Mr. Zhang Karoake & Restaurant

I don’t go to Crystal Mall often more so dine in the many restaurants in the building. I feel like I have to have someone who can speak fluent Cantonese to be able to navigate the place. So when my Cantonese speaking friend invited me for dinner I didnt hesitate to say yes.
We went to this place for an early dinner. The place is not too big. It can probably accommodate 30 to 40 people for dinning and then another 10 – 15 people in a smaller section of the restaurant where the karaōke is. Thank goodness we came in early. No one is doing karaōke lol.
I left ordering to my Cantonese friend. She just made sure that I can tolerate spicy food. We got plain white rice (of course), spicy sauté prawns, soup dumplings and spicy deep fried pork intestines (yes they were intestines!). I’m actually a fan of pork intestines. The deep fried ones. I will not have it any other way. It’s so crispy and it tastes like fried chicken skin (yes another artery blocker!). The prawns are fresh. The sauce for the prawns is a mix of spicy and sweet. The soup dumplings was so so. I thought it wasn’t cooked properly. I can still taste the starch.
The overall experience was satisfactory. The service was friendly. The server can understand and speak English. The place is clean. I definitely recommend and will definitely go back again for the deep fried intestine!

I bought a coupon online for $ 49.99 set menu.
I live close by so why not try it right???
The worst dinner I’ve ever had in my life. Everything was super spicy, don’t get me wrong I love spicy, but this was different… it was numb your mouth spicy. Where everything I ate tasted the same, and I’m not kidding you our mouths where literally numb with a horrible medicine like after taste.
Everything was oily and really really salty, nothing was balance… for example we had a tripe dish on a bed of raw veggies. Well it wasn’t really veggies it was 95% raw onion the rest carrots, green peppers and cilantro. We couldn’t eat raw sliced onion, we just ate the tripe.
We had tan tan noodles and it was unlike any tan tan noodle we’ve ever had. Spicy with that numbing herb, tasted like spicy medicine.
All the food we ate we rinsed I’m our teas, to get rid of that medicine and overly spicy taste. My tan tan noodles I rinsed in tea and added black vinegar, much better taste than what they originally offered…
Not good …(as I shake my head)
Aloe drink that came with the meal was sickly sweet, the 2 main dishes that came with our meal was just strange. One was like all the leftovers in your fridge including lunch meat? All thrown in a hot plate drenched in oil with chinese medicine and chili peppers!!!
I’m Chinese and we do not waste food EVER! We were so disgusted that we left everything including the free rice.
All through dinner I just thought Yuk Yuk Yuk, I apologized to my family for such a horrible dinner at least 3x.
DO NOT BUY THAT COUPON ONLINE!!!
You have been warned ;)

The plan tonight was actually to go to Xu’s Wonton House but it turned out they were closed for renovations! I had heard about Mr. Zhang Karaōke and Restaurant also having decent xiao long bao, so we went there instead, the place being just downstairs and still in the Crystal Mall complex.
On a Monday night it was pretty quiet, but there were still 2 – 3 tables occupied at any one time.
Deep Fried Spicy Prawns ($ 16.98) two types: spicy, or salt-​and-​pepper; on bill: «prawn w/​chili»
–We got the salt-​and-​pepper version, which wasn’t spicy at all. Not too peppery either.
–Very fried! Not oily at all. So crispy you can eat the entire prawn. The head was crispy and crunchy.
–BIG prawns, and lots.
Lamb or Beef with Green Onion ($ 15.98) on bill: «Sliced Lamb w Green»
–We got the lamb. Not gamey. Could have mistaken it for beef, actually. Pretty tasty otherwise.
–Lots of onion and green peppers. And oil.
Pan Fried Sliced Beef in Pancake ($ 6.98) on bill: «Pan Fried Sliced Bf»
–Served cold.
–Sliced beef rolled in fun-​chewy pancake.
–Two fairly large rolls, so price was OK and you could possibly get away with this as a light meal.
Duck and Potato with Teriyaki Sauce ($ 14.98) on bill: «Diced Duck»
–Maybe a quarter or half duck, but a lot of bone. If you are not lucky, you won’t get any meat on the bone you pick up.
–Bone is crispy enough that it’s generally safe if you start chewing it up.
–Coated in so much sauce you might be tempted to ask for more duck with your sauce.
Shanghai Style Juicy Pork Bun ($ 3.98) on bill: «Steamed Dumpling»
–Ping-​pong ball sized.
–Thick skin.
–First two steamers of 5 had only one bao with any soup in it. We pointed it out and we asked for one more steamer (which they gave to us free, without our asking to take it off the bill). This time it was okay, but there were grumbles about the thickness of the skin.
–Go to Xu’s upstairs in the food court (when they finish renovating, anyway). They are huge so it’s a lot more fun with a lot more soup inside.
House Special Hot Pot with Sour Soup ($ 15.98) on bill: «Hot Pot w Sour Soup»
–Boring. You taste the sourness of some kind of preserved vegetable (Szechuan pickled mustard?) Has some sliced meat in it.
Steamed Rice ($ 3)
Overall food is okay with some standouts like the deep fried spicy prawns but could be hit or miss. Dishes felt like they were on the salty side. Price for portion OK — we were 7 and our bill came under $ 13 per person.
Bonus — Waitress who can speak fluent English.
Karaōke after 5pm is $ 200 (!), «all you can sing»!

