TaoTaoJu 陶陶居 — Restaurant in Vancouver

Visited Tao Tao Ju (formerly Tao's Kitchen) in June. It's a rather unassuming spot from the outside but the interior isn't bad).

Ordered the Shrimp Spring Rolls ($9.95) and was a bit surprised that it was basically a shrimp wrapped in wonton wrapper. It was a bit basic but the rest of the food we ordered got better and better as we continued. The Zhong Dumplings ($16.95) were quite smooth on the outside. I was kind of surprised that the chili oil was not very spicy.

The Soup Dumplings ($12.95) or xlb were pretty good. Nice amount of soup in each. The Sweet Mantou Mini Buns ($9.95) had both steamed and deep fried buns with condensed milk.

The Pork and Shrimp Dumplings ($9.95) or siu mai were on the small side and seemed to be mainly shrimp.

The best dish was the Hometown...

Consistent Cantonese-style food with friendly staff. They are only opened however at this time for dinner (no dim sum still). Quality is good, with delicately crafted dishes. They make a very good pork belly casserole and sweet and sour pineapple pork - with fresh pineapple.

They are a smaller restaurant so be sure to reserved in advance. They also make a great XO sauce, but you have to ask for it.

Some dishes are decent but nothing spectacular though - preserved vegetable with lotus root, truffle chicken and roasted squab.

I do like their plating and choice of cutlery. It's more elaborate and colour-coordinated than most similar Chinese restaurants.

Will return to try their...

Didn't have my hopes up. I'm a highly skeptical eater at joints like this. I been around a lot of Cantonese food both good and bad. But dang, I was pleasantly surprised. The food was neither too greasy nor salty. We had a reasonably sized party so we were able to sample a wide variety of dishes from plainer veggies, soups and stronger meat dishes. Everyone always has their favourites, but each dish was done quite well. No complaints at all. Service was on par for these kind of restaurants ... so no, probably do not expect any Michelin stars here. Would recommend and I definitely wouldn't mind...