Restaurant review: Grand Dynasty

 

 

4331 Dominion Street,Burnaby, BC  | 604-432-6002

 

The Good:

• Well-made and well-executed

• Nice dining space

• Decent service

 

The Bad:

• Pricey

• Nice dining space, but still cramped

 

 

Sherman Chan

Special to The Post

 

It was my mother-in-law’s birthday and to celebrate the occasion, we chose to dine at Grand Dynasty because of its “higher class” dining.

We started with a slightly different version of the Baked BBQ Pork Buns. These are known as Gwai Fei Bao where the top of the bun has a layer of sugar which offers up sweetness and a slight crispiness. This version was good as the dough was soft and airy while the BBQ pork filling was tender and exhibited a good balance of sweet and salty.

The kids were starving so it was a blessing their favourite item, Lo Mei Gai (Sticky Rice) showed up early. Unlike the mini ones found in most Dim Sum services these days, this was an ol’ skool honking huge one. Hence, it was more moist with a lot of filling. The ground pork was tender while the ample amount of dried shrimp added a nice aroma. However, with so much filling, it did make the entire thing a bit wet.

Moving on, the food came fast and furious where we literally ran out of room on the Lazy Susan. The Steamed Spareribs arrived in a good portion size where the meat was chewy in a good way. It consisted of generally meaty pieces where it was bone rather than cartilage. The dish was well-seasoned with some spice and plenty of good pork flavour.

Our next item was very different being the Steamed Italian Black Truffle Dumpling. It was a combination of mushrooms and of course, black truffle. Hence, it was super earthy with a nice gingery hit.

On to the most important item – the Haw Gow (Shrimp Dumpling) was pretty good. The filling was sweet with a wonderful snap while exhibiting just the right amount of moisture. Hence it was juicy, but not wet.

Normally, we don’t order lobster during Dim Sum, but it seemed like a good idea since it was offered on the menu for a fixed price. Sure, it wasn’t a big lobster, yet for $20.98 it seemed like a decent value. The Sauteed Lobster in Superior Sauce with noodles was in fact a pretty good deal. The nicely prepared lobster sat atop al dente wonton noodles which were caressed by a flavourful and balanced sauce.

We ended up getting both the Shrimp Rice Noodle Roll and the Beef Rice Noodle Roll as well. In terms of the rice noodle, it was thick and somewhat doughy. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination though. The shrimp filling had a nice snap where it was curiously bland (I guess that is what the soy sauce is for). I liked the beef filling more as it was tender with some bounce while exhibiting balanced flavour with a good hit of dried orange peel.

My poor son had to wait nearly to the end for his favourite dish being the Shrimp Spring Rolls. I guess it was worth it because they were really good. There was a lots of crunchy well-seasoned shrimp packed within the crunchy wrapper. He ended up eating half of the dish (he needs to learn to share...). Lastly and surprisingly, the Egg Tarts were served at the end of the meal (a major feat for a Chinese restaurant). These were also very good being semi-sweet and silky with buttery and flaky tart shell. Although I’ve had some shaky dinners at Grand Dynasty in the past year, this visit for Dim Sum was very good. It is on the pricier side, but you do get the quality to back it up too.

 

Sherman Chan is the #1 ranked food blogger on the Vancouver portal of Urbanspoon.com. Read more of his reviews at www.shermansfoodadventures.com.