Kirin 麒麟 (Richmond)

I've been to Kirin quite a few times, but only recently did I realize that the dim sum there is among the best in Richmond. I arrived at the restaurant at 1:30 pm on a Monday and still had to wait 5 minutes for a table. Service was quite slow as the place was packed full and the staff were running around trying to catch up. I think we were supposed to get a dim sum sheet, but they just gave us menus and forgot about it. After we had placed our orders, a dim sum sheet was brought to our table with our ordered items checked off. We got a small order of Kirin special chow mein (麒麟炒麵) so that we could try it out. The menu only shows the price for regular size ($15.80), but all fried noodle and rice dishes could be ordered in small size. I forgot the exact price but it was around $9 to $10. The portion was still quite big with a generous amount of crispy chow mein and chicken, BBQ pork, prawns, scallop, spinach and Chinese mushroom. The sauce was light and tasty, and I was especially impressed by the chicken that was so tender that I suspected it was still raw. (Don't worry, it wasn't!)

I didn't have high hopes for the steamed abalone mushroom and pea tip dumplings (鮑魚菇苗皇素蒸餃) ($4.28) because the skin looked really thick. Surprisingly when I bit into it, it wasn't hard and starchy but soft and bouncy. The filling was very savoury and tasty despite being vegetarian.

The thousand tier cake (鳳凰千層糕) ($4.78) was highly recommended by a family friend and while the ingredients were good quality, I did not appreciate the imbalance in ratio between the white cake and egg yolk. This dessert is supposed to have alternating layers of white and yellow, but other than the top white layer, the rest of the white layers were so thin that they were barely visible. The taste of egg yolk was overwhelming and there was no contrast of layers.

The steamed minced fish bean curd roll in fish broth (魚湯魚茸鮮竹卷) ($4.98) was not very intense in flavour, but I liked the mild yet savoury fish broth and the bouncy chewy minced fish wrapped in soft bean curd.

The egg tart ($4.28) was not on the menu, but one of the servers circled the room with a tray of this and other dim sum. I prefer shortcrust pastry to this type of puff pastry, but the crust was flaky and nicely layered. What I really loved was the egg custard filling. It was soft and pudding-like with a nice egg flavour.

The prices are definitely quite a bit higher compared to other dim sum options in Richmond, but I think the experience is worth it. The food and ambiance more than make up for the slow and somewhat hectic service.