chinese in vancouver / richmond

[jim bachinski]

going to be in vancouver / richmond on the 14th, 15th and 16th. will only have time to go to one chinese restaurant- will be a dinner meal- any advice? thanks in advance.

[fmed]

The number of worthy restaurants is overwhelming if you include Richmond. Here are five to get you started:

If dining with a group:
Sea Harbour (for creative, modern Cantonese dinner or dim sum) - Richmond
Shanghai RIver (dim sum - XLB - and a kitchen influenced by Northern/Shanghai cooking) Richmond
Kirin (Downtown or Cambie) Vancouver - dim sum. Kitchen leans North in the downtown location.

If you are dining alone, perhaps a smaller place may work better:
Peaceful (Handpulled Noodle - Vancouver)
Lin's Fine Chinese (for the XLB, for sure)

[Spot]

fmed, my family and I will be visiting for the first time later this month (staying downtown for 3 days), and I've been trying to decide on this (among other things) as well and had tentatively picked Kirin downtown or Sun Sui Wah.

My problem is I can't quite figure out if I've chosen dim sum places or seafood places or some combination of both. Also, I can't get a very good sense of what these places will cost, which is unfortunately a consideration this trip.

Truly excellent Chinese seafood is my objective, especially since it's my understanding crab season's underway.

Any guidance you or others migh lend would be greatly appreciated. Please excuse any ignorance displayed by my confusion.

[raidar]

Spot, I don't think you have to worry about your "confusion". We are all here to discover, learn about, and eat delicious food. People are more than willing to share their knowledge! Hope you track down what you are looking for.

[Sam Salmon]

Cross checking whatever place you're thinking of on www.dinehere.ca is one solid source of info it's diner posted reviews-not fluff pieces or hack jobs (well not many anyway).

EDIT-Dungeness Crab is always available fresh here.

[fmed]

Hi Spot

Keep posting your questions...don't worry.

If good seafood and dim sum is what you are looking for (and you want to stay downtown), then your choices are fine. Kirin and SSW are a couple of stalwarts in the scene and have been popular for many years. I would estimate that you may be spending about $30 per person if you order some seafood and some dim sum. (You can spend less, and you spend a lot more, of course).

If you want to move up a notch...then Richmond is the place to go...Sea Harbour, Shanghai River would be my recs....amongst many others. The Chinese scene here is so competitive that the general quality level is very high.

[Chandavkl]

Just to clarify, dim sum is a morning/afternoon event and few, if any restaurants serve dim sum at night. Places like Sun Siu Wah and Kirin will therefore serve dim sum at lunch time and seafood etc. at dinner.