Daimo Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

Definitely one of my comfort restaurants, holds lots of memories for me. Kudos to the staff for just being amazing overall! The restaurant is located right next to the main mall. It has a nice, cozy yet spacious atmosphere. It has one TV right next to the entrance, and they usually broadcast the Hong Kong news channel. You usually get seated quickly, as long as it's not rush hour. If you have a plus one, you will probably be seated with a window seat that borders the restaurant; if you have plus twos, you will be seated near the center. If you have a party (over five people i guess) you get a table with a lazy Susan. They give you complimentary hot tea and spicy oil/soy sauce plus menus and then they tend to other customers. I recommend coming here during lunch hours because they offer the lunch special ($15.95). It has an entrée, a small bowl of "soup of the day," a bowl of rice, and either strong milk tea or refreshing lemon tea. You can order either hot or cold. I usually get the sweet and sour fish for the entrée, but the XO beef is amazing too. A waiter will appear in a few minutes. They are all fluent in Cantonese and English, and I believe most staff speak Mandarin as well. They're all very polite and friendly, which is nice. Thanks to coming here a lot, I'm basically friends with most of the staff now. Whether or not you're friends with them, they will treat you fairly and efficiently. You wait 10-15 minutes depending on what food you ordered, and then you dig in! If you ordered the lunch special, they usually serve the soup, then your drink of choice, then your entrée. The food is really good. The chefs do an amazing job. It's not Michelin star quality, but it makes me think of homecooked food that reminds me of Hong Kong; just that the food is pretty much served to perfection. It's just so FLAVORFUL! the rice helps refresh your palate while you're eating, which is thoughtful. Kudos to the chefs for being amazing!! They actually recently changed the dishes for the lunch specials so they didn't have to wash as many dishes. Just FYI! Once you're done eating, unfortunately you will have to wait for a while depending on how busy the restaurant is. One time my plus one and I actually waited almost half an hour just to pay. The restaurant is very busy sometimes. It's a bit understaffed (not sure about the chefs, they do an amazing job, they have one person manning the counter and three to four people managing customers) so you do have to wait, but this is the only downside. Sometimes, you just have to catch their attention. If you want to order take-out, you usually order on the phone and then pick up the food in fifteen minutes. They do offer a food delivery service courtesy of HungryPanda, but I've never used that before. I usually order takeout around evening time, so after four ish. The quality of the food is the same as when you eat in the restaurant, so don't worry! Overall, I definitely recommend this place! Have...

This place used to be my family's go-to place to eat, my Grandma's favorite, she liked the braised beef noodles. Recently, it looked like this restaurant was under new management or new owners, the quality of the food declined, we noticed this happened after the pandemics probably they loss a chef. Now, even the service was poor under new team of waiters(new faces). My famy and I had a very bad experience on the Mid Autumn dinner.... When we arrived, I was telling the staff that we had a reservation (time, # of people and my name), but actually the staff who had big eyes was not receiving me, she was greeting to someone who seemed to be acquaintant and ignored us, so I repeated again and she said "ok,ok wait a minute", then I head she was speaking to herself but I could clearly hear she was saying "慌死冇得食咩" was a Contanese phrase meant we were afraid there was nothing to eat, and it was very rude to say to someone especially to the customers. I heard it but did not want to raise a scene because it was a holiday. We ordered 6 dishes: 1/2 dozen of steamed oysters on the half shells, 1/2 roasted duck (their very best in the Bay Area), 1/2 crispy chicken, a steamed whole fish (fresh from the fish tank behind us), twin lobsters (special deal that evening), a vegetable stir-fried with salty shrimp sauce. Food came to us fast, the veggies, the oysters, the lobsters, the fish, and then we realized the appetizer roasted duck not yet showed up and we saw the two roasted hanging in the display behind us were all gone and we still hadn't receive our order, also the crispy chicken not yet showed up. The staff brought the chicken but it was steamed chicken that was not our order, soon she realized someone made a mistake on the order and also our 1/2 roasted duck went to the other table. No one was followed up on the remaining of our orders, until we called the staff over asked for the status, the manager (the one who worked behind the counter) came to tell us our roasted duck was cooking. They sold out the roasted ducks in the middle of dinner time and they had to make new batch of roasted ducks (which we believe they were supposed to be for the next day). After we almost finished all the food on our table, the crispy chicken delivered to us with lots of oil on the chips and the meat was dried. Finally the roasted duck came but the skin and the flavor both tasted like they still needed more time, they were rushing to get the ducks out to the rest of the customers and neglected on the quality. We thought the steamed oysters with black beans and garlic sauce was the best dish, however, we all had diarrhea when we got home after the dinner. All the food was fully cooked, except perhaps the oysters were under cooked or they were bad quality, we could not taste them because the black bean and garlic flavors overpowered the flavor of the oysters. So the food was bad, also the...

Its a little retro 90s inside, but its spacious, my table was clean, they offered a complimentary hot tea & hot oil on the table for the food.

I ordered a lunch special for $15.95, I asked for her reccomendation - she suggested the beef Xo. This came with a beverage (I chose a can of coke) & a small soup (sweet & sour). The beef xo also had a side of white rice on the plate as well - which turned out great, because although the Xo is yummy, it is quite rich and salty, the white rice cuts that richness very well. The portion was also ample for a lunch serving. I say it is for sure worth it! The beef was super tender and flavorful as well. I really didnt care for the Celery in this dish though. Next time I'd ask them to leave it out, its really nothing but a filler & not a good one at that. The snow peas were a nice addition though.

I also ordered Beef & Chive chow fun i believe it was $17.95. This is a HUGE portion, so while $17.95 sounds high to me, this can easily fill 3 people with just the chow fun alone! This price is super reasonable. As far as taste of the chow fun - the beef was great and tender, I just wish the noodles were thicker and fatter. These arent typically the kind of noodles I envision when I think chow fun... this is probably closer to a thai pad see ewe noodle, still good! But i was really wanting a fatter wider noodle. The sauce was perfect - maybe id have liked it to be a little wetter even, but the flavor was good.

For appetizers i ordered a BBQ pork rice roll $7 8pc (my favorite thing out of everything!) Shrimp & Chive Dumplings 3pc (my least favorite of everything) Turnip cake $6 3pc (this was interesting - texturally like a mix between fake mashed potatoes & gelatin.. I didnt hate it. The seared parts were super yummy)

The shrimp & Chive Dumplings was a bit dry. Bland & a little over burnt on the seared outside. It also didnt come with any sauce. Id never order it again

The BBQ rice roll was texturally pleasant to me - with the super soft rice roll & the addition of the BBQ pork added texture + it was laying in a sort of ponzu or soju sauce which was also yummy.

Overall I'd rate everything a 4 out of 5. The service was great. The ladies were super friendly and wiling to make suggestions. They even packed my to go leftovers them selves, & didnt charge me for my extra coke... which may or may not have been intentional - either way I added what that cost would have been to their tip so it works out.

Id...