Christina and ET of Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken tried to organize a picnic a few weeks ago but it did not turn out because the weather forecast reported rain for the weekend.  So instead of cancelling the meetup among blogger friends, we decided to gather instead for dim sum.  Long story short, the event was attended by TS and JS (Eating Club Vancouver) and us.

It was Christina and ET’s suggestion that we meet at the Top Gun J&C.  Top Gun J&C is part of the Top Gun Group which included the following restaurants that we had been to before:

• Garden City Hot Pot in Richmond
• Kingsway Sushi on Kingsway, Vancouver
• Richmond Sushi in Richmond
• Top Gun Sushi in New Westminster

I think Top Gun J&C is the original restaurant of the group simply because I see that they showcase Top Gun J&C first over all their other restaurants.  BTW, J&C stands for Japanese and Chinese.

Suanne and I did not pay much attention to the menu.  Instead we left all the ordering to Christina.  All of us conveniently declared that we can’t read Chinese.  Christina had no choice.  He he he … I don’t relish the burden of ordering dim sum on everyone’s behalf.  I think you know the feeling!

The special menu have quite interesting items (see above).  I can see that they are not one of those that serves just common dim sums like siu mai, har gow and the likes.

Like the tea we had at Garden City Hot Pot, here they also serves individual tea selection.  ET recommended that we have the Dragon Well (Loong Jang in Cantonese).  Dragon Well is not common in most restaurants and is considered premium Chinese Tea.  ET knows that Garden City Hot Pot and this restaurant has it.  I was quite intrigued by this tea although frankly I can never tell most tea from another.

So I did some research and found that it indeed is the most important of all Chinese tea.  This type of tea is close to be considered the national tea of China where it is the type of tea among 700 different types of tea in China that is served as official tea to foreign dignitaries.

This tea became famous when a Chinese Emperor liked this tea and bestowed imperial status on the bushes from where his tea was made.  Story has it that today these bushes is still in existence and the tea from these bushes fetches high prices.

The tea making setup here is quite similar to what we had in Top Gun but a little bit more simpler. They have lesser number of plates and bowls.

He he he … I had finally mastered the art of pouring brewed tea from the Gaiwan (lidded bowl) to the cup.  Just to show that it was no fluke, I repeated the demonstration with flying colors.

Here is the order form … see what I mean?  It is all in Chinese.  They are not even numbered so that we can match it against some English description or a price list.  Suanne and I would be totally lost ordering this way.

It seems like they computerize the order taking by feeding this to some reader or something.  That’s efficient … for them, not for the customer.

Christina ordered their specialty … the stuffed chicken wings.  This is stuffed with glutinous rice.  The waitress came back and told us that they are all gone.  They are that popular.

And then later on, we saw them bringing this to the table.  I thought they said they ran out of these wings.  It turns out that Christina had earlier ordered this to go.  She had quietly asked the restaurant to serve this to us instead.  She is so thoughtful!  

Christina ordered a LOT of food.  It just get coming.  I counted about 16 different items in all shared between the six of us.  We ended up paying about $24 per person.

As you can see, their dim sum are not cheap.  You won’t find those $2.30 items here.  But what I like is that they have rather uncommon dim sum items.

JS and TS liked the Pork Cheek so much that they actually went to buy this from the supermarket and made this at home — on the same day they had this.  They blogged about their version here.  I must say JS and TS’s version looked just as delicious.

ET said that we could actually buy cooked ones from the Roasted Pig shop at Parker Place.  Anyone can tell me more about pork cheek (also known as pork jowl)?

They call the above the Deep Fried Lion Fish.  This is lovely and had enough meat to make this much more enjoyable.  It is topped with fried garlic and peppers for extra kick.

I did not eat the Scallop with Mushroom but Suanne did.  She said it was buttery.

Alright, here are the rest of the items we had.