Top Gun J&C Restaurant

Restaurant: Top Gun J&C Restaurant

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

Top Gun J&C Restaurant is part of the Top Gun Group so it is considered a higher end dim sum restaurant. It competes at the level of Kirin Restaurant and Rainflower Chinese Restaurant.

Besides owning Chinese restaurants, The Top Gun Group also owns Japanese restaurants, one being the infamous Richmond Sushi. Maybe this is why they decided to include Japanese food at their Chinese restaurants? Top Gun J&C Restaurant doesn’t only serve traditional Cantonese dim sum, but they also serve a significant amount of Japanese dishes such as sushi, some cones and sashimi. Personally, I rarely order Japanese food here because I think it’s over priced. I actually did on this occasion and based on one of their most popular roll, it was very mediocre. I would rather go to a Japanese restaurant and it would be better and more affordable.

I’ve been coming to Top Gun for years now and it’s one of my family’s go-to dim sum places. The food is excellent, they accept reservations, service is great and atmosphere is nice…what more could I ask for? I also like the fact that I can choose my own tea, it is extra ($1.20/person), but it’s worth it. For this occasion I was here for my 1^st pre-Chinese New Year brunch.

The dessert portion of this post: Top Gun J&C Restaurant - Desserts..

My Chamomile Tea - individual servings $1.20/person.

Top Gun's XO Chili Sauce.

On the table:

**Steamed Diced Pork & Shrimp Dumpling 5/6

• $4.75
• This is a nice change from the classic shrimp dumplings or “har gow”
• These are stuffed with celery, minced pork, ham, mushrooms, parsley, carrots, shrimp and maybe some water chestnuts. There are no nuts in them…the ones with nuts are another kind of dumpling.
• I liked the ones at Dragon’s View better, but that’s another kind.
• These are good, but the skin was a little dry although nice and thin. There was lots of stuffing and it was crunchy, juicy and nicely prepared.
• The flavour of the stuffing was a very dominant parsley flavour that was overpowering though. It’s also expensive for only 3.

**Baked BBQ Pork Bun 6/6

• The picture shows them cut, but they’re served uncut $4.75
• This is one of my favourite dim sum items. I LOVE these buns. You may already know from my posts about it at Rainflower Restaurant.
• These are better than Rainflower’s. They’re pretty famous here.
• The topping is a sugar and butter topping. It’s baked so it’s nice and crispy and crumbly and tastes like streusel. The bun part is good here as well and it’s nice and soft with lots of salty and sweet barbeque pork stuffing. The barbque pork was nice and lean too.
  

**Deep Fried Fish Ball w/Clam Sauce 4/6

• Deep fried fish ball wrapped in tofu skin with clam sauce $5.25
• This was my 1^st time seeing and trying this dish. I liked it!
• The clam sauce is definitely exotic. It’s very potent and it’s preserved so it has that strong salty flavour. It’s slimy and not meat because the clams are small. It has a strong seafood flavour and it was so unique.
• I wasn’t a fan of the fish ball because they put orange peel into the mixture so it had that slightly bitter flavour that I didn’t like.
• I like the fish ball with the clam sauce and I loved the crispy tofu skin wrapped too.

Steamed Chicken Bun 2/6

• $4.50
• There was too much bun, and not enough meat and stuffing. The stuffing was chicken, mushrooms, ginger and I think some ham.
• I like steamed chicken bun, but I did not like these because the ginger taste was very strong. They had pretty big pieces of ginger in them too and I think they should have minced it up more. They were big enough to bite into and even pull out of the meat.

