Ethnic Eats – Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver

I’ve been on a bit of a dumpling kick lately. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love xiaolongbao, or “soup dumplings” but since I’ve got a car it’s made roaming the golden city (Richmond) a whole lot easier.

Xiaolongbao are a magic kind of Shanghainese style dumpling made by cooling meaty gelatin and wrapping it around the pork filling inside the dumpling,  becoming “soup” when the dumpling is cooked. They can be a bit tricky to eat without burning your tongue, but the risk is well worth it.

Dinesty has a great many dumplings on the coffee-book quality menu – a whole page, in fact. The xiaolongbao were ordered immediately, along with some pan-fried ones, and as man cannot live on dumplings alone, we also ordered the highly recommended ancient boil fish, pan-fried squid, and hand-cut noodles with seafood and pork.

And then we ordered dumplings for dessert. I told you I was on a kick.

The ancient boil fish soup (what a name!) was spicy and flavourful, but in a way that washed out the meat of the fish. All you got a hit of oil and pepper and the flavouring was pretty interesting, but I would have liked it to be a bit more balanced and I wouldn’t order it again. The noodles were better, offering chunks of seafood between the ropes of noodles, and the pan-fried squid was better still. As for the dumplings, they held together well and were nicely flavoured and are the menu item I’d go back for.  I preferred the xialongbao to the pan-fried and the red bean dessert dumplings, but then I always do.

Here you can see the dumpling makers at work, preparing for the next day:

dumpling making from Degan Beley on Vimeo.

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Dinesty
160-8111 Ackroyd Road, Richmond