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Don Mee Chinese Seafood Restaurant
Categories: Restaurants Chinese Restaurants Seafood Chinese, Seafood [Edit]
538 Fisgard StVictoria, BC V8W 1R4
(250) 383-1032
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good For:
- Lunch
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Noise Level:
- Loud
- Ambience:
- Touristy
- Caters:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
29 reviews for Don Mee Chinese Seafood Restaurant
29 reviews in English
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Review from Laura T.
5/23/2012
We went for Dim Sum and it was great! We stopped in at the Greater Chinese Association storefront across the street and my mother (who speaks Cantonese fluently) asked the locals where we should go for Dim Sum. They pointed to Don Mee. There are lots of tables and the dim sum carts come by quite often. Even though it was a Sunday, we didn't to wait to be seated. I liked all our selections except the Char Siu Bao which was too doughy.
They must have a lot of wedding banquets there because they have a lounge reserved for "brides". I give them minus points for their restrooms. Like most restrooms at Chinese restaurants, it was in need of maintenance (ugh!).
I would recommend Don Mee for dim sum. -
Review from Brian S.
Don Mee is about making its customers who may be mild mannered citizens in daily life Big Shots while guests in their dining room.
A larger then life Neon Sign that feels more like Hollywood Marquee then a Restaurant Sign. A Happy Buddha meets you as walk up the steep set of stairs into a dark dinning room with Golden Reliefs of Chinese Symbols of Strength and Pride.
On the table next to ours there was either a Wedding or Anniversary Dinner going on where the Speech's & Toasting only stopped for shots of Chinese White Lighting.
Ordered the Dinner for Two which contained plenty of tasty sweet Chinese Food. The night ended with Fortune Cookies wrapped in Cellophane with saying in that seemed too stoic for our happy evening out. Don't worry the paper fortune note also had some Lucky Lotto Numbers and a chance to lean Chinese Language lessons over the Internet. -
Review from Amanda J.
Victoria, BC
3/10/2012
Don Mee is my go-to for dim sum. It is usually quite busy on the weekends, but I've never had to wait long for a table, and they will often open extra rooms to accommodate customers.
I find it is way better to go with more people so you can try many new things! I've also found it is way better to go with my Chinese coworkers, who hook us up with things like tripe and chicken feet that I would probably not have tried on my own.
My favorites are bbq pork buns, shrimp dumplings, spare ribs, and chicken feet. YUM. I have found that things can add up quite quickly to a large bill, so be aware of your stomach as well as your eyes. Darn carts. Too tempting. -
Review from Rheanna F.
Vancouver, BC
1/3/2012
I came here for a wedding banquet and was pretty impressed! I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to trying to new food, and i got to try a lot of interesting dishes i've never even seen on the menu at other Chinese food places, and all of it tasted pretty good!!
The banquet was HUGE so we got to try a pretty big assortment of Don Mee's food. I'd say their pork and poultry was the best of everything we tried, right down to the dish of pigeon! I'd never tried it before so i had to give it a go; Basically it just tasted like duck. Eating pigeon was a bit of a leap of faith since I had to hope the piegeon was raised for food and wasn't caught a block away in the smelly alley behind the strip club. But hey, i'm still here to write the review and whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger!!
To Don Mee's credit, i also didn't get the typical Chinese food stomach aches and MSG dry mouth after eating there, although there WAS an open bar so maybe it was the gin killing any unpleasant sensations i would have otherwise had. And speaking of their bar, they make chichis there!! Everything is 25% better when you have a chichi.
One star is knocked off what should be a 4-star rating because our server did something dangerous that i've experienced before at a few Chinese restaurants: When asked if a dish contained a certain ingredient she reassured us that it did not and listed off the ingredients in it, but when we checked later with another server AFTER dish had long since been cleared away, he said it did. In our case, the dish being served was shark fin soup, which a few of us morally objected to (we asked if it was shark fin soup, and we were told it was not and only contained scallop and shrimp. Liars!!) but i've had this happen before at other restaurants when i've asked about ingredients i'm allergic to. Nothing is more unsettling than being lied to about an ingredient when certain kinds of food can potentially do you in with one bite, and after that experience i would not trust the staff at Don Mee with my life. -
Review from Clara Y.
