Top Gun J&C Restaurant – Dessert Review

Restaurant: Top Gun J&C Restaurant – Dessert Review

Cuisine: Chinese/Asian/Dim Sum

Last visited: February 11, 2010
Area: Richmond, BC

Unit 2020 Excel Centre, 8766 McKim Way (2^nd floor)
Range: $20-30

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

Food: 4.5

Service: 4

Ambiance: 5

Overall: 4.5

Additional comments:

• Part of Top Gun Group
• Considered a high end dim sum restaurant
• Traditional and creative dim sum dishes (mostly traditional)
• Japanese sushi and sashimi available
• Cantonese cuisine
• Discount if you arrive before 11am
• Ordering form service
• Busy, but plenty of seating
• Fancy set up
• Private room available
• Breakfast/Lunch 9:30am-3pm
• Dinner 5:30pm-10pm
• Closed Wednesday
• Reservations recommended
• Some parking available

**Recommendation: Steamed Diced Pork & Shrimp Dumpling, Baked BBQ Pork Bun, Deep Fried Fish Ball w/Clam Sauce, Steamed Beef Ball, Fried Vermicelli in Homemade Style, Pan-fried Stuffed Tofu

This is the dessert portion of my Chinese New Year’s brunch at Top Gun J&C Restaurant – to see my dim sum review click here.

I know what you’re thinking (well the majority of you)…Chinese desserts?…ew! I know, I don’t like them either. There are some that I do like but for the most part it’s the only cuisine where I pass on dessert. That and Indian – I’m not a fan of Indian desserts either unless it’s Kulfi, or rice pudding can be okay too.

To my surprise the desserts here are not too bad, but we ordered their specialty desserts so they were unique to the restaurant. They also serve the traditional Chinese stuff, but that didn’t interest me for obvious reasons. I liked the specialty desserts partly because they’re not traditional and don’t taste like Chinese desserts. It was basically western/American desserts but made by Chinese people so they’re not as good as the real thing, they’re not as sweet, and they also had an Asian twist to them. I actually enjoyed them for the most part!

On the table:

**Red Bean Almond Tofu with Amaretto 4.5/6

• $3.75
• This was actually really good, minus the red bean topping they put on top. I really dislike red bean – if you like it then you’ll really like this dessert.
• It wasn’t too sweet and the tofu doesn’t taste like tofu. It was denser, very smooth and creamy and more like an almond pudding. It’s actually quite light and the almond flavour was really strong. There’s no strong alcohol flavour, but you could tell they used Amaretto for flavour.
• The red bean just makes it sweeter but I could do without it, however if you like red bean then this still matches really well.
• When using tofu in dessert, I still like the cheese tofu dessert/appetizer from Toratatsu.

**Coffee Jelly with Kahlua 2/6

• $4.50
• This wasn’t really sweet at all. The other desserts we had were better and sweeter than this.
• The coffee taste was a bit strong and it wasn’t a good quality espresso or anything. It was a little bitter and too simple.
• The only thing that made this jello sweet was the red bean and evaporated milk they topped it with.
• There are no surprises here and I think they could have done a better job with the coffee jello…perhaps heavier on the Kahlua? Which I couldn’t really taste and they didn’t use it to its full potential.
• The evaporated milk could have been mixed with a little Kahlua but it still wasn’t apparent enough.

**Mandarin Cream Pie 4/6

• $3.75
• This was the most Westernized one of the 3. It looks like an American dessert.
• It tasted like a Panna Cotta with canned mandarin slices.
• The pie crust was a graham cracker crust, but it was very soggy and tasted like digestive cookies dipped in milk. It was good, but just too soggy.
• I actually liked the citrus mandarins with the cream because the mandarins are sweeter than they are tangy.
• This is definitely very rich and creamy and again it wasn’t too sweet, but probably sweetest of the 3.