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Kam Wah Loong Seafood Restaurant
Categories: Restaurants Chinese Dim Sum Restaurants Seafood Dim Sum, Seafood [Edit]
1363 KingswayVancouver, BC V5V 3E3
Neighbourhood: Kensington-Cedar Cottage
(604) 255-8927
- Hours:
Mon-Sun 9 am - 3 pm
Mon-Tue, Thu-Sun 5 pm - 10 pm
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- No
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Price Range:
-
$
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good For:
- Lunch
- Alcohol:
- No
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Has TV:
- No
12 reviews for Kam Wah Loong Seafood Restaurant
12 reviews in English
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Review from Emily-Anne P.
Vancouver, BC
2/20/2012
Much like other reviewers, my friend and I were stumbling along post night out and decided to go into the first place that had dim sum. Not hard at Knight and Kingsway and this place seemed like a keeper as it was $2.38 for most of it.
We ordered salt and pepper squid, shanghai noodles, gai lan, su mai, sesame balls, wontons, shrimp cakes, and I think that's it. Which is a lot, but I have a second stomach when it comes to eating dim sum hung over.
The service was okay, nothing fancy but I wasn't expecting anything too amazing. We got seated at a little table and began ordering. The food was slow to come out, which again, is to be expected.
Everything tasted okay except the shumai, it was really salty and fake tasting, we didn't eat much of it. Other than that, it worked out to be $26 for all that food and we were very full.
I'll go back, for sure and try other things.
It is cash only though. -
Review from Edward L.
Kingsway is really great for ghetto-dimsum hunting. Just when you think you got a deal, you'll find a place a block or two away where it's 10c cheaper. Ah, the beauty of capitalism.
Parking is nice and easy to find on weekends. All of the streets have no restrictions.
You know this is good when you see a bunch of seniors using various modes of transportation (and by that I really mean walkers, canes and wheelchairs) lined up outside, and fighting for a spot on the inside. One guy even got so excited that he ditched his shiny red electric wheelchair outside, next to a tree. I really wish I had taken a photo of this.
The inside looks like it was furnished in the 70s. Not saying it was beaten up, but the yellow paint on the wall definitely isn't the trendiest.
Baskets here are an awesome $2.38 each. This is the lowest out of every place I've seen so far in Vancouver.
The typical dimsum fare is here, with rice rolls, dumplings, the rest of the deal. It was average, and presentation is lacking, but let's face it, you're not here for 3 Michelin stars. Lunch came out to less than $10 per person. Awesome!
I will definitely be back.Listed in: 2011 Cheap & Tasty
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Review from Emily S.
10/31/2011
We came here for dim sum. I was not too happy with the food here.
It tasted very average.
Bland.
I added soy sauce to almost everything. And I rarely add soy sauce to my food.
Cash Only -
Review from Theresa W.
Vancouver, BC
What a delicious place! It's yum and a great deal with slow service, but that's just the way dim sum should be. You don't associate dim sum restaurants with old Chinese people reading newspapers for nothing!
To sum it up: CASH ONLY, all dim sum is 2.38 (S/M/L), which is a pretty solid price, but you won't find shrimp har gow or shrimp rice rolls on that list, because they are listed in a specialty dim sum section for 2.88 each. Other dishes on the back of the paper ordering sheet range from $5 to $8, but they're all larger and delicious.
Husband and I rolled into this restaurant on a busy Sunday at 11am, and got a seat fairly quickly (a lot of people who took a number ahead of us had given up the wait). The food we ordered were mostly winners, including the e-mein dish that we weren't sure about getting, but for $6, the portion was huge and it was well made, not soggy and came with yellow chives, shredded carrots and mushrooms. The deep fried prawn spring roll with golden garlic is good as well, the garlic gives it an extra kick that lifts your regular shrimp spring roll up a notch. The siu mai is big (only a smidgen smaller than Western Lake), but seems to lack that delicious flavour. I suspect it;s because there are no minced mushrooms to give it some extra texture or taste.
