Rainflower Restaurant

Restaurant: Rainflower Restaurant
Cuisine: Dim Sum/Chinese/Asian
Last visited: Multiple - September 16, 09
Area: Richmond, BC
3600 No3 Road
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very Good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4
Service: 3
Ambiance: 4.5
Overall: 4
Additional comments:

• Considered a higher end dim sum restaurant
• Traditional and creative dim sum dishes
• Discount if you arrive before 11am
• Some hit and miss dishes, most are hits
• Ordering form service
• Busy, but plenty of seating
  
• Spacious, fancy set up
• Serves dim sum and dinner
• Private rooms/banquets available

**Recommendation: Rainflower shrimp dumpling aka "har gow", Pan fried prawn with basil, fried spicy leatherjacket fish, items with prawns are pretty good

This place is relatively new and caters to the crowd places like Gingeri or Kirin aim for. It's more affordable than Kirin though. The decor is royal like with lots of gold and big comfortable chairs. The dim sum is all across the board, but majority of it is good. I found some items were really really good, most were average, and a couple not so great. They were never bad, but if they were "bad" they were just average. You also are paying a bit more because it's a fancier restaurant. They have an extensive menu that offers everything from traditional dim sum, appetizers, chef's specialties to mini main course dishes like fried rice and fried noodles. This place is usually busy no matter what time you go, and especially if you go before 11am.

For my 2nd review and other dishes I've tried at Rainflower Restaurant

On the table:

• **Rainflower shrimp dumplings aka "har gow" 4/6
• I thought they did a great job with this. Har gow is a staple item when you go for dim sum - it's every dim sum restaurants specialty. If you get bad har gow than most likely everything else won't be that great either.
  
• They give you a nice portion of prawn and the skin is thin enough to not break and thick enough that it's still chewy. No taste of flour at all and it's cooked well so that when you bite into it the prawns are still juicy and crunchy.
• Steamed shrimps and chives roll 3.5/6
• I love this dish. I always order it...not just at this restaurant. It's a steamed rice noodle roll with dried shrimps and chives all throughout the dough.
  
• It comes with peanut sauce and hoisin sauce and you use a combination of both to enjoy this dish. They pour soy sauce on it before serving, it's as good as any other good shrimp and chive roll - not exceptionally good or anything. Nice thin rolls and a decent portion.
• Steamed prawns in rice roll 3.5/6
• Almost the same as the above, but my sister likes this one better so we had to order both. It tastes almost the same except they pour a sweeter soy sauce over the top. Still good here, but again as good as any other good steamed prawns in rice rolls. When eating this roll you look for relatively big prawns, and some green onion to give it extra flavour. The rice noodle should be slippery and not tough or flour/powder tasting. It's nice and slippery here with crunchy prawns, so that's good.
• Shanghai style steamed pork bun aka "Xiao Long Bao" 1.5/6
  
• No. This isn't a Shanghai restaurant so don't bother...I just had to give it at least a shot. There's no soup at all. Completely dry. Pass on this. These take a master to make - if you're not going to make them right don't make them at all. There are too many great Shanghai restaurants in Richmond that will make yours look bad, too easy to compare.
• Baked BBQ pork buns 2/6
• Another dish I ALWAYS order. I only liked these baked and not steamed. The baked ones have been on the market for the last 5 years and they have stayed! Thank god! These are awesome, but just not good here. Not enough filling or pork and the topping isn't that great. The topping and filling are key to this bun! The topping should be crumbly and somewhat sweet, and it should form a crust on top of the bun. This is called the "pineapple bun crust", but when it has the "Mexican bun crust" it's soooo much better! It's better at places like Top Gun Restaurant or Empire Seafood Restaurant, both in Richmond.
• **Scrambled eggs and prawns with fried rice noodles 5/6
  
• This is actually really good here! I thought it was a standard dish that you couldn't really improve, but nope - they improved it! The eggs are cooked so that it's almost a creamy scrambled egg. I loved the texture of this dish. It came with a decent amount of prawns and was worth it for $6.80. You need around 4 people for this dish - if you want to try everything else too.
• **Fried spicy Leatherjacket fish 5/6
  
• Nice big pieces of deep fried fish. The fish is seasoned and then deep fried, so there's no batter. Really flavourful. I didn't order it on this trip, but I've had it before.
  
• **Seafood Ball with almonds 3.5/6
  
• This is one of their creative dishes, so I think it's worth a try - it's something different. This is basically the inside of a har gow (so prawns), mixed with some other seafood and corn. then it's rolled into sliced almonds and then either pan fried or deep fried. It has a nice and crispy exterior and then you get the seafood meatball inside. I enjoyed this. The toasted almonds are a unique switch up and refreshing to see used at a dim sum restaurant. Again, I've order this before but just not on this trip.

Desserts

• Steamed Carrot and Cream Bun 2.5/6
  
• A hot steamed bun made of carrots filled with a creamy and rich egg yolk custard.
  
• I'm not a fan, not because they make it bad here, but just because I'm not a fan. That being said, they don't make it that great here anyways (according to the people that do my friends and family that do like them). They do make them very fresh here, extremely hot filling, so be careful. When you bit into the bun it oozes our this creamy egg yolk custard. This custard is an ASIAN custard not a Western custard. It's heavy on the egg yolk and it's supposed to be. So if it's gritty, it's supposed to be. I just don't like it though. You may though! Try everything at least once.

For my 2nd review and other dishes I've tried at Rainflower Restaurant