Tai Tung Chinese Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Tai Tung is a Cantonese-style restaurant located in the Marpole area of Vancouver that we visited in late February. The thing that struck us the most about our visit was how quiet it was for a Saturday morning. Usually, that’s a bad sign since most of the good dim sum places are really busy on the weekends. Perhaps we were just here really early?

There seemed to be a hushed silence from all of the diners this morning (something unusual as I always associate dim sum with a loud din from the elderly diners yelling to each other and babies crying). In any case, we were here for the food… and most of the dishes arrived around the same time. The first dish to arrive was the Tai Tung Specialty Baked BBQ Pork Buns ($5.35). This was soooo good! Freshly baked, the slightly sweet filling was still warm inside and I really appreciated the sweet cookie-crumble pineapple-bun topping.

Most of the dishes are exactly how they are described… such as the Steamed Scallop and Prawn Dumpling topped with fish roe ($6.95).

Something that I really appreciated was the fact that the waitress properly cut the Fried Eggplant with Shrimp Paste ($6.95) for us, ensuring that each piece had both eggplant and shrimp paste in it.

The filling of the Steamed Beef Rice Roll ($6.95) turned out quite well with a nice fresh and aromatic hit from the cilantro in the filling.

Although not the most visually appealing dish, the Bean Curd Wraps with Meat in Oyster Sauce ($5.35) had an interesting texture with the addition of crisp veggies to the meat filling (think it was celery?).

And last up was the Beef Omasum with Ginger and Onion ($5.95). The otherwise delicate flavour of the bible tripe was enhanced by the addition of ginger. There were a couple of pieces which could have been cut a bit smaller (as omasum tends to be on the chewy side with a certain degree of difficulty in biting through).

Overall, we were fairly pleased with most of the dishes here (we even took home an order of country-style rice noodles which turned out really great). Prices lean a bit towards the expensive side but they offer 20% discount off weekday mornings if you pay cash. Otherwise, they do accept credit cards. We were in luck that we showed up early because the noise level did eventually rise as more diners showed up later in the morning.

It was almost half a year later that we returned for a revisit. This time, we started with the Chinese Donut Rice Roll ($6.95). Honestly, I thought there was something off with the texture with this dish and I was also surprised that they don’t normally give you the dipping sauce (hoisin and peanut sauce) that we normally get at other restaurants.

Next were the Chicken Feet ($5.95)… a bit standard. And then the football-shaped Deep-Fried Dumplings ($5.95) with shrimp and pork.

One of the best dishes during this visit was the Beef Meatballs with Tangerine Peel ($5.95). Plump, juicy, and meaty with a nice hit of tangerine.

And, of course, we couldn’t come back for a revisit without ordering the Tai Tung Specialty Baked BBQ Pork Buns ($5.35).

Update April 2022: Prices have gone up considerably since our last visit and some of our fav menu items...

Arrived for a late lunch. Getting in had a slight wait as they wanted to give us a table in the line of wind blowing in when the door opened. Didn't say anything at first as they didn't have another table that was not a 4 seater (smaller table, didn't want that as we'll order many dishes) or larger table (which they likely won't give us). Finally a table of the right size left so we asked to be moved there.

By the time all people arrived, it was probably after 2pm and so the kitchen was probably winding down as after we ordered, nothing came out for what felt like at least half an hour.

Luckily, it seems they did not forget about us and the food came out one after another. We all could agree that it was worth the wait as the food was so good!

The Glutinous Fried Rice was my favorite as other places do not have this flavour and texture. I have only said this once about Fisherman Terrace's dish, but that was one time a long time ago. Not since then until this dish have I enjoyed Glutinous Fried Rice. Later I found myself really sleepy and dry mouthed, so probably that means I'm raving about MSG here.

All the other dishes were still good, rivalling larger, more expensive dim sum restaurants in the area. The Xiao Long Bao (forgot to take a shot of that), I would pass on that as that's probably not their dim sum. Not bad tasting, but you can see it's not their specialty when compared to northern Chinese restaurants.

Parking is mostly on Granville or the residential streets. The small lot in the rear is hardly enough for customer parking.

I would go back again as they are usually not so bad about the wait for the food if we come before lunch rush or closer to 1pm. We came too late this time so although most will say this is not excusable, but it...

I came in 'off the street' for a quick dinner alone before my ice hockey game later tonight at the Richmond Olympic Oval. Looking for lots of beef for the protein load, I picked a dish that was pictured in a way that suggested lots of thick beef slices along with a little jellyfish on the side. It was a little pricey, but based on the pictured generous portions of beef, that was ok. When the food arrived, I was sorely disappointed. The dish was much smaller than pictured, was essentially a dish of jellyfish with 6 small, thin slices of beef. This plate of jellyfish would cost $6-$8 at any other Chinese restaurant - but it was $28 here. I admit the quality of jellyfish was better than usual and maybe even a $8-$10 range would be reasonable for this. But not $28. Then they forgot the bowl of rice I ordered and I had to ask for it again. And I needed hot sauce and when thry brought only a little amount in a small thimble plate, I quickly finished it and asked for more. They brought more - of the same miniscule portions. I had to refill several times. In addition to the poor pricing, the table next to me had several people louding engaging in video calls with various people - it was incredibly loud and obnoxious. The food was good, but only worthy of about 1/3 of what they charged. The service was mediocre to poor, and the atmosphere/ambiance was terrible. Trying new places is always hit and miss, and I will neither come back or miss this place. I highly recommend...