Chef Tony

All dim sum were excellent. Enjoyed lunch very much except that the environment was way too noisy when full house. Couldn’t even hear my friends talking.

Despite the fact that it was hella busy, we had a reservation that we had to wait for. We all agreed the food was good. Excellent Siu Mai and the food seemed to be made in house and not for some frozen dimsum factory in Richmond.
Bright shiny walls surrounded us that didn’t help with the acoustics. I wondered if they actually employed a restaurant designer or just really like shiny hard surfaces to enhance the noise factor by ten?
Food came out quickly once we were seated
Would I come back? Yes, if I had a slightly more padded wallet.
Judging from the looks of some customers maybe they wouldn’t. Why? Because they’re so busy, they’re filling tables with next to the aisles and you get an overall sensation of being overcrowded where they’re exceeding their seat capacity.
Still it was good for a change to try something different.
If you do dine here and it’s busy, have patience, get a reservation, have patience and try their signature dishes.
Worth the cumbersome wait.

In a town full of high end dim sums places chef Tony’s is up there with the best
Once you enter it feels like China and Hong Kong
The dimsum is very high quality and I would come back for sure

The best dim sum we have ever had in our life and we have had great dim sum!

The food is okay. It’s dimsum with presentation. Overall it was good. Hostess and servers it was knocked down my stars. I waited an hour for my food and we had To ask several times for sauces and water. The restaurant is beautiful. But servers and hostess needs to be more attentive.

Fist time here and the food is average for a dim sum place. Well, Richmond got too many dim sum place so sometimes it is hard to find somewhere inspirational and creative.

Alright, I need to atone and say that I was a bit hasty in reviewing this restaurant as it had just opened.
Chef Tony is actually an amazing restaurant with terrible service. Makes you feel like you are on the mainland! Their shrimp dumplings have truffles in them. What do truffles do to the dumplings? I have no idea, I just know you can’t find that sort of flavor texture anywhere else when you’re talking about shrimp dumplings. The BBQ pork buns? I think they’re laced with (insert methamphetamines) and I always want more. More recently, this place won an award in the Richmond newspapers about their tea-​smoked duck and I really want to go try it. Like, right now.
Sorry for being such a jerk at the beginning of our relationship, Chef Tony. Now if only you didn’t have that rude waitress who seems to always be the one «taking care of me» you’d get a five-​star rating.

You can see and feel when a kitchen takes pride in its productions. This restaurant is one such example. Dishes are thoughtfully designed and lovingly executed — and the results show. It’s a popular restaurant, and justifiably so. Only downside is that it can get very busy and the wait can be painstakingly long at certain peak times.
If you are tired of the normal fare, you can always ask GM Wallace for an off-​menu dinner set — just give him a generous budget and a couple of days’ notice!

This is an upscale restaurant. There are VIP rooms that you can reserve which is closed off if you want to have a private function. The décor is not like other Chinese restaurants. It feels a little more modern and Westernized.
The food here is great. The flavor of their food is delicious. The portion size is a bit smaller but you’re paying for quality, rather than quantity. It is like Kirin, Sun Sui Wah, etc. We came for dim sum. The sui mai had truffle on it. The rice roll had a little thicker skin so it doesn’t fall apart when you try to pick it up. The chicken rice roll had a green outer skin which was good.
The service is quick and they changed out plates during out sitting which was nice. A lot of other places don’t do that for dim sum but seeing that this is a higher scale restaurant, it is good to try to provide good service.
They do charge $ 2 per person for tea.

