The members of the Richmond Community Kitchens celebrated the end of the season by having dim sum at Shi-Art Chinese Cuisine at Richmond Center on No. 3 Rd. If I recalled clearly, there are members from the South Arm Community Kitchen, Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen and the Caring Place Community Kitchen. The community kitchen will break for summer and resume in September.
Shi-Art Chinese Cuisine is located at the front of Richmond Center facing No 3 Road, across Tim Hortons. You will not miss this bold red front entrance.
When I took the group photo at the end of the meal, some of the members had already left. Next time, we’ll have the group photo taken first before we eat.
There were an assortment of sauces that were given to us even before the dim sum arrives. Fanny and Alice did most of the ordering as they are the experts in dim sum. Both of them are from Hong Kong. Fanny told us that Hongkies usually eat dim sum as brunch and they will take a long time to enjoy it. Here are the items we had and they were ordered in multiples.
The Deep Fried Shrimp Spring Rolls are crispy on the outside and has tender shrimp fillings.
These Deep Fried Mango Milk Pudding are amazing. At first, we thought they are some deep fried sweet potatoes but it’s too tender to the bite. We like this a lot. It’s categorized under the Chef’s Special.
The Shredded Chicken with Sesame is another Chef’s Special. It’s crunchy and served cold.
Pan Fried Stuffed Eggpant is also the Chef’s Special. I love the soft textured eggplant in some garlic bean sauce.
Pan Fried Rice Roll in Soy Sauce is the last item we ordered from the Chef’s Special. I love the caramelized part of the rice roll.
The above is the Steamed Beef Balls served on some bean curd sheets and flavoured with dried orange peel.
I think the above is Deep Fried Shrimp & Mix Meat Dumplings. It has a crunchy and chewy skin.
The Mini Delightful Sticky Rice Rolled in Lotus Leaf is not much difference from other dim sum places.
The Pan Fried Radish Cake with Preserved Meat is crispy on the outside and tender inside. I had blogged about this recipe before.
The ever popular Steamed Shao Mai Dumplings with Shrimp and Meat.
Also, cant go to a dim sum place without the Shrimp Dumplings.
We also ordered some Braised Beef Brisket & Beef Tendon in Noodles as fillers. It’s not really necessary as we had so much food that there were lots of leftover.
I ordered the Chicken Feet in Home Made Soy Sauce Hot Pot without realizing it’s such a big serving. Nevertheless, we managed to finish the whole pot.
There is also Steamed Dry Scallop with Dried Shrimp Rice Roll which is slightly different from the regular beef or shrimp or BBQ pork rice rolls which we normally see.
The last item was Steam Spareribs & Pumpkin. It was an eye opener for some of the non Chinese members of the community kitchens. They said they would not have try it on their own, not knowing what to order and what is in the dish.
The total bill came to $168 for the 16 of us with a 20% discount if the bill is settled before 11:00 am. I would say that it’s not the cheapest dim sum place as the Chef’s Specials are more than $6. But Shi-Art Chinese Cuisine is a very busy dim sum place as there are always line up. One has to wait even with reservation.
Ben, how would you compare Shi-Art’s dim sum quality and value with King’s on Main in Vancouver ?
^^Oh, I would love to know that. I liked Shi Art, but thought it was a little too fancy for student budget and I am thinking of going to King’s too.