7/7/2011 1 photo
YIKES !!!!What a horrible experience. I chose Don Mee on vacation since the sign looked nice and the restaurant looked quite large....expecting a typical " Chinatown " Dim Sum experience. As the saying goes, do not choose a book by its cover, or in this case the sign !!
I went with a friend on a Thursday early afternoon and it was slightly, busy, but not packed by any means. I spent 45 minutes there and was NEVER offered water or asked if I was doing alright by a server. There appeared to be only one server besides those manning the carts, and she was busy cashing out guests for the most part. I saw her make one round to a table behind me who appeared to have " flagged " her down.
The turnip cake I ordered, shu mai and shrimp balls were nearly cold. The shrimp ball had the thickest dumpling coating ever, I literally picked out the shrimp and onions inside since it was near disgusting, good riddance ! I should have stopped at the shrimp ball, but continued to try a few other things
45 minutes later ( still with no water !!) or anybody around to ask for hot mustard / chili sauce, etc, I ended this horrible experience, unfortunately not soon enough. Later that night I felt terribly sick,... to the extent of food poisoning, I did NOT order items I do not normally eat and I am Chinese, not some tourist. I am thinking that perhaps the soy sauce was expired or not refrigerated! PLEASE use caution and try out another restaurant down the street, the measly signed pictures of has been celebrities on the wall was the highlight of the restaurant! -
Review from Larry L.
I was here for a wedding banquet and I must say very impressed and felt very nostalgic.
Victoria's Chinatown is like a throwback to Chinatowns of the 70's. This restaurant helped to solidfy that image in a great way!
Good old fashioned Chinese food before it became trendy and before all those flashy pants Hong Kong Chefs showed us what Chinese food is supposed to be like.
Back in the day, before the big influx of big time chefs from Asia. This was how you would get your Chinese food based on the local ingredients available at the time. Things have changed but it's nice to know that the style of this food is still alive and kicking!!!
It's the kind of food that I was brought up on!
Great stuff.
And when I asked two of my cousins where they go for Chinese food, they both said "Only at Don Mee's".
Again. Great stuff!Listed in: OLD SKOOL CHINESE FOOD
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Review from Rassamee H.
11/25/2010
Have gone to Don Mee two out of the three times I've visited Victoria. The first time I tried this duck dish that you eat by wrapping it in lettuce leaves. It was very good, a bit fatty, but definitely adventurous.
Just re-visited Don Mee again today for Dim Sum lunch. Had to call the waitstaff over to be served, they seated us and gave us tea right away, but were a bit slow on offering food. However, I'm not shy so I quickly called the lady over to get us started. My husband and I each had won ton soup and shared shrimp and vegetable dumplings, pork and shrimp shu mai, and steamed barbecued pork buns. Decent dim sum, not the best I've had but good enough. The won ton soup lacked flavor but the shrimp and vegetable dumplings were very good.
I would recommend Don Mee. It is also the cleanest Chinese restaurant I think I've ever been too and that is worth two thumbs up :) -
Review from Kimli W.
8/13/2010
I am admittedly biased when it comes to Don Mee's Dim Sum - I grew up in Victoria, and my mother would bring me here for a treat. As such, I have really fond memories of meals here, and have gone on to make my own memories by bringing my friends and family whenever I can.
My experiences here have always been stellar - great food, friendly service (even if I have no idea what they're saying - my mom always translated for me), and good prices. We've been known to stuff ourselves past the point of moving for about $20 a head, which is not outrageous for the amount of food we ate.
I have yet to find sticky rice anywhere in the WORLD as good as it is at Don Mee's, and I've tried very hard to find a replacement. Also, try the crab balls. They come with a claw, which you can then use to stage little claw fights at your table.
I think Don Mee's is delicious, and it will always be my favourite place to get Dim Sum. -
Review from Eric B.
Victoria, BC
2/21/2010
In Vancouver, a place like Don Mee would be considered terrible and wouldn't last longer than a couple months. It'd be like dating Rosie O'Donnell when you could be dating Megan Fox.