So on a rainy Sunday afternoon my daughter & I checked into this restaurant because they serve «siao lung Pao». If u r looking for quality & service don’t come here. We ordered 3 items. Siao lung Pao, fried chicken rice special & stir-​fried beef with onions. We couldn’t finish all our food so we took the fried chicken home. Today I heat d it up for lunch & found broken wire scrubbers in the rice & broken piece of brown paper in the fried chicken. Would I go back there again? Answer is clearly «no». The servers r not just rough around the edges, I’d say they r rough all the way through. The food is not particularly flavorful or good. In fact, I m surprise they r still open. Who would put up with such treatment & filth.

My husband and I were in Burnaby visiting friends and our meetings ran pretty late. After 10 PM we were all hungry and looking for a good place to eat but everything was closed… except Mr. Zhang’s. We called around 10:30 PM and the lady said they were open and we said we were coming there. When we got there, we were the only ones in there and it felt like they actually kept the restaurant open for us.
We ordered and boy were we surprised by how delicious the food ended up being. The Szechuan chicken was divine! I was afraid to order spicy, so I got the sweet & sower chicken and that was also VERY delicious. It was the perfect combination of sweet and sower and I had never experienced that perfect of a combo before. Most of the time when I get that dish it ends up being way too sweet — not this time!
I ended up eating some of my husbands Szechuan chicken along with the sweet & sower chicken and it was like a taste explosion!
My friend who LOVES spicy food ended up ordering something like spicy beef and enjoyed it a lot too! He said it was perfect and they made it extra spicy for him cause he asked.
The service was extremely good, even though the lady was very very tired, she was awesome and even made a couple of jokes. I’m definitely going back here anytime I’m in Burnaby for some good food and definitely trying out their Karaōke next time!
The prices were decent and the portions were very good too!

LOVE love LOVE this place! A delicious combination of Szechuan spice and bold Northeastern flavors, every dish I tried was worth returning for. The specialty BBQ fish is delicious, with all the flavors baked into the flesh, and soaked into the rice noodles on the side. The Korean style cold noodle was perfect on a warm day, with a flavorful broth.

Kung Pao Chicken, Szechuan Special Beef, and XLB are what I usually order here and extra spicy please! No bland eaters here, go home bland eaters! Or you will be sorry.lol. I like the sauce they make for their XLB it’s spicy and sour and the dumpling are above average. I see some people order 3 orders of XLB maybe I will try that some day.

Karaōke and food at the same time? No way.
Parking is available underground, as this is part of Crystal Mall. This restaurant is accessible from the outside only — it’s in the central «corridor» running diagonally across the mall.
Annie W. is right. This place screams «China». There’s something about the cheap and tacky feel that only they can get right. On the side there are some Karaōke booths, though I’m curious what kind of food they’d be serving while you’re belting away tunes and watching pirated music videos.
Service is on the brash side, which is right on par with what you’d find inside the Middle Kingdom.
Just like China, they use this really tacky font in their menu (aka Unicode) that you also find all over China. And of course, certain menu items are only in Chinese. No English at all.
The inside is full of mainland Chinese, all wearing the wannabe skater-​type (stuff like Ed Hardy) clothes and trucker hats. Brought a smile to my face.
Hot and sour soup — lots of bean curd. Actually pretty pleasant.
Stir-​fried beef with green onions — nice and spicy. It’s honestly the stir-​fried stuff where mainland Chinese cooking really shines.
Stir-​fried beans with garlic and chili peppers — oh yes. Even more beautiful.
Chili wontons — 5 in the dish. Nice large pieces. Served with shredded cilantro.
Beef brisket noodle soup — noodles were a little bit on the mushy side, but maybe it was because we let it sit for a few minutes too long. Great broth (though a bit on the salty side). Nice tender brisket.
Pork dumplings — need I say more?
Xiao long bao — 5 in a basket. Skins are decently thin.
Rice — served in this tacky container with a faded cat on it. This thing must be from the 80s or earlier.
If you can get past the tackiness and China feel, this place actually is pretty decent. Recommended.

