I wouldn't hesitate to say that Metro Vancouver has some of the best Chinese food in the world. Well, outside of its country of origin of course. I haven't been back to Vancouver in a couple of years now (#sadface) but whenever I do visit, no trip is complete without some dim sum!
Dim sum, or yum cha, is arguably my favourite weekend activity. Yeah, sleeping in is great, but so is a table full of steamers and dumplings. Often on Sunday morning, you can find my family and I at Wok N Roll. If you look past their punny sense of humour, their dim sum is quite good and they're also close to home for us. (Northside, still alive.)
But when a big dim sum player from Vancouver opens up a restaurant in Edmonton, well, you drive a little further to check them out.
Chef Tony originally hails from Richmond, BC. Since their opening in 2014, they've won countless awards for their creative and gourmet take on traditional dim sum. I was surprised to hear they expanded into Edmonton, albeit a little sad, as they took over Tropika's old west location on Stony Plain Road. (Their southside location is still open, thank goodness.)
My parents already visited Chef Tony back when they first opened, but I wanted to wait a bit for things to settle down. Weekdays are considerably less busy than the weekends, as we saw on Friday afternoon.
The layout of the restaurant is still very much the same, with two raised platform dining areas. It seems like they've added more round tables, which is more conducive to the sharing nature of dim sum.
Ordering is done through a check sheet, with an accompanying pictorial menu (handy for the Instagram). Although the push-cart is more traditional, I do prefer the paper-based system as it minimizes food waste and ensures you get the food that you actually want at its freshest state. A glance at the menu and you'll notice that prices are indeed higher than other dim sum places in the city, ranging from $5.88 to $8.98 per dish. Larger items from the kitchen are priced accordingly, with most noodle and rice dishes hovering around $20. Tea is also an additional charge ($2.00/person).
Har gow is a dim sum staple, and one of my personal favourites. The shrimp and matsutake dumplings are $6.68. Instead of the typical portion of four, there's five in each basket. Trade off is that they're somewhat on the smaller side. I didn't notice any actual pieces of matsutake mushroom inside the shrimp filling, but you could certainly taste the earthiness in the background. I found it very similar to truffle actually.
We also ordered another variation of har gow, which is their steamed cuttlefish ink shrimp dumplings ($8.98). Presentation is quite striking as the dumpling wrappers are dyed black with squid ink and then topped with a touch of edible gold. (The gold is completely unnecessary, but whatever fuels your bougie ego.)
I definitely preferred the other shrimp dumplings as the squid ink in these ones made them taste almost too fishy and briny.
Dim sum's other poster child is siu mai, or pork and shrimp dumplings ($6.68). At Chef Tony, they're given an upgrade with the addition of black truffle on top. I could eat truffles on just about anything, but it works particularly well with the the meatiness of the pork. Again, the dumplings were on the smaller side, but they were light, bouncy, and not too greasy. Probably one of my favourite items of the entire meal.
I love me some congee, especially on colder days, which is where we seem to be headed. The stewed duck congee ($8.98) was actually the first dish to arrive to our table. The congee was nicely seasoned and there was quite a good portion of duck meat hiding towards the bottom of the bowl.
The Chinese donut stuffed with shrimp paste ($11.98) is something you don't see on a lot of other menus. Shrimp paste is piped into the interior of a Chinese long doughnut and then the whole thing is deep fried. It's cut into bite-sized pieces and served with mayonaisse to dip. It's very similar to deep fried shrimp dumplings, so I found it to be a little pricey for what it was.
I was drawn to the bitter gourd and chicken shreds rice noodles ($6.68) simply because of its green colour. I did detect a slight bitterness in the rice roll but it certainly wasn't overpowering. Otherwise a very forgettable dish. I would probably pass on this one.
We also ordered the pan-fried taro and dried noodlefish cake ($6.68). This was pretty interesting. It was basically shredded taro, packed into blocks with a thin crust of dried noodlefish. They were pretty starchy, so I wouldn't recommend it if you weren't a fan of taro to begin with. They would've been better if there was a sauce to go along with it.
Our last savoury item was the pan-fried pork pandan bun in casserole ($7.98). When the dish came out, it had a really nice aroma, thanks to the sizzling onions and scallions laid underneath. Unfortunately, the buns barely had any filling inside. I had high hopes but was disappointed in this one.
My family loves durian so they gave the deep-fried durian dumplings ($6.68) a try. It looked like a glutinous dough, filled with durian and then deep fried. You might know durian as the world's stinkiest (and most dangerous!) fruit. It has a custard-y texture and flavour, but the most putrid smell. It's one of those fruits that you either hate or you love. There's really no in-between. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan so I didn't partake but my parents and grandma enjoyed these dumplings. If you love durian, I'm assuming you will too.
Onto something I can actually eat, the sweet salty egg yolk lava buns ($6.98) were quite attention-grabbing. The gold-painted black bun, I assume dyed from charcoal, opens up to reveal a runny salted egg yolk custard. I love liu sha bao, and these had a good amount of salty egg yolk flavour. Usually the custard veers on being too sweet, but this was nicely balanced.
Saving the cutest for last (which also applies to my older siblings and I, haha), we got the chilled coconut juice puddings ($5.88). These are literally Instagram bait, but they were actually quite enjoyable! They usually come in multiples of three, but our server was kind enough to add on a fourth bunny so we could all have one. It physically pained me to eat the bunny's face but it was a sweet refreshing end to our meal.
Chef Tony probably won't replace our go-to dim sum restaurant, but it was nice to try something new. Service was also eager to please, as we had someone even come around to refill our tea cups, which is usually unheard of for a Chinese restaurant. We did go on a weekday though, when it wasn't so busy. I would say some food items are more gimmicky than others, but I appreciate the efforts that they've made to elevate the dim sum experience. Fair warning that it doesn't come cheap, but hey, truffles and gold flakes don't grow on trees. (Well, actually, I think truffles do.)
Chef Tony
14921 Stony Plain Rd
Edmonton, AB
(780) 244-8388
- CT
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