Some things I just don’t understand. Beijing Dim Sum Seafood Restaurant being crazy packed on a Saturday evening is one of them. Okay, okay, sure, it was Chinese New Year weekend but it still doesn’t make sense in my mind. I know south side is lacking in good Chinese options but come on peeps, get with it.
We went to try one of their 10 person, fancy banquet style set menus (Chinese writing only, found by my grandma in the Chinese newspaper). Service is iffy here – they had our order wrong and had to call over the owner/boss man to “discuss” the issue. Man, for a $338.00 set dinner, you’d think they could at least get that right. Did I mention they charge you $2.00/person for rice? Talk about gouging your clientele. But let’s not get too hasty, we haven’t even talked about the food yet. Right? Uh, yeah, totally, bro. Let’s get to it.
House special cold platter – Started our meal off on a nice note with a good variety of cold meats, pickled vegetables (daikon and carrots) and cucumbers.
Milk based cream noodles with shrimp
This dish was gross. Not impressed with the milk based cream sauce, which was bland and tasteless. The noodles were the same. At least there were some decent sized shrimps on top.
Stir fried pork with vegetables
A pretty simple, straightforward dish but done well. A mixture of onion, red peppers, and cassava (which I’ve never had at a Chinese restaurant before). But again, nothing special.
Seafood soup
Soup and seafood are always the best combination. This may or may not have had shark fin in it with crab. I disapprove of killing sharks for this soup but man, is it ever delicious.
Two lobsters
Why is lobster so damn good and expensive? Why can’t it be like the good ‘ol days when they were considered a poor man’s food. This dish gets you two lobsters for the price of one…no, that’s a lie, more like quadruple (or more) the face value. They were good.
Crispy fried chicken with shrimp chips
The chicken was a bit dry and overcooked. You have to hunt for the dark meat and then you’re all good.
Pea shoots with crab and egg white sauce
Pea shoots are such a delight, I would eat these every day if I could. Topped with egg white and barely there crab pieces.
Steamed fish
Decent steamed fish but it needed to be more tender. It was lacking that sweet, succulent flavour that you normally get when you order this dish.
Fried rice
The fried rice was probably one of the better dishes of the night. Flavourful and had a nice crispy, fried wok texture.
Duck with noodles
The last dish we had was thin noodles with duck, red onions, bean sprouts and mushroom. Average at best. Minimal amount of duck.
White rice ($2.00/person) – like I said above, they charged us $2.00/person for rice! Holy crap, insanity.
Overall, what can I say about Beijing? I’ve been once before for dim sum and it was mediocre. The result was exaclty the same for dinner. Passable but I wasn’t impressed, especially with a few of the dishes. When you factor in the price, I won’t be running back anytime soon. More like running as far away as possible. On to the next one, on to the next one…
Beijing Dim Sum Seafood Restaurant
http://www.beijingbeijing.ca/
3803 Calgary Trail
Edmonton, AB
(780) 435-8833
CHERRY BOB-OMBS 