**Steamed Beef Ball 6/6

• Steamed beef ball with tofu skin. Served with Worcestershire sauce $4.75
• I rarely eat these because usually they put orange peel in them as well and I hate that. These ones don’t have any, so I liked them!
• They did not look good (relative to other places they didn't). They looked really hard and they shouldn't, but they actually surprised everyone! They were really tender! It was very soft and juicy and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Steamed Rice Roll with Shrimp & Chives 5.5/6

• Served with Hoisin and peanut sesame sauce $5.95
• You may know already, but this is one of my favourite dim sum dishes. I still like the one at Ocean King Congee & Noodle best.
• The rice rolls are excellent! Made in house, great texture and very thin, fresh and delicious, however I wasn’t a fan of the massive dried shrimps. A lot of people may LOVE this because they’re more expensive, but I found them distracting. It took away from the rice roll and made it not as delicate.

Pan-fried Stuffed Tofu 5/6

• Pan-fried stuffed tofu with black bean sauce $4.95
• This was deep-fried, not pan-fried.
• The tofu was nice and crispy although some thicker parts dried out in the frying process. I loved the texture of the crispy outside and soft tofu on the inside.
• It was “stuffed” with shrimp on top that was cooked perfectly.
• There was lots of flavour because the sauce was a black bean and onion sauce. It help onto the tofu very well.

Pan Fried Shredded White Turnip 4/6

• Pan fried shredded white turnip with fish cake $9.25
• I’ve never had this dish so it was interesting to try. It’s one of their in house dim sum dishes.
• The fish cakes were rough in texture and I wasn’t really a fan of them.
• You have to like turnips and celery to like this dish. There’s a very strong celery flavour and they use the delicate parts of the celery stalk to make it.
• The sauce tastes like a soy based sauce infused with celery and turnip flavours.
• There’s also slice of juicy mushrooms in it, but I wish there were more.

Steamed Spare Ribs 3.5/6

• Steamed spare ribs in black bean sauce $4.25
• The ribs were quite tender and juicy, but they were also very oily and so was the sauce they were sitting in.
• The flavour was great with lots of garlic, but it just very oily. They could have used more black bean sauce too – it tasted like garlic sauce.

Sticky Rice with Diced Pork 4/6

• $4.95
• This came with 2 larger sticky rice rolls except for the standard 3.
• It was stuffed with ground pork, mushrooms and maybe ham…and there was no egg – which I missed.
• It was saucy, not dry, and very flavourful.

Pan Fried Vegetable (Yue Choy) 3/6

• Your choice of Baby Chai Choy, Yue Choy, Chinese broccoli, baby Bok Choy, A Vegetable, Green Lettuce, Spinach, Broccoli $8.50
• I’m not sure what “A Vegetable” is…but we choice You Choy.
• It tastes like spinach but crispier, firmer and juicier. It’s also has a slight mustard taste.
• I think this is expensive and it was actually quite oily.

Chicken Feet & Chinese Herbs Soup 3/6

• Chicken feet and Chinese herbs soup in hot pot $8.95
• This does not look so good, but it’s a very “Chinese-y” dish older people would order. They love soup…and chicken feet.
• It’s basically a chicken soup that’s slightly bitter. There’s definitely some ginseng in it. It tastes like it’s “good for you” soup.
• It’s also a little bit sweet because there’s gogi berries in it.
• I only like the soup part.

**Fried Vermicelli in Homemade Style 5/6

• Stir-fried vermicelli noodles with shredded barbeque pork, prawns, bell peppers, eggs, onions and bean sprouts $14.80
• This tastes better than it looks. It was sweet from the ingredients, savoury and tangy. I think they used ketchup or sweet and sour sauce in it because it had a great flavour that surprised everyone.
• It wasn’t oily, but the scrambled eggs were a bit overcooked and dry.

Peter Roll 2.5/6

• Prawn tempura, cucumber, avocado and tobiko $10.95
• This is one of their most popular items and rolls. A lot of table ordered it.
• I could get something much better at a Japanese restaurant and for the price it isn’t worth it.
• The roll is very bland and almost too dry. There isn’t enough sauce and there’s nothing unique about it.
• The prawn tempura was freshly fried and crunchy, but they gave so little of it and they used the rice to make the roll look bigger.
• The only good part is the presentation.

The dessert portion of this post: Top Gun J&C Restaurant - Desserts.