In Victoria, where there are no Megan Fox's of Chinese food, this is okay food. The scallops on the shrimp dumpings were overcooked, the sui mai (pork dumplings) were not juicy but the sponge cake was pretty good. The radish cakes (lo bok go) was more flour than radish but the shrimp rice roll was acceptable.
The service could be better both in terms of attentiveness and the temperament of their staff but I'm probably spoiled by the Sun Sui Wah's of the dim sum world where they jump to it and will custom make dim sum for you.
Rosie O'Donnell looks pretty good after a dozen drinks and so does Don Mee. Put on the beer/dim sum googles and enjoy. -
Review from Leenee B.
9/15/2010
I can only speak for the "dim sum for two" that I ordered. I was still jetlagged while I was out there, so I wanted dinner at maybe 3pm.
I ordered this dim sum and it was the BEST dim sum I have ever had, beating out my favorite dim sum in New York, San Francisco, and DC. -
Review from Joel P.
Grande Prairie, AB
10/1/2011 1 Check-in Here
Went for their dim sum on Sunday. As a bit of a dim sum noob, I was glad the food was a little more white culture friendly. (unlike some of the other reviewers on here). That being said I found the food to be pretty darn good and came around very quickly with new items. I'd strongly recommend anyone that wants to introduce someone to dim sum try this out. Virtually everything is edible to those who haven't tried 'real' chinese food before. It was a great opportunity for me to try all kinds of new things. Wish there was four of us so we could have sampled more items as the portions were large for just two of us and I filled up quickly.
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Review from Adelina W.
Richmond, BC
1/17/2010
I went to Don Mee's for some dim sum, not because I chose to, but because my dim sum place of choice, Golden City, was closed for a couple of weeks. I was less than impressed with the selection of dim sum available. Someone needs to tell the chef that there is more dim sum in the world than just shrimp! We were offered ha gow (), shrimp with scallops on top, fried shrimp dumplings, friend shrimp, and shrimp balls with tofu, just to name a few. Shrimp is great, but there is more to dim sum! Where was the sticky rice in lotus leaf (Lo mai gai ), chicken feet ( fung zao), and savoury crispy pastries ( haam sui gok) all of which can be found commonly at dim sum places??
We ordered a rice noodle roll (), but they burned it so badly it was more mush than a roll. I left in a really bad mood. Not going to go back ever - unless I have to.. I felt like I wasted my money. Total came to $52 for 5 of us.
But if its your first time to dim sum, then you might want to consider them. With the carts, you can see what you're ordering and the dishes aren't as scary with weird ingredients. -
Review from christine c.
Victoria, BC
10/19/2009
Don Mee used to be my go to place before I discovered Golden City. They have delicious dim sum and prices are minimal. They also have quite a good variety and a couple of my favourite dishes I haven't found elsewhere. Be prepared to line up, sometimes on the stairs, as they are extremely popular in town.
Just some words of advice for those not as familar with dim sum:
1. Dim Sum is traditionally served until mid afternoon, but you want to get there earlier before all the pickings are gone.
http://chinesefood.abo...
2. There are definitely going to be some adventurous dishes, like chicken feet etc.
3. The definition of a wonton is a Chinese dumpling filled with pork and sometimes shrimp.
Hope this helps people have a good experience if this is their first time. Just sit back, let the carts roll up and enjoy your awesome meal! -
Review from David L.
8/21/2011
Yuk, the dimsum was gross and expensive. 4 plates of dimsum cost almost $30 plus tips! We got the chicken feet and it tasted like it was frozen. For the price, I would expect a lot better. The extra star is for having the friendly cashier/owner lady.
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Review from Jenny H.
2/23/2010
My brother and I were traveling and ended up in Victoria. We were plenty excited when we discovered Chinatown and Don Mee. It reminded me very much of Hong Kong's restaurants where you have to climb up the stairs to get to the restaurant, so already my expectations were raised. We were here for their dim sum and were utterly disappointed.
Pros:
- convenient location
Cons:
- super expensive dim sum
- not much variety of dim sum
- the dim sum we had were cold and seemed to be sitting for quite some time (we got there a little after noon)
- restaurant was a bit dirty
- the staff weren't thrilled to serve us until they realized we spoke Chinese
I'll give Don Mee the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps we came at the wrong time and ordered all the wrong dishes... either way, the next time I'm in Canada, I'll wait until I reach Richmond for some Chinese food. -
Review from K W.
