Top Cantonese Cuisine Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Top Cantonese Cuisine Restaurant is located in a cramped little mini mall on the corner of Kingsway and Earles in Vancouver. When we arrived for dinner on a weekend, we were surprised that it wasn’t overly busy (usually not a good sign for a Chinese restaurant).

Almost upon arrival, our waiter was encouraging us to get their special Winter Melon Soup. If you’re Chinese, you’ve probably had winter melon soup before prepared at home. If not, just imagine a giant watermelon with white flesh on the inside that is fairly bland and tasteless. Usually, the flesh is diced into manageable chunks and the resulting soup is light and mild.

The winter melon soup here is prepared and presented in the way you might see at a Chinese banquet or special dinner. In this case, the soup is simmered with duck, scallop, shrimp, and crab inside the hollowed out melon itself and presented at the table in an elaborate golden-hued metal container. Presentation was on point and the tender winter melon flesh absorbed the flavours of the broth. The waiter will serve this soup for you and will carefully mix up the filling along with scrapings of the inner winter melon flesh before doling it out into your bowl.

We ordered a bit much for 4 people – that winter melon soup dish is rather large and could count as a vegetable dish by itself.

Next up was the Peking Duck. The meaty slices of duck and skin were presented on a layer of crisp shrimp chips. Did you ever notice that there’s always more duck slices than there are wrappers?

The 2-course Peking Duck included Duck Lettuce Wrap where the meaty diced cubes of duck meat were accompanied by lap cheong (a type of fatty Chinese sausage).

And, of course, no Chinese dinner would be complete without some type of seafood.. in this case, Lobster with Yee Mein Noodles. The lobster was well prepared and stir-fried in a green onion and ginger sauce and there was plenty of yee mein noodles under the 2lb lobster to soak up that sauce.

In hindsight, we probably didn’t need to order 2 veggie dishes given the size of the winter melon (our waiter actually tried to talk us out of ordering 2 veggie dishes). The pea tips and choy sum were simply pan-fried with garlic.

We came back at the end of June for dim sum and the restaurant was decidedly busier. The Deep Fried Taro Dumplings ($5.25) were the first to arrive at the table and had the characteristic fluffy/crispy exterior with a pork filling.

The Steamed Spareribs ($5.95) and the Minced Beef Rice Rolls ($5.95) arrived shortly thereafter. Actually, we were pleasantly surprised that most of our dishes came out rather quickly.

I felt like the Eggplant with Fish/Shrimp Paste ($6.25) was overly fried as the exterior was a bit too crispy and hard. On the other hand, the Prawn and Scallop Dumplings ($5.95) was pretty well executed with a soft and slippery wrapper encasing plump shrimp and topped off with scallop and roe.

Another miss for me was the Steamed Tripe in Ginger and Green Onion Sauce ($6.25) as I thought it was just a bit too chewy – even for tripe. The final dish to arrive at our table was the best of the bunch… the Egg Tarts ($4.50) were freshly made and served hot with the jiggly egg custard encased by a flaky pastry shell.

Overall, the food was pretty good here but some of the dim sum items could have been better. Service was also a bit of a miss when it got busier in the restaurant as it was difficult to catch the attention of...

#vancouver #chinese #privaterooms

Top Cantonese Cuisine Restaurant 2752 Kingsway, Vancouver BC

Located in a strip mall across from Purdy’s Chocolates in East Side of Vancouver.

We came for dinner on a week night. Some of my friends call this their go to place (飯堂) so our service was very attentive by Peggy.

I usually come here for dim sum.

For dinner, there were seasonal specials and set meals but we decide to order a la carte.

We ordered: (Party of 6) Seafood Hotpot (海皇㷛） - large hotpot with fresh veggies lined on the bottom with loads of seafood (scallops, prawns, clams, squids, fish, etc)

Porkchop in Orange Sauce - we decide to try this instead of the typical Sweet and Sour Pork. The taste was more fresh and tangy and not as heavy but cumbersome to cut up Porkchops in group setting

Half Chicken in Turmeric (黃油雞）- very moist and tasty chicken

Gai lan with Beef - very good tender beef with lots of Gai Lan.

Garlic Pan Fried Black Sable Fish (煎封黑魚) - meaty fish steak, no bones

Childhood favourite Egg Dough Fried (疍散)- light fluffy crunchy fried egg dough with coconut flakes and drizzle with syrup.

The food was great and the dishes were large, we all shared 2 small bowl of rice and we were given free dessert of red bean soup at the end.

Total included tax and tip for six patrons is $31 for this meal.

This location also has a few small rooms that can accommodate private parties of 20. Lots of community events arranged for private...

We booked a table for 12 people for January 25th ( tomorrow) on January 9 which I believe it is pretty ahead of time already. Today we went to the restaurant to pick up a menu and the lady in the counter told us that they tried to call us last night to let us know that the table is cancelled because they need to add another table for another customer ( we checked our phone later the day and there was no incoming call from them, they were blatantly lying in front of us) Clearly if we weren’t there this morning we would have been blindsided and would have come tomorrow with no table available for us. We tried complaining but the lady just said that they’re busy right now and can’t accommodate at the moment. I believe this unfair because we booked ahead of time and they’re basically willing to sacrifice one customer for another. I would be very careful when booking with them because they could sabotage you and cancel your booking ONE DAY before and you will leave with nothing. Will never ever come back to them...