Kirin: Chinese Dim Sum in New Westminster

Kirin Restaurant is a chain of Chinese restaurants located across the Lower Mainland. Previously, we visited the New Westminster location to check out their roasted pig special set menu for 10 people. This time, we came to check out their regular dim sum menu.

INTERIOR

The inside of Kirin is large and fancy. They have big circle tables with white table cloths (classic) and chandeliers, etc. Dinner time has the same set-up as dim sum.

The New Westminster location is attached to Starlight Casino so if you are a casino fan you can spend some time there before/after your dinner (lol). Parking is free and there’s an abundance.

Food

We order all dishes to share between 6 adults.

Deep Fried Minced Fish and Chinese Mushroom Bean Curd Roll in Steamed Rice Roll ($10)

I love rice rolls and I thought this one was quite interesting as it’s not a “classic” rice roll. Classic ones would be like the cilantro beef or the prawn, but I’ve never heard of this deep fried minced fish one.

Anyways, it is kind of like fried fish paste and it looked more similar to the rice rolls that have a chinese donut inside. I liked this as it was quite unique and had a nice texture to contrast the smoothness of the rice roll.

Steamed Beef, Black Fungus and Ja-Choy Rice Roll ($9)

This would be an example of a classic rice roll – I love the beef. This one has black fungus inside, which makes it a little different from the regular cilantro beef. The black fungus is like a chewy black mushroom so it gave the soft steamed beef a bit more texture too.

Steamed Prawn and Sakura Farm Premium Pork Dumpling topped with Flying Fish Roe ($9)

I have no idea why the menu items are so long but this is basically the classic siu mai dish – a must order at dim sum and if it’s bad, never go back to that restaurant again.

The siu mai was juicy and quite large, good quality for the price. Just in case you were wondering, it comes in a serving of 5 but we were hungry so the photo only shows 3 lol.

You can also see in the back of this photo, we ordered chicken feet steamed in black bean sauce ($9). I don’t like chicken feet so I didn’t try any of it.

Pork and Chinese Mushroom Pastry Topped with Abalone ($12)

I thought this was quite an extra dish lol The abalone is big and looks super juicy and glossy on top of an Asian-style pastry pie (think of the chicken pies from Maxim bakery). The puff pastry is pretty good and I like abalone and mushrooms. I just didn’t really understand why we put these 2 dishes together lol! I think the tai-tais love this.

Deep Fried Squid in Spicy Peppery Salt ($15)

This is from their regular lunch menu, which is separate from the dim sum menu but you can order from both menus during dim sum hours. The deep fried squid came in a really small portion so I was a little disappointed, but it tasted great and I liked the spicy peppery salt they sprinkled on – it wasn’t too salty.

Deep Fried Chicken Joint Cartilage ($15)

This is one of my favourite dim sum dishes, I call them “chicken knees”, but it’s really cartilage. Think of them as chicken nuggets but a bit chewier because of the cartilage. Again, portion sizes are small for this deep-fried item but the quality is not bad – fried well. Also from the lunch menu.

Shredded Pork, Dried Oyster and Preserved Egg Congee ($25)

We were probably hungover so we ordered congee lol. Serving size for congee at Kirin is for 3-4 people and we chose the one with shredded pork, dried oysters and preserved egg. I really like preserved egg in my congee (it tastes so silky smooth!) but I didn’t really notice much of the dried oyster flavour. Overall, it was a big pot of congee and it was tasty. You can find this on the lunch menu.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐

We had a good dim sum meal at Kirin. The only dish that stood out to me was the fish rice roll and the abalone because I don’t usually order those dishes at dim sum. Everything else we had was pretty classic and I would say the quality is definitely there for all the dishes, but the portion size maybe not so much. Prices are a little bit higher than other dim sum places, but I still think the quality of the food is reasonable for the price point.

One thing to note is that they operate much in full-restaurant style even during dim sum hours, so if you are expecting staff to walk around the dining hall with little carts of dim sum, you won’t be seeing that. You order via menu and they bring it out.

I would come back for Kirin’s dim sum if it was with my parents or a group of friends. I wouldn’t come strolling in casually for a table of 2 as the interior is quite fancy and honestly for dim sum you should at least have 4 people in my opinion (if you want to eat more variety).

I know Chinese restaurants can be quite intimidating for those who don’t speak or read Chinese. Unfortunately, Kirin’s menu has no photos lol but there are at least English translations for everything. Hopefully my review will help you out if you are not sure what to order!

Sincerely, Loewe