Victoria, BC
10/18/2008
One rainy winter evening, about 1.5 years ago, I stopped in at Don Mee's and the place was empty. Not a good sign. I ordered BBQ Pork and some fried rice. The pork was hard as if it was reheated repeatedly. The fried rice was not at all fresh (although it is well known that you use day-old rice in fried rice, that's not what I mean by fresh). Although the food was not great, I do remember the staff being very friendly and attentive, but that could have been due to the fact that we were the only ones in the place.
I never went back and honestly I don't know how a restaurant could stay in business serving food like that. -
Review from Gillian F.
North Vancouver, BC
11/4/2009
This has been long awaited and I've only been able to tell this to friends and family but I feel this is something people need to know for themselves.
I am personally not a huge fan of Chinese food, but I don't dislike it. About...must have been 8 years ago. My family ordered chinese food from this place, and we got it home and opened everything up.
At the time it all looked so fresh and delicious........until we opened the chow mein. We found a nice sizable maggot in our chow mein and I pretty much refused to eat a single item we had ordered from this restaurant after that.
Stupidly I don't remember if one of my family members bothered to phone the restaurant or the health code people for that matter but ever since then I will not set foot in this restaurant nor will I order food from them ever again. We did a bit of research after and found out they weren't completely up to code with health regulations (which I happened to hear similar about Japanese Village at the time).
You make the decision for yourself folks, but at the same time I would like to suggest a CLEAN chinese restaurant that has very good food:
J & J Wonton Noodle House on Fort Street, or another which I believe is owned by the brother, John's Noodle Village. Both of these restaurants serve a egg rolls you won't find anywhere else, they are shrimp and mango egg rolls with a cream sauce. -
Review from Matthew L.
Edmonton, AB
3/17/2010
As Dim Sum offers absolutely nothing for the strict vegetarian, and my wife (my most frequent dining companion) is a strict vegetarian, I rarely eat Dim Sum, nor do I seek it out. But I do love it and when a co-worker suggested we head to Don Mee for lunch, I obliged. I wanted to see what Victoria's Chinatown could offer in the way of Dim Sum.
And it was OK. And as I'm not Chinese, nor do I speak Chinese, I don't really know the proper names of any of the dishes. But I can sayt hat I found Don Mee to be pretty tasty, if not entirely fresh. And we found ourselves waiting for much to long to procure the dishes we wanted from the wandering carts. This is at 12:30 on a Friday.
Apparently these carts are passe in the Vancouver dim sum scene.
I particularly enjoyed a multi-textured shrimp won ton of sorts and the crab balls.
But I should also mention that I enjoyed the frozen won tons that a friend had purchased from Fairway Market more than anything I had tried here. I'm not sure if that says a lot about Fairway Market's food, or little about Don Mee's. -
Review from Dustin D.
Victoria, BC
11/25/2010
Don Mee's is a long standing establishment in Victoria's chinatown, however with the tourist volume we get here and the lack of serious competition, that's not a huge statement. This review is mostly for their takeout/delivery. Most of their dishes are above average for Victoria's Chinese food scene, but far from memorable, inspired or great. I haven't been to their dim sum in too long to give a fair current review, but last two times I did go, it was painfully slow and the selection seemed to be chickens feet and 2-3 other items only for the entire time we were there.
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Review from Brian B.
8/17/2009
Don Mee is located in the center of China Town. It was a fun walk through the area to take in all of the Chinese features of this part of the city. Don Mee is up stairs. Looked very Chinese and in fact was filled mostly with Asians - always a good sign. We laughed because a very large big screen TV was against one wall. It ran a video that looked like a large fish tank. Much cheaper than actually owning one!
We were there for lunch. The Dim Sum is served from carts moving around your table. It was a bit difficult to hear the ladies tell us what was on the carts. We were glad that we had experienced Dim Sum before so that we knew a little about what to expect.
The shrimp of all kinds were outstanding! Wow incredible. The only things we did not like were the beef. Just was not right. We tried 6 different dishes and felt the food was really good quality.
