I walk by this place a lot during weekdays during lunch and it is always busy. This is the location on Broadway which opened in February 2019. The restaurant is a large bright room and you can see directly into the kitchen. You order at the counter and they bring the food over to you. We arrived on a Sunday at 11 and stayed for a couple hours. The restaurant was mostly empty during our stay, the staff seemed happy to just let us linger which was nice.
Brittany, my friend, ordered the shiitake mushroom bao. She was very excited to see it on the menu because she always wanted to try baos in Vancouver but most restaurant only offer it with pork belly which she can’t have. The shiitake mushrooms impressed her! Brittany pointed commented that some restaurants make them too mushy but these ones were tender with a bit of chewiness.
My other friend had the duck bao and said it was delicious. Brittany didn’t personally like the duck bao. She did say she’s not used to eating duck and the flavor was too much for her. But our friend who did enjoy the duck said the meat was very well done and the sauce was delicious. Both said their baos were delicious with a hint of sweetness.
My friends also ordered the crispy dumplings which arrived super quickly. They really enjoyed these dumplings. They came out piping hot so be careful when devouring these quickly!
I ordered the XLB because soup dumplings are one of my favorite foods. The cashier told me that it would take 15 minutes to make.
This was disappointing to me because the skin was pretty thick. The skin had the quality of the frozen stuff I can buy at T&T. Despite this, I would estimate that half of the skin had torn before I could eat it. I did think the soup itself was very flavorful but overall this dish fell flat for me.
Mantou is a steamed Chinese bun that holds a hint of sweetness. Basically it’s a ball of carbs and exactly what I wanted. These came out nice and hot and I devoured them pretty quickly. They gave me a dish of match a condensed milk. This is a sticky, sweet sauce to go with the buns. I wish they gave me more dipping sauce because by my last bun, I had already finished all the sauce.
Heritage Asian Eatery is a very Instagram friendly restaurant but I wish that their food was higher quality. I would say the price was a few dollars higher than it should be for what they’re offering.
