Golden Dynasty Seafood Restaurant in Richmond

This is about the first meal we had in 2008. It is a dim sum breakfast we had with the families of Polly & Vincent and Wai Bing and KC. This dim sum breakfast is actually the continuation of our New year Eve celebration together. The previous day we went to Wai Bing’s house to usher in the new year. We had a simple and great home cooked meal, chatted till past midnight, went home to sleep and then met up again for dim sum the next morning.

Between New Year Eve and New Year Day, gosh, we must have chatted for 14 hours in all (Wai Bing, Polly, you do the math … is that right?). I did not realize we had so much to talk about. Over bottles of Guiness Stouts, We talked about normal stuff … you know, like … what you would do if you win the Super-7 (Wai Bing would buy an entire townhouse complex and give each one of us an unit, hurray!), educating the ladies on benefits of investing on a HDTV for the house, plans for next year … and other normal stuff.

Sorry … I digressed.

The Golden Dynasty Seafood Restaurant is where we went to. Although Suanne and I know of this place, we had never been in these before. It is located on a strip mall on 8360 Granville Ave in Richmond. It is where Rogers is, if you know the neighborhood.

One thing you will undoubtedly find … parking is very limited. I guess this is what happens when a certain business (this restaurant) dominates the business on this small area. Almost all the parking lots are all marked for specific businesses. If you can’t find parking right up front, drive over to the back of the strip mall. There are plenty there.

Golden Dynasty is a one of the larger and busiest dim sum restaurants in Richmond. They are big and can cater to wedding dinners too. The place was absolutely packed when we were there but we had no problem getting a table since Wai Bing had already made the reservation before hand.

I think the popularity of this place is due to its price. Their dim sums are categorized as small, medium or big but they all costs the same, $2.30. The quality is not bad too. There are specials which costs a bit more (see menu above).

I like dim sum restaurants where they cart around the dim sum to your table for selection. It’s good to be able to see what you’re ordering, especially for us who do not read Chinese. We had two or three servings of each dim sum … below.

The Steamed Prawn Rice Rolls was very smooth. Best eaten when steamy hot.

This is some kind of Deep Fried Wonton.

Suanne called this the Char Siu So. It’s a pastry with Char Siu fillings.

This is another dim sum with char siu fillings. It’s called Charn Pau (Baked Char Siu Bun) in Cantonese.

The Sin Juk Guen (Fresh Bean Curd Rolls) — love this a lot.

Everyone should try this very chewy Braised Cow Stomach.

Then we had the steamed Squid with few small To Fu Puff thrown in it. It does not look great … looked like it was yesterday’s dim sum.

We also had Wu Gok (Deep Fried Yam Dumpling) — not my favourite but Vincent loves this. He ordered 3 plates of this.

This is a Deep Fried Dumpling … oh … with red bean fillings? *shrugs*

We came across the Pineapple Bun again. Arkensen & Nanzaro loved this. Their Pineapple Bun are the mini version of those we had in Lido.

Everyone’s favourite … Siu Mai (Pork Dumpling with Fish Roe). If you have dim sum, you must have this … and don’t ask what is in it … just eat it and I am sure you will like it.

The Har Gau (Steamed Prawn Dumpling) is another very common dim sum item. I never did like Har Gau’s a lot.

The Fung Jau is translated as the Phoenix Claws. A fancy name for chicken feet or formally known as Braised Chicken Feet in Garlic and Black Bean Sauce. I get a kick watching my non-Chinese friends eat this — most would not even touch it. But seriously, this is great!

You can’t see it from the picture above. What is submerged under the congee is century eggs (or thousand year old eggs). In Cantonese, this is called the Pei Dan Sau Yok Juk or in Suanne’s translation, the Thousand Year Old Egg and Lean Pork Porridge.

The Steamed Chicken Bun is the favourites of the kids. Pretty ho-hum. Char Siu buns are better but we did come across it when they wheeled their carts over.

And finally, the Glutinous (or Sticky) Rice Wrap.

The total bill came to $80 for 3 families of 12 people (including kids). Not bad, huh?

I’ll blog about dim sum and Ben’s version of etiquette of eating in a Cantonese (dim sum) restaurant tomorrow. How does that sound?