Sunday, November 28, 2010

Heartwarming dim sum, anyone?


In the Howard Johnson hotel on Stony Plain Road.
 It's been a while since I last went to dim sum. My parents usually go more often than me and they usually bring me leftovers. It's always so good! I happened to have Saturday off from my weekend job (yes, I'm a workoholic and I admit it too) so my parents and I decided to go for some good ol' hearthwarming dimmie.

A new place had just opened, perhaps just shy of 6 months, on 15540 Stony Plain Road. It's currently the Howard Johnson hotel chain (previously the Saxony Hotel). There's an Albert's Family Restaurant in the hotel and this is also the site of the new Chinese restaurant restaurant offering dim sum all day, appropriately called Delicious Delicious. Based on what my mom told me, the owner of the hotel also runs the restaurant. The owner's wife also used to work in the same building as my mine, so they know eachother.

The interior of the restaurant is nothing spectacular; to say the least, it's what one would expect from a Chinese restaurant.  Not a whole lot of fancy decorations, perhaps a little run down with dim lighting. But that doesn't (or shouldn't)  interfere with the quality of food-it's usually very tasty. That being said,  I can agree with the latter statement. Even though it's an odd concept to mingle Albert's family restaurant customers with Delicious Delicious restaurant customers, the dim sum here is awesome. My mom has a tendency to order too much food, but that's usually never a problem because it eventually gets eaten, and not always by me (wink, wink).



  To order dim sum here is different than most of the other dim sum restaurants in town. The most common way to order dim sum (for those of you who aren't familiar with it) is through carts. Waitresses push around carts, steaming hot with yummy dim sum items such as sui mai (minced pork and shrimp wrapped in a wonton wrapper)
or cha sui bao (BBQ pork buns).  At this restaurant, you preorder your items. I wasn't able to see the menu because I arrived later than my parents (I was backed up in traffic because of the Grey Cup parade, should you need to know). But after you hand in your order, they give you a print out of what you ordered, along with the quantity and price. Once your order has arrived at your table, the waiter/waitress checks off the item. Very efficient, I think.

Even though the layout of the restaurant is a bit peculiar as it is shared with another restaurant, this actually might be a clever idea so you can offer customers a wider variety of foods. For example, the table in front of us ordered Western breakfasts offered on the Albert's menu, then ordered steamed rice rolls and cha sui bao. What an interesting combination! For all you loyal dimmies out there, you got to give this place a try-their sui mei's are scrumptious!

Verdict: scrumptious

Directions: Delicious Delicious is located directly in the Howard Johnson hotel on 155 street & Stony Plain Road.

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