Lucky Gate Chinese Restaurant

I am deeply disappointed with Lucky Gate Chinese Restaurant. we tried this restaurant a total of 3 times in the past 3 months before I wrote this review, and we’re glad to take our business elsewhere after our previous visit.
There’s must be a change of ownership or something, the quality of food and service were falling significantly off the chart during each of our visits. Not only the prices increased on the menus, the quality of the food is extremely poor. Random ingredients are being added to some traditional dishes, and they taste worse than most food court items.
When take-​outs are ordered, instead of using aluminum foils on hot items, plastic saran wraps were used where they were heavily melted and mixed into your food.
I will stay away from this place at all costs.

2-​star for the service… i guess they were short-​staffed that night, there was no acknowledgment at the door, felt ignored for a good 15 – 20 mins while waiting for a table. when we were ordering, the waitress smirked and said «only two dishes. ha! the owner is going to get angry!» we were speechless at this point, felt very awkward and somewhat threatened…2 dishes for 2 people is that bad? we didn’t even finish them.
later on, i managed to find myself an excuse for the awkward service – this is an authentic northern Chinese place… i decided i will suck up and return in the future, because their food is a 5-​star.

This place has been there for many years. The food is very flavourful and unique. Mainland China/​Mandarin/​taiwanese not Cantonese although there are some plates attempting to imitate.
Noodle dishes are amazing as noodles are made fresh right in front of you.
Service is OK.

Everyone these days seem to be down for dim sum on Sundays. So if you want to find out whether that girl you’re with is actually cool, or just hoping on the dim sum bandwagon because it’s popular like sushi rolls, best way to do it is to change it up and take her to a Chinese breakfast place. It’s not as popular as dim sum, but just as delicious.
See the size of those youtiaos?! Greasy and crispy. I honestly think they’re among the best in the metro Vancouver area. If she’s up for having something this heavy for breakfast, you know she can hang. You can get away with being prissy with food at the dim sum place, but not here.
The warm soy milk tastes great, the baos are delicious. The noodles are solid, they won’t knock you off your feet but nothing that’ll leave you disappointed. It’s a small restaurant, but they make the basics top notch.
They don’t speak Cantonese here, even though the area has a large Cantonese community. You either have to speak Mandarin or hope they can somewhat get what you want to order with a combination of English and you pointing at stuff. It’s not a big place, usually they only have 1 – 2 servers so ordering can be trouble if you don’t know what you want.
They serve fast though, and service is friendly (you can tell they’re trying which isn’t the case at a lot of Chinese restaurants). I like these type of places more than dim sum or iHop for if you’re hungover. These places tend to be less loud than dim sum joints, and you can get your food quicker.
I’d give them a 5, but I’d reserve that for Ningtu on Kingsway which also excels at making their own fancy dishes for dinner along with the breakfast basics. Lucky Gate’s more a great neighbourhood breakfast place to take your girl out to on a lazy morning.

We stopped by here on a Friday night at 9, and the place was pretty empty. We were starving, so we ordered our usually items:
Fried lamb skewers (these are incredible: they also give you some chili powder and cumin to sprinkle on them)
Hang cut pan-​fried noodles with chicken and potatoes (this dish is good, although I wish that they give you more noodles)
Steamed vegetable dumplings (not bad, buy my girlfriend likes them here)
The service isn’t the greatest, but it is nice to have a restaurant in the area that is opened late (until midnight).

Their steamed pork dumplings are delicious and of generous size. The lady owner recommended shaved noodles stir fry with lamb was excellent.