Following a friend’s recommendation, we went this morning to Chef Tony Seafood Restaurant to try, among other things, their intriguing siu mai with truffle!
Interesting to note: NO SAUCE for anything! Even though you are charged $ 2 per person for «tea and condiment».
TIP: Dim sum order checklist is only in Chinese, but thankfully the numbers correspond to the menu, which has pictures of most (key) items.
Shrimp and Matsutake Dumplings ($ 5.98 for one steamer of five)
–Winner! Something about simply putting some truffle on it elevates this juicy siu mai. And also urges you to forgive how rather ugly it is.
–It is of course highly unlikely that you are seeing large chunks of real black truffle here. Probably Chinese fake truffles but using enough potent truffle oil – otherwise you couldn’t get it at $ 5.98 per tray.
Shrimp and Matsutake Dumplings ($ 5.98 for one steamer of five)
–Simple, tasty. Firm with prawns, very little filler just to hold it together.
–Could’ve used a bit of sauce to jazz it up a bit, honestly. Maybe something chili.
Ox Stomach and Beef Tendon ($ 5.98 for one steamer)
–Despite what appear to be chili flakes, there was no spicy heat to this that I could detect.
Chicken Feet in Soy Sauce ($ 5.18 per steamer)
–There are some peanuts hidden underneath, sitting in the sauce long enough to no longer be crunchy. I had some. They were nearly tasteless. But waste not want not, right?
Bitter Gourd and Chicken Shreds Rice Noodle ($ 5.98 per order)
–Intensely green rice noodle wrapping the chicken, but no special flavour to it.
–I detected no bitterness here, though possibly any mild traces of it were smothered by the soy sauce.
–Initially came without soy sauce and the server asked if we wanted it poured on. I guess you can pass on it if you wanted to.
–Overall, not a very tasty dish as there weren’t any strong flavours here. Just another way to eat noodles I guess. Go easy on the soy sauce unless you just want to taste soy sauce. Just pass on this one.
Baked Mushroom Pastry ($ 7.28 for one order of four)
–Pastry was so delicate that it pretty much crumbles under even light pressure. Yet, neither buttery nor oily.
–My personal bias, but I felt the taste was ruined by the mushroom flavour being diluted with something else mixed in, maybe bamboo shoots?
Barbeque Pork Bun ($ 5.18 per steamer of three)
–Felt like the outer dough was thick and therefore the bun was skimpy on pork.
–The pork was okay. Maybe not quite flavourful/​sweet enough. Pass on this.
Fried Rice Noodle with Beef and Vegetable ($ 18.80 per plate)
–Wow was this expensive!
–This tasted like cheap oily noodles you can get at a hole-​in-​the-​wall Chinese restaurant.
–If you really need the carbs, just go to a cheap Chinese restaurant later.
Meat and Shrimp Sticky Rice ($ 5.18 per order of four)
–Very thick sticky rice shell, so if you dissect it, there’s very little filling.
–The shell is actually quite nice all on its own because of the sweetness, so you may not actually mind that there isn’t much filling. Close your eyes and eat this one. Don’t dissect it like I did.
Sweet and Salty Egg Yolk Bun ($ 5.98 per steamer of three)
–Do NOT order this till after you’re finished your hot and savoury items — they bring out stuff as it’s ready, so you might not get to it till it’s cold, which we did. It’s probably even better hot.
–TIP: They can’t cut it for you to share since the filling will eventually pour out, but you can just slowly tear it apart and keep each half angled up to cup the filling.
–Tasty! Sweet but not super sweet, and just enough saltiness to enhance flavour. Slight powderiness sometimes which marred the texture but much better than what I remembered of this same dish from Dynasty. Use of saltiness is brilliant here.
–Really YUM and you need to get this!
Steamed Ginger Juice Layered Cake ($ 5.98 per steamer)
–Had really no idea what to expect here since none of us had ever seen it on a menu.
–Good but not too strong ginger aroma. Present but sort-​of-​weak ginger flavour, competing with sweetness. No ginger burn, if you’re worried about that.
–Very firm and quite rubbery. Get a proper knife if you’re cutting this. Comes pre-​cut into four pieces.
–Interesting to try, but ultimately not so tasty I’d want to order it again.
–Couldn’t seem to peel off the layers (unlike a kue lapis layered cake). Might be alternating sweet and gingery layers (?)
«Tea and Condiments» ($ 2 per person)
–Automatically added to your bill. Double check as our table was just 8 but they initially charged us for 10.
–Where were my condiments?
–Brilliant idea to borrow from afternoon tea places and have a candle under the tea pot to keep it as hot as possible.
10 AM on a Saturday morning and they open right at 10 AM so if that’s your reservation, be prepared to wait out in the cold. If you have no reservation, be prepared to wait in the small lobby until a table appears – This is a popular place!
Service OK, hot water regularly replenished.
If you don’t mind ea

We have tried several dim sum places in Richmond/​Vancouver over the years and found chef Tony’s to be the best to date. They have an assortment of traditional dim sum favs with some twist to it. The prices are on par with other establishments and service about as good as any other.

3.5 Star
During my weekend in Vancouver, my YVR’s Foodie friend highly recommended that I give Chef Tony a try. She was kind enough to make a reservation for us and even treated us. Just want to thanks her for her kindness and hospitality.
Dim Sum with a twist. We ordered quite a few items on the menu and I enjoyed most of the items but some of them was definitely a miss.
Signature Dim Sum:
Black Truffle Pork and Shrimp Dumplings 黑松露燒賣
Shrimp and Matsutake Dumplings 松茸蝦餃皇
Bitter Gourd and Shredded Rice Noodle 涼瓜汁雞絲腸粉
Yi Dong Special Egg White Custard Tarts 酥皮奶香蛋撻
Dim Sum:
Chicken Feet 醬汁鳳爪
Sticky Rice Stuffed Chicken Wing 糯米醸雞翼
Steamed Spare Ribs 豉汁香芋排骨
Braised Beef Tendon and Stomach 柱侯牛根肚
Their signature dim sum were all well prepared. I am a fan of bittermelon so I really intrigued with the rice noodle. I would say just pay a little more and just order from the Signature menu to avoid disappointment.

