Restaurant Review: Dinesty in Vancouver

We went to try the new Dinesty location in Richmond (#150 5555 Gilbert Road in Richmond). We’d previously been to other Dinesty locations including the Robson St., Aberdeen Mall (now closed) and No. 3 Road ones. I think my personal favorite is the No. 3 Road one.

I called to make reservations for 4 for 6pm on a Sunday. When we got there, we noticed a lineup. The restaurant didn’t look full but they were turning people who didn’t have reservations away. They didn’t seem to have a designated host and it took about 15 minutes to get seated.

THE FOOD

You can’t go to Dinesty and not order the pork xiao long bao! This is a personal favorite of mine and Howie. We were disappointed because the soup in these dumplings were lukewarm and the skin tore pretty easily. We wondered if it was because it’s a new restaurant (restaurant opened mid-Dec) and the staff aren’t used to the new kitchen.

Next up – noodles! We ordered the fried noodles with satay beef. We found this dish to be overly oily. I served myself a bowl of it and after I ate the noodles, I noticed a pool of oil at the bottom. The texture of the noodles were also too soft. Howie joked that you could have no teeth and still be able to chew these.

I’m pretty sure that there were maybe a total of 3 scallops in this dish. In fact, Howie didn’t even know there were any until after I mentioned it to him. There was way too much squid in this dish and not enough of anything else. The peas were crispy but that was the only enjoyable thing about this dish.

This is one of Howie’s favorite dishes. On the menu, they gave it one chili pepper but yours truly cannot handle spice so we requested it to be mildly spiced. They were generous with the garlic and the green onions. This dish had a nice overall flavor to it with a very mild heat. This was probably the best dish of the night.

Another one of Howie’s favorite dishes! I like this dish of pork slices because of how garlicky it is. However, we are sure that the No. 3 Road location has a better presentation for this dish. They stack the pork slices in layers whereas you can see that here they put it into a heap. Not a big deal but it seemed to us the effort wasn’t there. Otherwise, the soy sauce and garlic come together nicely and because the pork slices are so thin, they soak up the flavor.

OVERALL

This location’s interior is nicer than the other locations. The tables aren’t packed in tightly and it’s much quieter. But the service was slower and we didn’t think the quality was good as the other locations. Maybe it’s just growing pains. We’re willing to try it again in a few months but for now we’ll go back to our favorite location on No. 3 Road.