It would be a but more helpful if they gave something that explained the different kinds of Dim that would be served. And we would have liked the carts to come around more often.
Overall a very good experience. We would do it again. -
Review from Jodine S.
9/14/2009
I got a turkey heart on my plate.
Enough said. -
Review from Thuy T.
8/17/2010
My family and I stopped in after reading the reviews I found online for good dim sum restaurants in Victoria. Don Mee kept on showing up during the search as being a good restaurant. We decided to give it a try.
Well, yeahh...I've had better. The hostess was nice, but the service was horrible. Our empty dishes stayed on our table for a very long time. The server walked by several times and kept our table as is. It wasn't busy either since the servers were just standing around and talking to each other. The carts were moving to every other table except ours. I don't recommend this restaurant at all unless you don't want to be bothered by the staff while eating!!
The restaurant next door is much smaller than Don Mee. Their food was a lot tastier and the service was excellent! -
Review from Jim T.
7/26/2009
The service is great here. The decor is fashionable in this very old, and very classy establishment. The food is passable. My favorite was the shrimp, stir fry. It was delicious. Also the beef lettuce wraps were good. The ginger beef was over-cooked and too sweet and too dry. The lemon chicken was also over-cooked and too sweet and too dry. The chow main was great, a mixture of pan-fried noodles and bean sprouts. I've had better, but the good service makes for a good evening.
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Review from Torie Y.
7/26/2009
props to them for letting us bring our boba in from bubble tea house!
having dimsum on vacation was a must after a week of ship food. we made our way up the stairs and sat down for some yum cha goodness. i was happy to see my favorites - spare ribs, char siu bao (why is it brown inst. of red?) and the sesame balls! the pork dumplings were interesting with the roe on top...never seen that before.
they also seemed to really cater to foreigners...i was glad that i was not affronted with cantonese and could easily communicate what i wanted without having to do too much animated pointing.
minus one star for the lady with the fry-cart being super slow. we were full by the time she reached our table. -
Review from Tisha R.
Victoria, BC
5/24/2010
I'm not going to lie, I'm a regular at this place, but mostly out of convenience. Their Dim Sum is pretty good... well as good as it gets in Victoria. DO NOT go for dinner though.
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Review from J C.
1/1/2010
Really bummed that they ran out of egg custart tarts, how can any dim sum place run out of egg tarts???!!? The dim sum is OK but I think there are actually better dim sum places in Seattle. Good place to take dim sum virgins, staff is very helpful.
But would come here because the dim sum is decent although a little pricey but it may be because it is Canada. -
Review from Craig R.
Victoria, BC
5/24/2010
My favourite dim sum place. Not gauranteeing that every dish is great, but the BBQ pork buns, calimari, BBQ pork pasteries, I could go on. Avoid dinner though.
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Review from Brenda G.
8/27/2008 3 photos
We were looking for a good Chinese seafood restaurant and we found it in Don Mee. In the small 1 block that is Victoria's Chinatown, the pickins were pretty slim as they say. I remembered seeing a flyer for Don Mee on the ferry from Vancouver and chose it becauseI didn't have much else to go by. This is a fancy looking restaurant with live lobster and crab in the tanks. We were pretty hungry and ordered the potstickers first while we read the menu. The potstickers were pretty weak, barely any filling and what was in the filling that I recognized were peas and corn...WTF? But, honestly, they were pretty tasty or I could have just been hungry. On to the seafood... you choose the way you want your seafood prepared, they have five different ways of cooking it. We chose to have our lobster pan fried in a smooth garlic sauce and our crab ($26)deep fried in hot chili pepper and salt. Oh yeah, there were only two of us little piggies... we ordered the obligatory steamed rice and mixed vegies too. The lobster ($26 lb.) was delicious, choped into large pieces with its meaty deliciousness still holding onto the shell. The meat came out super easy... a lot easier than the crab, but we all know eating crab is a chore. The vegies were cooked to perfection in a lite sauce. I must admit though, we left a lot of vegies and rice and no seafood. I recommend Don Mee to all seafood lovers.
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Review from james l.
9/19/2010
this place was packed. we ate some dimsum and crab. the crab was pretty fresh/soft.