As far as dim sum is concerned, I would consider this to be quite high end. Nice décor, good quality food but service was just OK. I don’t have dim sum too but this is definitely one of the better places. It offers a nice variety of new dishes that aren’t found in other dim sum places. We shared a Claypot rice which had a variety of meats, which was alright. My coworker who had the salty fish and chicken was more flavorful. The egg tart was fantastic. Creamy warm egg in the middle with a nice and soft flaky crust. We also had their signature Siu Mai with truffle oil. The truffle oil enhances the entire dish. If I lived in Richmond I would definitely go again… but I don’t…and parking is a disaster.

We started off with the Dry Shrimp and Chives Rice Noodle Roll which had loads of dry shrimp. The rice noodle roll was very smooth and thin.
Next up were the famous Black Truffle Shrimp and Pork Dumplings. Once placed on our table, we could smell the strong black truffle. This definitely made the typical dim sum very luxurious. The black truffle gave the dumplings an earthy flavour which I quite enjoyed. The wrappers were also thin and filled with a large shrimp and abundance of pork.
The Baked Barbecue Pork Buns were glistening on the top. They were soft and fluffy and filled with lots of meat.
The Marinated Chicken Feet was a bit of a disappointment as I found that they were rather bland. They had a bit of chili flavour but nothing else.
The Sticky Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf came with three servings. These were different from the usual as they had wild rice mixed in. This made it rather dry. It was also filled with some minced meat and salty egg yolk.
The Deep Fried Taro and Abalone Dumpling was another dish that was elevated from a simple dim sum to a high-​end dish. The deep fried taro were topped with mini abalones. Crispy and flaky on the outside with a slight chew from the abalone.
An interesting dish was the Deep Fried Sticky Rice. It was essentially sticky rice which used wild rice again and was coated in a thin batter and deep fried. I thought this was average as it was rather dry and the rice would stick to my teeth.
We also ordered a larger dish which was the Braised Mushrooms with Egg Tofu. The sauce was thick and gooey as it should be. The tofu was smooth in the inside and crispy on the outside.
Lastly, we finished off with some desserts. First was the Steamed Egg Sponge Cake. I found this to be rather dense and wasn’t my favourite.
The last was the Baked Durian Paste Pastry. The outside was extremely flaky with the inside filled with some durian paste. The paste was actually not very strong but still pungent nonetheless. If you want strong durian pastries, I would suggest trying Shiang Garden’s.
Overall, I was quite pleased with Chef Tony. The food is carefully prepared although there were some hits and misses. It’s nice that the chef is getting creative with traditional dim sum and adding other complex flavours to the dish. This of course comes with a price but the service and ambiance is also much better than many other Chinese restaurants.
Pros:
— Pretty solid dishes
— Great service and ambiance
Cons:
— Pricier
— Parking is a pain here
Price Range: $ 20 – 30 /​person
1: Terrible 2: Poor 3: Average 4: Good 5: Excellent
Food: 4 Service: 3.5 Ambiance: 4 Parking: 2 Overall: 4

I heard many great things about this place. I made a reservation for 11:45 today and was running a little behind. I called at 11:37 to let them know we were running late and the man on the phone told me they cancelled the reservation because I didn’t show up. How is that even possible when it wasn’t even 11:45 yet? AND on top of that he hung up right after before I could even respond back.
I didn’t get a chance to taste their food (I’m sure it would of been amazing) but because of that I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

Came here for dim sum with some friends, if you do not have reservation, be prepared to wait 15 — 20 minutes, probably longer for big tables. Luckily, only waited for 5 minutes today.
While I was waiting, I notice the receptionist keep taking people back and saying, your friends are already seated. When I looked, it’s a table just for people that just walked in. So I guess if you know the receptionist, then you don’t need to wait.
The décor is filled with Chef Tony with some celebrities by the entrance. The interior is very opulent and filled with tons of crystal chandelier and a giant 100 inch TV. The tables are very tight with giant heavy chairs.
There are 8 nicely decorated VIP rooms with TV, induction stoves for hotpot, etc. (Our friends invited us back a week later and we were seated inside the nicely spacious VIP rooms, served by 4 wait staff)
The food was exquisite and flavourful. It is very pricey here. Most noticeable was the Truffle Chicken. The food is high quality but I feel the put too much truffle in everything.

