Visual Bites: Dinesty Chinese Restaurant
2 Comments
Karen Hamilton
September 9, 2009
My friend Eileen is soon to be a Vancouver expatriate. It’s a shame on many levels. As a neighbour, she is my +1 for art galleries, the symphony, and other arenas of culture. As a food lover, it means that I’m losing another reliable dining companion to that kingdom over the sea.
We decided to check out at least one restaurant along the Canada Line together before her departure. She has a soft spot for Taiwanese food by way of her mother’s restaurant eating habits, so our short list whittled down to Pearl Castle near Aberdeen Station and Dinesty Chinese Restaurant by Lansdowne Station. Pearl Castle seemed the more Taiwanese of the two, but it being a bubble tea cafe more than proper restaurant, my husband and Eileen compromised on Dinesty, which peppered its primarily Shanghainese offerings with flavours of Taiwan.
Dinesty was an easy 5-minute walk from the mouth of Lansdowne Station. Our first hurdle was encountered before we stepped foot inside: Dinesty accepts only cash. Groan. My husband had us grab a table while he searched around for the nearest cash machine (which was thankfully somewhere inside the square).
The restaurant was busy with lunch-goers even at 2pm. We waited 5 minutes before a table cleared, and proceeded to wait another 20 before a server came to take our order, which involved all three of us flailing our limbs in attention-grabbing gestures. Our next hurdle was the actual ordering, made awkward by the lack of English on our order sheet.
With a barely discernible sigh, our server shelved her impatience with our inability to use this checklist. We communicated our 5 items using the single black menu that our table got, filled with useful image galleries of the most popular items and subtitled with codes like S10 and N01 for those of us who needed the cross reference.
After another 20 minute wait, we received our first dish: xiao long bao, item S01 on the menu with an English description of “steamed pork dumplings”. The bamboo steamer held 9 soupy, porkalicious morsels that were worth the $5.95 we paid and somewhat made up for the neglectful service we had experienced up to this point.
Next came the noodle soup with beef (N01, $6.95), the only Taiwanese item in our eating line-up. The spice level of this dish is up to you. We opted for a mild spice as per my companions’ wishes. Eileen was giddy with delight as she consumed her portion, noting the handmade noodles and the clear, delicate notes of the broth. My husband declared it his favourite of the dishes we tried that day.
I preferred the shrimp and pork shaomai (S10, $7.50) that followed the soup. All of us appreciated the presentation of whole shrimp that topped the mouth of the dumpling as well as the mouthfeel that the separation of shrimp from pork ball imparted. I’m still trying to figure out what the visuals evoke… gift bags? An erupting volcano? A sea polyp?
We were doing well with our pace of consumption until the arrival of the shredded pork with hoi sin sauce and pancakes (E33, $11.75). It was a mountain of pork for our table of three. We probably needed three more helpers – and either 6 more pancakes or a bowl of rice – to polish this baby off. Think of it as a pork rendition of the traditional Peking Duck starter, with the greens, sauce, and meat convieniently tossed together, ready to be rolled into its pancake casing. I ate as much of this as I dared, knowing there was one more dish to come.
I wish that the bean curd mushroom roll (D01, $5.95) had graced our table when the other dim sum items were still around, as it was rather anticlimactic after the soup and the shredded pork. My husband, being the tofu-hater that he is, passed on this completely; Eileen tried one mostly out of politeness than curiosity or hunger; I had two at the table and three to go to prove that the order was not unwarranted. I must admit, however, that this dish was mighty bland in comparison to the four dishes that had preceded it.
All in all, we enjoyed our meal at Dinesty. But let’s make it clear: we enjoyed what we ate, not the service, wait times, ordering process, or cash-only environment. The items we downed and the dim sum items that we have yet to sample are alluring enough to convince me to return for subsequent visits. But I’m going to agressively downgrade my service expectations and bring a friend that can decipher the ordering sheet before I give this place another try.
Dinesty Chinese Restaurant
8111 Ackroyd Rd | Lansdowne Station, Richmond
(604) 303-7772
Categories: Food, Restaurants, Richmond
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I havent tried eating there at lunch. The dinner service gives you a full size menu binder with English translation and even pictures. I find that handy as I’m a Pinoy and cant read Chinese. Service is a bit better too at dinner time. Unfortunately, most of the HK and Taiwanese restaurants in Richmond do not accept credit cards anymore. Pearl Castle is cash only too. I find that annoying but I cant do anything about it. BTW, Pearl Castle is opening a new branch within the Richmond Centre mall. Its in the Bay store side across from MacDonald’s. I’ll tweet u when its finally opened.
Thanks for the heads up on Pearl Castle. I did have a feeling that most Asian restaurants in Richmond would be cash only, but it is an inconvenience to those of us who don’t carry cash by default.
We did get a full size menu binder, but just 1 for our table of 3. Would have liked to have one each; we couldn’t flag a server down for taking orders, let alone for asking for additional menus.