Kirin: Roasted pig special menu in New Westminster

Kirin Restaurant is a chain of Chinese restaurants located across the Lower Mainland. They offer traditional Chinese supper dishes (think wedding banquet style).

We visited the New Westminster location to check out their roasted pig special set menu for 10 people. This review is based on an in-dining experience.

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Interior

The inside of Kirin is large and fancy. They have big circle tables with white table cloths (classic) and chandeliers, etc. However, with 10 adults, the table they gave us was a little tight. All in all, the restaurant was comfy and very similar to a lot of other nicer Chinese restaurants we’ve been to.

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.

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Food

My parents wanted to try Kirin’s “Roasted Whole Suckling Pig Special Menu”. It is a 10 course meal for 10 adults priced at $760 or $398 for 5 adults. So unless you have at least 5 friends, I guess you can’t really try this menu lol.

Roasted whole suckling pig

The first dish is the star of the menu, actually. We start off with the roasted suckling pig, which is actually quite big once it is on the table. I couldn’t stop laughing at the eyes they placed on it (they were sparkling and flashing different coloured lights). It was like a rave. Aside from the eyes, they present it beautifully, with the top of its back/skin already carved out into little squares for you to take with your chopsticks.

You are supposed to eat it like the above picture, with a small piece of dough (looks like a cookie or a thicker crepe), a slice of cucumber and some hoisin sauce. It is very similar to how you would eat a peking duck combo.

The skin of the pig is thick and crunchy – very yummy!

After most of the people finish eating the roasted skin, they take the pig back and chop it up into smaller meat sizes for you to eat without any wrapping/condiments. They try to re-assemble it back into the shape of a pig.

Double boiled silky chicken soup with fish maw and vegetables

This is a nice soup with big chunks of fish maw. It is a hearty and “pure” soup, so it doesn’t contain super strong flavours. It’s more subtle and kind of a chicken/hangover soup.

Lobster in consommé with squash, black fungus, Chinese radish, deep fried bean curd, bok-choy and rice noodle

There’s a lot of stuff happening in this dish, but it’s essentially a giant plate of lobster and crab cooked with an assortment of vegetables on top of a bed of noodles. This dish is really large and there’s definitely enough lobster meat and crab to go around. Some pieces are easier to eat than others, but it’s all cooked in the same garlic sauce.

Yummy! And I love how the noodles underneath soak in all the sauce as well. The black fungus is an interesting additional that is not always in this dish, but I like black fungus (like a thin mushroom) and it’s healthy for you.

Roasted marinated chicken

This is a common staple dish for Chinese set menus. I found the roasted chicken to be a bit too salty for my taste.

Rock cod blanched in congee

This dish was similar to the soup from before but it uses a different fish and it’s in congee and not soup. I say it’s similar because it has the same feeling of cleansing my soul. It’s a nice, refreshing flavour that isn’t too strong after the salty chicken.

Peatip and baby choy sum braised with wolfberry in consommé

I mean I really can’t say I love this dish because it’s a vegetable dish lol but I do like peatips and for some reason they are usually quite expensive (like why lol). The peatips are cooked well and not bitter, but I’m not a big fan of the wolfberry (good for your eyes though!).

Deep fried prawn dumpling served with consommé

This one was kind of interesting because I’ve never had a prawn dumpling served to me before with soup. Apparently you are supposed to dunk the whole dumpling into this soup, which is very clear and doesn’t taste like much if you drink it alone.

The dumpling has lots of prawn in it, which is nice, but it can feel a little greasy because of how thick the batter is when they fry it. Dunking it into the soup doesn’t make it too soggy, but it definitely loses the crunch.

Ramen stir fried with dried scallop and tender scallion

I know they list it as “ramen” in the English translations, but it is actually not ramen noodles at all. I’m not sure what kind of noodle it is, but they are short strands, which is kind of uncommon. The noodles taste pretty average with the scallions and dried scallops.

Also by this time I am very full lol.

Baked tapioca pudding

They actually include 2 desserts in this set meal – the tapioca pudding and also a puréed almond sweetened soup with egg white. I didn’t snap a photo of the almond soup, but it really looks like a bowl of milk and tastes mostly like almond milk (very sweet).

The baked tapioca pudding is very pretty and actually this dessert can be a little hard to find in Chinese restaurants. The inside of the pudding is black sesame, which was really tasty with the baked exterior. Think of it like a bo lo bao (pineapple bun) with sesame filling inside but in cake form.

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Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Out of all the dishes, the pig was definitely the standout dish. I don’t think any dish that followed thereafter could follow its impact. We had ALOT of pig leftovers (over 2 boxes). I really liked the crispy skin part where it was similar to eating peking duck. I also feel like this is a big wow factor, to have a whole pig presented on the dish like that.

The next best dish is probably the baked tapioca pudding dessert to be honest. That and the lobster dish.

For the price point at almost $80 per person, this is certainly no casual meal. It may be more worthwhile to order a special menu like this to celebrate something (someone getting engaged, preggo, bought a house, graduated, idk etc.). I originally thought the price wasn’t very reasonable given there isn’t a lot of expensive ingredients (ex. not like we have wagyu and foie gras and uni or bluefin tuna, etc.), but I think the entire pig and how much food you get kind of balances it out. Again, the whole roasted suckling pig is very unique and it’s quite a delicacy.

Overall, we enjoyed our big roasted pig dinner as a table of 10. I know now with the current covid protocols in Vancouver they are probably not offering this anymore because of the limit on 6 people per table, but they may still offer the 5 person variation of this menu. However, I hear the 5 person version is not worth it because they give you half of the amount of food as the 10 person set menu – i.e. you don’t get the whole pig.

Also at the time of our dinner, they had already introduced the new December set menu, which is different from the November set menu. The dishes use similar ingredients, but what the menu is when you reserve your table is the one you will receive, just fyi.

Sincerely, Loewe