Chef Tony is a relatively new dim sum restaurant in Richmond and it has been highly recommended to me by several of my Unilocal friends. So the dim sum lover in me had to go check it out.
Just a short 10-​minute drive from Vancouver International airport, this was our first stop as soon as we got off the plane. We got there shortly around 1:30pm on a weekday and the place was still quite full, although we didn’t need to wait for a table.
It is a moderately upscale place — more upscale than most places in Richmond but without the simple elegance of Fisherman’s Terrace or Kirin. I actually find the décor a bit tacky, but of course, this is just my personal opinion.
Service has been very prompt and friendly, and was definitely a notch above the average Chinese places. Prices are in line with other top-​tier dim sum places in the area.
After we ordered tea, we saw that they place your teapot on a chafing dish to keep it warm, which is pretty cool. Those who have been to Koi Palace in Daly City (San Francisco area) would probably know where they got this idea from.
The menu is quite creative and offers a variety of dishes not commonly available elsewhere.
I am most impressed by the black truffle siu mai. It was very rich in flavor with a nice hint of the aroma of black truffle. The texture was perfect and authentic — so soft that you could split it with a chopstick, but the meat was not mushy. They were just like the best ones that you’ll find in Hong Kong.
The steamed bean curb wrap was delicious and was served with fresh pea tip leaves. Beef balls were good, without the artificial soda tenderizer taste that you find in some other places. Other staples like pork spare ribs and har gow were also good. You could tell that they use high quality ingredients.
The freshness and temperature of the dishes were outstanding. Every dish came out piping hot — so hot that I needed to wait a few moments for the steam to dissipate before taking my pictures. This is exactly how dim sum is supposed to be served.
Overall, it was an excellent dim sum experience and it’s definitely among the top ten players in the Vancouver/​Richmond area.

This was voted one of the best Dim Sum restaurants in 2015 in the Vancouver area, but with my experience here it only deserved 2 stars by my standards. First off the restaurant is too cramped and the tables are so close to each other that it makes you feel claustrophobic once you step inside the restaurant. The restaurant itself is decorated like a nightclub with bright white walls and big chandeliers hanging from the ceiling plus neon lights from the big poles. With the size of the place and with all the people talking it was just very noisy and not a very enjoyable way to eat a meal. One weird aspect of the place is that they have a few VIP rooms, but again very small and cramped.
The dim sum here is ordered off a sheet of paper which most restaurants in Richmond have gone to and we tried about 8 dim sum items. The Siu Mai with black truffles was interesting, but tasted weird to me since I never had the combination before. The rice noodle roll made with bitter melon and stuffed with chicken was another new combination I thought was interesting. The couple items which stayed the same was the egg yolk bun and sparerib rice bowl which both tasted quite good actually. The chicken feet was one of the disappointing items as it was bland and didn’t have any black beans as usual when cooked.
A couple new items I never had before was the sticky rice stuffed inside a bun and the egg white bun. Both were very tasteless and something I wouldn’t want to try again.
With how expensive each of the dim sum items were ranging from $ 5.50 to around $ 8 it just wasn’t worth it to me. Combined that with the total ambience failure and the mediocre food it won’t be a place I will be returning in the future.

Update: I’ve now had lunch and dinner here, and dinner really knocked it out of the park.
The truffled chicken! OMFG! I’m going to say this is THE tastiest chicken I’ve ever had in my life. It was poached beautifully and dressed in a spectacular sauce with truffles, shallots, cilantro, and just the right hit of acidity. It was so good, I almost licked the plate. No joke.
We also ordered the special whole ling cod, which was fried, then cooked and served in a huge clay pot with eggplant and a few other things, the beef with maitake mushrooms, sautéed pea vines, and a delicious egg dish cooked with milk and crab meat. Think super soft egg white scramble with an incredible texture.
Hands down the fanciest Chinese dinner I’ve ever had in my life. Service was exceptional and I’m pretty sure they changed our plates no less than 3 times during our meal. Every place setting had two pairs of chopsticks: a pair for you to eat with, and a pair for you to serve yourself with. Definitely a first, but not the last!

Although Chef Tony is on the fancy side and has some unique dim sum dishes, I think I will probably stick with my normal places for dim sum in Richmond.
We stopped by on a late Saturday morning, and were seated right away in one of the private rooms. I normally like sitting in the main rooms of restaurants, but this wasn’t a problem since there was a server that was specifically assigned to the private room.
The dim sum is definitely on the pricey side, and the portions are just ok. We ordered:
Egg tarts: probably my favorite dish of the day. The pastry was nice and flaky, although the tarts are oblong in shape: something different.
Rice rolls with shrimp: although small, this dish was good (large pieces of shrimp).
Stuffed eggplant: decent, but needed salt (or soy sauce).
Chinese donut stuffed with shrimp paste: while decent, it is a bit of a letdown, at least appearance-​wise, when the dish is brought out (thought it would be bigger for the price).
Har gow: I have had better (there is truffle oil in this, which didn’t work for me personally).
Bean curd: ok
Siu mai with black truffle: while good, it seems like the restaurant loves to put truffle or truffle oil on everything.
Overall, the dishes were on the small side, and the above dishes came out to over $ 60 CDN. However, if you like truffles or truffle oil on your dishes, then this is your place.