one who keeps on working hard even though they are short staff. I do hope they are able to take some rest weekly and continue to be...

Koon Bo is a fairly long established Chinese restaurant on Fraser in a tiny strip mall. It's been about 10 years since we last visited and I'll admit that the interior decor looks better than it did during our last visit. A lot of things that haven't changed: the parking lot is small and busy, service is on the slow side, food is pretty spot on.

We ordered their taro dumplings ($9.2) - this was actually the last dish to be delivered to the table but it was quite good. They have a good taro to filling ratio.

Also ordered their rice rolls with crispy bean curd sheets and fish paste ($10). The bean curd sheets are very crispy/crunchy. The best pieces are the inner ones because the outer pieces have a bit too much crunch.

They make a good steamed bean curd wraps with pork and shrimp ($8.9). I liked their filling and sauce on this fish.

Their scallop and prawn dumpling ($9.7) had the filling bursting through the wrapper and it was difficult to pick up without it falling apart.

The crispy vermicelli with picked veggies and young ginger ($29.45) was a huge dish. Lots of crispy vermicelli on both the bottom and top - it's best to mix it all up with the sauce.

Dim sum was 20% off before 11am when we visited on a weekday.

Update - March 2025: Food is still pretty good as it was when we were last here 6 months ago. Service, tho, is still the same and on the slow side.

UPDATE - June 2025: Another revisit but this time we got an order of free steamed rice roll (think it's based on a minimum $ order). Had the Scallop and Prawn Dumplings, Rice Rolls with Beef and Cilantro, Been Curd Wraps with Pork and Shrimp, Pan Fried Radish Cake, Steamed...

I was blown away by how good their dimsum was compared to other popular spots! We ordered a mix of items and a common theme was how made-to-order fresh everything was as well as their generous portion sizes.

A few standout dishes we had were:

1. Steamed siu mais - they were crazy juicy and I liked how they used chopped pork as opposed to blended/ground pork, which added great texture and snappiness.

2. Pineapple BBQ pork buns - they came out super fresh, hot and pillowy soft. Another honorable mention was the salted egg yolk lava/molten buns. You don't find these often anymore and even when offered some places struggle with getting the filling to be lava/molten enough. But man we're these good. Even though we let them sit for a while the bun remained pillowy soft and the filling didn't seize at all and instead remained flowy.

3. Plain rice rolls - these surprised me the most! We don't normally order this but wow, it was probably the most silky soft rice rolls I've ever had. The rolls held their shape without being mushy and unrolled effortlessly.

The pricing was also very affordable and reasonable. They offer discounts on weekday mornings as well as complimentary tea/tea charge waived. There was ample seating, and while parking is a bit limited in the strip mall, there is plenty of street parking.

I cannot recommend it enough. I can't want to come back again and try the...