Dim Sum at Imperial Restaurant

Grandma treated us to dim sum this afternoon cos I helped her with her yearly taxes and filed them online for her. I have been wanting to try out Imperial Restaurant for the longest time cos it is suppose to be the best Chinese restaurant in Vancouver. I didn't suggest it but grams remember that we had all wanted to try it so she wanted to take us there for dim sum. Although some critics (friends or friends of friends of mine) have stated that it is overrated, I found the dim sum was exceptionally good! What really impressed me was all the different kinds of steamed dumplings like tobiko scallop shrimp dumpling! Mmmm... that is now my fave one so far! Beats the har gau (shrimp dumpling) which has been my fave since the very first time I had dim sum. Also very yummy was the siu mai (pork dumpling topped with roe) and I usually don't like siu mai cos most restaurants don't make it very good. Kay and I were quite impressed with the tea cups cos the little tea cups had handles on them which I have never seen at any dim sum restaurant! Another really neat gesture is that all the dim sum were small porportions like how it's suppose to be. I know you are not getting as much for your money when the portions are small but dim sum is really about sharing small little plates. Most dim sum restaurants serve huge portions, to give you the money's worth but that usually means they use a lot of filler in the food which leads to not so good taste and how can you try every dish if every dish you order is large? Plus it is well know that dim sum may fill you up after you eat but all the grease and msg doesn't stay long in your system and you can get hungry soon after dim sum! Surprised but not completely is when the bill arrived! I couldn't believe how much all the little dishes came up to and it would have been much cheaper for my grandma to have paid for the tax software instead of taking us out to dim sum but I think she quite enjoy going to the restaurant and getting all dressed up for it. Before leaving for the restaurant, I went upstairs to check to see if we were all ready to go and noticed that grams and mom were all dressed up for dim sum so Kay and I quickly changed from our denim to some dress pants! It was a fun morning filled with small treats! Click the above photo to enlarge to see our treats!