11:00 AM
Janice
After I had my dim sum lunch at Dinesty, I wanted to go back and treat my family since it's one of the Chinese restaurants that have pretty reasonable prices (I'm a student -- not going to treat them to anything fancy), décor that is quite modern and clean, and food that is pretty good.
Shanghai restaurants usually have an open kitchen so you can watch them wrap dumplings, but Dinesty has a kitchen that is really open where you can watch them actually cook things too. I was surprised they actually had so many staff on hand.
Something that I want to reiterate from the dim sum post (since I now have a picture) was that every person gets their own saucer of vinegar -- no need to share! That is attention to detail and germaphobes would rejoice.
Anyways, after both the stir fried rice cake with salted vegetable and pork and the xiao long bao came (more on those on the dim sum post), the shredded pork with hoi sin sauce and pancakes (京獎肉絲薄餅 , $11.95) was next to arrive. There weren't a lot of crepes in comparison to the pork -- about six sheets -- so a lot of pork was left over. The pork itself was shredded very uniformly and had quite a bit of wok hei (鑊氣). Combined with the scallions which added a bit of spiciness to them, I thought it was not bad.
The next dish was the stewed pork in brown sauce with tofu and eggs (私房红烧肉, $13.95) which was surprisingly huge. One of my recently favourite item is the bean curd knot, which they had in this dish! I was happy, but it was actually a bit too salty since it soaked up a lot of the sauce. It would've probably been better with rice. There were also two hard boiled eggs which were quite perfect. The meat itself was soft and quite fatty.
We also ordered the chicken and wonton soup in clay pot (沙鍋雲吞雞燙, $15.95) which was enormous. And I thought the stewed pork was big. This was definitely enough to serve a small village (of 15 people). The soup was absolutely delicious and had lots of chicken, bamboo shoots, and bok choy. Those three in combination always seem to make delicious soup. It was very strong yet not overly salty. There were only around six wontons in total, but the wonton skins were very thin and beautiful.
For dessert, I ordered the glutinous rice in red dates with sugar sauce (心太軟, $8.50). I've never had this dessert before! Usually when you say those three chinese words, I think of that classic Chinese song (which I'm now listening to since I had to find the link) or chocolate lava cake. Instead, here, it was actually red dates stuffed with glutinous rice. It was pretty much like a 湯圓 reversed. The first few ones were quite good, but then it got really sweet in the end. It's quite interesting if you've never had it before and I'd recommend giving it a try.
Rating: ★★★★★
I think this was one of the cheapest meals I had with my grandparents in a while and they didn't complain about it being cheap! There was a lot of soup left over and it was still pretty good the next day. I kind of feel like Dinesty will be my go-to if I need to treat people to dinner now (not that I'm treating any of you. I know you wanted to comment on this.) I bumped it up to 5 instead of 4 from the dim sum post since it's so wallet-friendly!
Dinesty Chinese Restaurant 聚
8111 Ackroyd RdShanghai restaurants usually have an open kitchen so you can watch them wrap dumplings, but Dinesty has a kitchen that is really open where you can watch them actually cook things too. I was surprised they actually had so many staff on hand.
Something that I want to reiterate from the dim sum post (since I now have a picture) was that every person gets their own saucer of vinegar -- no need to share! That is attention to detail and germaphobes would rejoice.
Anyways, after both the stir fried rice cake with salted vegetable and pork and the xiao long bao came (more on those on the dim sum post), the shredded pork with hoi sin sauce and pancakes (京獎肉絲薄餅 , $11.95) was next to arrive. There weren't a lot of crepes in comparison to the pork -- about six sheets -- so a lot of pork was left over. The pork itself was shredded very uniformly and had quite a bit of wok hei (鑊氣). Combined with the scallions which added a bit of spiciness to them, I thought it was not bad.
The next dish was the stewed pork in brown sauce with tofu and eggs (私房红烧肉, $13.95) which was surprisingly huge. One of my recently favourite item is the bean curd knot, which they had in this dish! I was happy, but it was actually a bit too salty since it soaked up a lot of the sauce. It would've probably been better with rice. There were also two hard boiled eggs which were quite perfect. The meat itself was soft and quite fatty.
We also ordered the chicken and wonton soup in clay pot (沙鍋雲吞雞燙, $15.95) which was enormous. And I thought the stewed pork was big. This was definitely enough to serve a small village (of 15 people). The soup was absolutely delicious and had lots of chicken, bamboo shoots, and bok choy. Those three in combination always seem to make delicious soup. It was very strong yet not overly salty. There were only around six wontons in total, but the wonton skins were very thin and beautiful.
For dessert, I ordered the glutinous rice in red dates with sugar sauce (心太軟, $8.50). I've never had this dessert before! Usually when you say those three chinese words, I think of that classic Chinese song (which I'm now listening to since I had to find the link) or chocolate lava cake. Instead, here, it was actually red dates stuffed with glutinous rice. It was pretty much like a 湯圓 reversed. The first few ones were quite good, but then it got really sweet in the end. It's quite interesting if you've never had it before and I'd recommend giving it a try.
Rating: ★★★★★
Dinesty Chinese Restaurant 聚
Richmond, BC
(604) 303-7772
7 comments:
You never had 心太軟? Love it, and it's weird as normally I shy away from eating those red dates whenever my mom cooks the ba bao zhou..
I've never tried the red date mochi thing either! Then again I always find it hard to order a large dessert dish when I eat with my family. My mom doesn't like sweets much, so it's impossible for my dad and I to finish something like that. It looks interesting though...
This place looks really yummy. I need to come to Richmond to try some restaurants!
I come here often but have never tried the "heart too soft" (stupid mobile won't allow Chinese for some reason) but it looks pretty delicious. I hope they don't over do the Chinese rock sugar!
@Kevin: Honestly never heard of it before Dinesty! I always thought it referred to lava cakes.
@krispy: yeah it's quite a big dish since I feel like two would be enough for everyone just because mochi is filling and it's quite sweet.... meaning it'd be enough for at least 10 people!
@Amy: when you come to Richmond, try HK BBQ Master too! Someone (not from Richmond) asked me about it today and that is actually one of the best things in Richmond. It just doesn't come to my mind that often because it's so simple and sort of a staple. Not that fancy though, but really good stuff. http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/14/1418873/restaurant/Vancouver/Richmond-Central/HK-BBQ-Master-Richmond
@Nance: hahaha "heart too soft"! It is quite sweet because of the syrup and red dates :( But still really interesting!
This place seems to be always busy. I just went there last week with my friend on a weekday at 1:30 and the place was still full.
I like Nance's translation of things! Oh man, could you imagine doing a food post just translating thing literally. It would funny.
@Vincent: It's always soooo insanely busy. There's always a wait there. At least they actually take real reservations. I called them and they told me honestly that they wouldn't have a table until later, and the same day I phoned Shanghai River and they were like "oh yeah yeah just come".
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