Mr. Zhang’s used to be located on Victoria Dr and they moved to this new location fairly recently. For those of you that prefer the short version — WORST MOVE EVER.
You know that sinking feeling when you walk into a restaurant you used to love, and its obvious that somewhere between your last and current visit things had gone horribly, horribly wrong? Not that long ago I was Mr. Zhangs biggest fan (
). I now hate it.
The new place looks and feels cheap, tacky, and very «China.» Most of the clientele that night were young, loud, asian teenagers wearing the ugliest assortment of ed hardy t-​shirts I’ve ever seen. Gone are the nice, warm, knowledgeable servers — they’ve been replaced with inept, careless servers that don’t even know what they’re serving.
Our meal started off with Beef Rolls — we were told that there was one roll to each order, so we asked for two orders. When four rolls came out we were very confused, not only because it was double the amount of food we were expecting, but because the two plates of beef rolls looked completely different from one another. One plate had rolls with a lovely fried pastry wrap, and the other had rolls wrapped in what appeared to be soggy oily undercooked pancakes. We asked the waitress if there must’ve been a mistake — she simply giggled like an idiot, made up some excuses, and left us with extra food we didn’t want and now had to pay for even though it was clearly her mistake.
Everything else we ordered wasn’t bad, but it all lacked… soul. We were there for a triple b-​day celebration (my mother, sister and I have birthdays within two weeks of one another). All of us were so tuned off by the environment, food, and service that we ended up taking the cake we’d brought to the restaurant back home just to get out of there faster.
I’ll never be back. It actually makes me really sad to say that.

I saw the ad one day coming up from the parking lot near the market area and wondered to myself and my partner, «hey a new place, could be good, let’s try!» We did not do it on that day, but I came back to Crystal Mall with my mom and decided to give this place a shot. Located outside of the mall, in the corridor toward Station Square, this used to be an AYCE hot pot joint, but sometimes places don’t last, and in this spot, I have been to many restaurants where I deemed they were pretty good, but did not survive the tough economic times. Let’s hope that this place can make its mark and stay here, as I had some pretty promising things and my stomach left happy.
This place has an odd set-​up, when you enter, on the right side, their are three rooms that are karoake rooms (yes, during lunch when I was here I heard people screaming there lungs out to Chinese songs), and there is a main area of sitting, and on the far left area, and also facing the front of the shop, there is this little station area where this elder lady is making dumplings, flat wraps, or whatever her duties are for that time of day (this is what got me to come back to actually try). So you are telling everyone who walks by that you actually make your stuff, that it is not bought from some other joint, and it is fresh, ok, time to come and eat!
The menu in this place has quite a selection, as you can order the big dinner plates if you choose, we, on this day stuck to the back of the menu on the ‘dim sum’ part. We ordered a beef with green onions in a pastry like dish. When it came out, me and my mother were surprised at not just the size, but the look of the thing, it was well presented, and when we bit into it, the mix of the beef, onion, pastry, and the sesame seeds on the outside were a nice warm combination, if you know the dish I am talking about, and you like it, order it here! The second dish that came to our table was a bowl of braised spare ribs and noodles, this was also surprisingly sized, and they do not go cheap on the spare rib, and fool you, there was plenty to go around, lots of meat, lots of noodle, and it did taste fresh, and firm. The third dish was the one I was waiting for… the Xiao Long Bao (XLB guys!), and this one gives the one in the food court a run for it’s money. They are made here, they are fresh, they have a different distinct juicy taste to them, and they are only $ 3.98 (50 cents more… not breaking my bank). The wrapping was thin, to the point you had to surgically remove them from the steamer, a process, but nonetheless also a good job from this place, as it shows quality. They came with two vinegar dips… one would be the plain, and if you like garlic, vinegar with diced up garlic, different taste, a more Northern China type taste (I use to have a tennant in my house who always made this sauce dish with extra garlic!). The last dish was the green onion pancake, with a good taste of onion, semi-​fluffy, not bad, but I’m still looking for the ones I had in China…
The meal was great, and for just over $ 21.00 with the amount of food we had, and the fact we had to pack up some for home, we were stuffed, satisfied, affordable, and also able to sit down and get away from the popular Crystal Mall food court that I love. I looked at the other tables, and everyone was having something different, I cannot wait to come back to try other dishes. I have a feeling everyone who works here is probably related to each other, as it does have a sort of homey like feel in this restaurant. Another place to add on my list from this mall, it does not stop!