{"id":10918,"date":"2017-05-15T22:36:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T06:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pickydiners.com\/www\/?p=10918"},"modified":"2019-04-09T10:22:34","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T17:22:34","slug":"bandao-pearl-mothers-day-dim-sum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickydiners.com\/www\/bandao-pearl-mothers-day-dim-sum\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandao Pearl – Mother’s Day Dim Sum \u534a\u5cf6\u660e\u73e0"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was trying to pick a dim sum place for taking Mom out on Mother’s Day, and I had my eyes on the 2 newest high-end Chinese seafood restaurants, The Deluxe Chinese\u00a0<\/strong>Restaurant<\/b>\u00a0in Central Richmond and Baodao Pearl<\/strong> in South Vancouver.<\/p>\n

If I’m not familiar with the local Chinese food scene, I probably wouldn’t care much for the\u00a0name “The Deluxe Chinese Restaurant” – I mean, can you be any lazier on trying to find a more original name? I would just call\u00a0it “Kai Yue” like how they name Bao Bei<\/strong> in Chinatown. \u00a0And as for Bandao Pearl, the sister restaurant of Peninsula Seafood Restaurant\u00a0<\/strong>at Oakridge, “Baodao” actually means peninsula in Chinese. For the marketing perspective, if they have named the original restaurant Baodao, it would be easier to create their brand right from the get-go and establish a successful chain like Guu<\/strong>. I really like how Guu\u00a0names their restaurants: Guu\u00a0Garlic<\/strong>, Guu\u00a0Garden<\/strong>, Guu\u00a0Original<\/strong>, etc… They are all “Guu” but they all have their own identity.<\/p>\n

But of course I wouldn’t pick a\u00a0restaurant just based on its name. We ended up choosing\u00a0Bandao\u00a0Pearl because we want to venture out of Richmond for dim sum for a change. The place is huge inside! It definitely reminds me one of those massive restaurants in big Chinese cities like Guangzhou<\/strong>. \u00a0From the dining room, it shows a lot of effort trying\u00a0to make it look high end. But there were way too many blinking and flashy objects everywhere, while the wallpaper\u00a0mimicking red or gold silk fabric has brought a dark tint to the space. In comparison, \u00a0I found the dining room at Sea Harbour<\/a> much more elegant and tasteful as it was very open and bright.<\/p>\n

\"bandao<\/a>
bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m very confused with the gigantic Thermos flask filled with hot water that they put beside our teapot. This huge thing just looks so ugly on the table, and it posts as a hazard as it could potentially\u00a0get knocked over. \u00a0 Is it really so hard for the wait staff to keep checking on the hot water for tea on the tables?<\/p>\n

\"bandao<\/a>
bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They have this huge menu of dishes prepared with exotic seafood and other expensive ingredients. And there is also SASHIMI<\/strong> on it too, another feature that totally reminds me of high-end restaurants in Guangzhou. But is it really necessary? \u00a0If I have good money to spend on sashimi, wouldn’t I just go to a legit Japanese restaurant? But maybe it’s meant for clients who only speak Chinese.<\/p>\n

\"bandao<\/a>
bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"bandao
bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There come our dim sum dishes. \u00a0They use those strange-looking part-plastic-part-bamboo\u00a0steamers\u00a0that I have only seen in China before. Personally, I find the plastic part looking pretty cheap. The common dim sum dishes here are around 7 – 9 dollars. We had 3 dim sum dishes and it cost us around 24 before tax, which was definitely on the expensive\u00a0side. Mom\u00a0really liked the Har Gow<\/strong> although I found those shrimp dumplings a little cold. The flavours and the snappiness of the shrimps were on point due to the freshness. The skin was not super thin maybe because the 6 dumplings were smaller than usual (as in other places usually 4 dumplings are in one order) and the dough to shrimp ratio was a little higher.<\/p>\n

\"shrimp<\/a>
shrimp dumplings – bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We asked for chili\u00a0oil for our shrimp dumplings, but\u00a0instead, they brought us their own ‘XO sauce’. The sauce was definitely not as good as the one from Empire Seafood<\/a> or Kirin<\/a>\u00a0– there was mostly red oil, borderline spicy, no dried scallops or dried shrimp, but only a few tiny dried fish.<\/p>\n

\"xo
xo sauce – bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Beef Tendon<\/strong> was seasoned nicely. Personally, I would like it a little saucier and more flavourful, but it is perfect for my mom who doesn’t like food with too much salt and spiciness.<\/p>\n

\"beef
beef tendon – bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Fried Taro Dumpling with Scallop<\/strong> was well executed as the exterior of the dumpling was fried to a perfectly crispy texture. And they added some tobiko (flying fish roe) on top of the scallop inside the dumpling, making it a little more up-scale. The cantaloupe garnish seemed a little odd though – flavour, texture or temperature wise, it didn’t’ seem to go with the delicious fried dumplings.<\/p>\n

\"fried<\/a>
fried taro dumplings with scallop – bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was also Mom’s lunar birthday, so I ordered a noodle dish as it’s a Cantonese custom for a birthday meal. There were not a lot of choices for noodles here and all the noodle or rice\u00a0dishes seemed quite pricey. Our E-Main Noodle with Abalone Sauce<\/strong>\u00a0had a whopping price tag of $26, but it was very poorly cooked. First of all, there was barely any sauce! \u00a0And the dish was mostly miserably bland noodles, with only a few pieces of shiitake, carrots and snap peas. \u00a0This is definitely not acceptable at any\u00a0high-end Chinese restaurant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"e-main<\/a>
e-main noodles with abalone sauce – bandao pearl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a tricky situation. We couldn’t send back the noodle dish because technically it was not inedible. When we told the waiter what we thought of the dish, he put up a smile, \u00a0said “I would report this to the chef”, and ran away without doing anything else about it. The bill was $52 after tax, for 3 dim sum dishes and the noodle dish that cost more than half of the bill! \u00a0Although the price was expected and the dim sum was not bad,\u00a0 I was disappointed at their so-called high-end decoration and ambience, \u00a0and the pricey and terribly cooked noodle dish really brought down the whole dining experience for me. \u00a0I’m not sure if I want to come back here for dim sum in the near future.<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/bandao.ca\/en\/<\/a><\/p>\n

More reviews:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Bandao<\/a><\/p>\n

Location:<\/strong><\/p>\n