Prince Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Royalty food or royalty price?

I have been coming here both for dim sum and dinner quite a bit over the years since it’s one of the preferred place of one of my good friend. Some of the food are quite good and some are very questionable, but overall it’s decently okay. One of my bestie was in town so decided to come by here for dinner. And to check out what they renovated at the same time, honestly I didn’t notice any changes?

Here were what we ordered for dinner this time around;

Crispy slow cooked brisket with curry sauce. Nice tender and juicy with a light little crunch to it. House special crispy chicken stuffed with sticky wild rice. Very nice light crisp to it, tender meat and the rice absorbing the tasty flavours of the chicken. Birds nest soup with minced chicken and dried scallops. Nice light soupy taste. Roasted piglet. The skin was too crunchy and hard, seems like they reheated the whole pig which definitely shouldn’t never do, failed a bit here. Live king crab 3 ways (steamed king crab legs with garlic, deep fried body, fried rice with crab roe). I think I preferred the steamed legs just with green onion more, a more natural sweeter taste without the garlic over powering the beautiful flavour of the crab. Stir fried cauliflower with pork neck meat. It was okay, another generic dish. Stir fried sea muscles with onion. I am never a fan of this dish, I prefer geoduck more. Pan fried beef tenderloin with deep fried tofu. Beef was tender and juicy as it should be, glad they didn’t overcooked the beef like most chinese restaurants do. Braised Yu Choy with seaweed in consommé. Pretty generic vegetable dish. Steamed ling cod with ginger and green onion. I am never a fan of ling cod so no comment. Baked tapioca pudding. Very nice, not overly sweet. Complimentary cookies and pastries. Nice!

Overall, a nice decent dinner especially with special friends, that’s one thing can’t ever go wrong with besides everyone fighting to pay the bill (that’s what friends do, doesn’t matter who pay the bill as long as everyone had a good time, not bringing out the calculator for a split bill, silly Western ideology). Some food were good and some were so so but everything started to taste good after a couple of bottles of good wines and alcohol. Nevertheless, I do recommend preordering their crispy chicken with wild rice and their crispy beef brisket with curry sauce. The services here are always decently good for us, the food not too bad and the atmosphere here is always alive when we dine here. Is it my number one choice for Chinese food, nope, but we can all agree on this place at least plus their combo prices are...

Why is it when it comes to Chinese restaurants, they have an atrocious reputation for horrid bathroom conditions? Oh yeah... because it's true. So let me get this off my chest right now. The bathroom at Prince Restaurant is gorgeous... like Hyatt Regency 5 star hotel gorgeous. Touchless everything, marble tile, lots of space, bright lights, flowers and other aesthetic pleasers. I would come back to this restaurant just for the bathroom. But let's get real... how about the rest of it? Read on...

A small parking lot but at least it's free, a flat and double door entrance suitable for physically challenged and the elderly, lots of space between tables (a direct result of pandemic stipulations), pleasant staff who will converse in Cantonese, Mandarin, or English, menus in both Vancouver's official languages (English and Chinese, lol), lots of artificial and natural light, tvs on three sides of the room, and your choice of many types of tea.

The food is good to excellent. For example: Har Gow: large dumplings in a non traditional oval shape. My wife liked them; I thought it had a touch less flavor than I would like. Steamed BBQ Pork Buns (no baked option): excellent but a little small. Prawn Spring Roll: really good with lots of prawn Siu Mai: interesting use of carrots which are not traditional but excellent. Siu Long Bao: in a word, heavenly. Lots of pork juice and steamed to perfection. Egg tarts: typically very good, but why bring it out first when it is the dessert dish? Tendon and Tripe with Rice Noodles: perfect amount of stickiness and taste with lots of meat. Prawn and Chinese Donut wrapped in rice noodle: typically, a white wrap is used; this iteration uses black rice, visually different but the taste is the same.

Price point is higher than other local establishments when size and amount is taken into account... about $20 per person for dim sum. And the service was mostly good; I did not like being told we had to leave after we had paid the bill; their reason was they were concerned we might catch COVID-19; I think they wanted the table for the next seating.

All in all, we came a lot out of the way to try this restaurant. And the few negative points notwithstanding, I was pleasantly satisfied. We would come...

Serving staff rating: 4 stars Management staff rating: 1 star Unfortunately, Google reviews don't allow for nuance in different types of service, so I had to give this restaurant a 2-star rating overall.

I've visited Prince a few times before, and while the food, decor, and service were usually adequate, my most recent experience was very disappointing. I had made a reservation a month in advance for a Mother's Day dim sum celebration, bringing together 11 people for a special gathering with our elderly moms. Since we only needed 1 extra seat, it wasn’t necessary to be split into 2 tables.

When we arrived, the table was only set for 10, and basic items like bowls and spoons hadn’t even been laid out. While they did manage to sort out the seating, the bowls and spoons never came. We placed a generous order, expecting to have leftovers, but several dishes we marked on the menu never arrived. After pointing this out, staff re-entered the missing items, but it took quite a while before any additional food showed up.

After we waiting an extended period for BBQ pork buns, we asked again only to be told that they were sold out. No one informed us, and we would have kept waiting indefinitely had I not followed up. Frustrated and still a bit hungry, I asked for the bill—only and was told to go to the front counter if I didn’t want to wait.

From the counter, I saw several staff members were chatting animatedly with what seemed to be regular customers but none ever looked my way. When someone wearing a “manager” pin came behind the counter, I assumed he’d assist me—but instead, he slipped away after grabbing what he needed and did not acknowledge me, despite my clearly irritated expression. Finally, I flagged down a staff member who made an excuse that she thought I was paying at our table and had been waiting for me there. This was clearly false because it took some time for her to bring up the bill from our table number.

Rather than being a special Mother's Day, this dimsum was memorable for the wrong reasons. Parking at Prince is challenging at the best of times, so coupled with this latest experience, we will likely not be returning to this...