The pan fried pork and chive dumplings were a surprise win as well, unless you really like pork, because they came out loaded with shrimp. The dessert custard bun wasn't a good pick since it was almost all bun and the custard inside wasn't anything close to runny (as the chinese description had said).
Overall, our meal cost us $10 each with plenty of leftovers for dinner (and lunch!). As Cyndi mentioned, the place is cash only, so remember to have a little something in the wallet!Listed in: Dim Sum!
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Review from Jenn J.
Vancouver, BC
Updated - 11/12/2011 1 Check-in Here
Quite a change in rating from my last one isn't it?
Well the reason I'll never go back to this place is because after I had submitted my review and decided to go here again for dim sum, I was yelled at after asking about a dish.
Along with our regular dishes for dim sum, my wife and I decided to order the halibut with black bean. When it came, the fish looked dry. When I smelled the dish it was really fishy. This would've been a different story if we had ordered the preserved salty fish, which tends to be quite pungent, but we didn't. I've also had steamed fish from frozen before and it never smelled this bad. There was no way I was going to eat it because I knew it wasn't fresh.
I flagged down the waitress and told her in Cantonese that the fish wasn't fresh. She didn't seem to understand what I was talking about and flagged down the manager. When the manager came over, I again told her that the fish wasn't fresh in Cantonese. She immediately got defensive, yelling in Cantonese, "That's how it is! That's how it's made! That IS fresh!" I asked her to smell it and she yelled again in Cantonese, "I don't need to smell it! It's fresh! That's how it's cooked!"
My jaw dropped. I've been to a lot of chinese restaurants from Vancouver, to Mississauga, down in Seattle and San Francisco. I've NEVER had anyone yell at me when I've actually gone to the length of talking to them in Cantonese in an attempt to show cultural sensitivity for an awkward situation. Never mind that it's already a small restaurant so all eyes were on our table when she yelled at us, making us feel extremely self-conscious.
We were hungry so we decided to finish our dishes and go. When the bill came, even though we hadn't touched the dish, we got charged for it! So we didn't leave a tip.1 Previous Review: Show all »
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10/8/2011
For quite a few years I had been a regular at Dai Tung but lately their quality has been slipping,… Read more »
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Review from Jon L.
9/25/2011
As you would suspect given the higher quality of dim sum up north in Richmond and Vancouver, the pricing at most places in the area are reflective of this as well. Thus, it can be a challenge to find a good reasonably priced dim sum restaurant.
After reading reviews on Yelp and a couple blogs, I decided that I wanted to give Kam Wah Loong a shot as it appears to meet this criteria.
It is located on Kingsway amidst numerous Asian businesses. There is no on-site parking to speak of, but the street parking situation was not too bad. There was none on Kingsway that I saw, but my parents and I were able to find a space on a residential side street behind the restaurant. And it was free as there was no meters.
The restaurant's claim to fame is that they have a large menu of dim sum priced at $2.38 until 3 pm daily. These items are labeled as small, medium and large. This does not include special items like rice noodle rolls and meat/rice bowls which were $.50 higher. There were also some items that were $2.99. On the back side is a large menu of things like noodle dishes that seems to top off just under $7. With these prices, the meals here are a steal. Though remember this is a cash only establishment.
The dim sum system is like most places in Richmond/Vancouver in that you need to order off a menu sheet and write with the pencil the quanity of each item you want. You hand the sheet to your server and they deliver the items as they become available. Since everything is made to order, the dining experience will be longer than at a pushcart dim sum place. But the dim sum I have had has typically been better as a result since it is fresh from the kitchen.
We tried 7 dishes. Chiu chow dumplings (pork rissoles), steamed halibut pieces, fried pork buns, beef brisket with rice noodles, chicken feet (for parents only, I don't eat this), fried tofu and an item that I forget now because I have had too much dim sum lately.
I have to say that I enjoyed all of the items that I tried here which I attribute to the fresh from the kitchen reasoning. Standouts was the halibut, beef brisket and fried tofu. Nothing disappointing, though there was somewhat of a wait for items to come out.
I did also notice an interesting quirk to this place which would be that they cover their tables in plastic sheets. It is not to the extent of ludicrousness of my sister's old place which the landlord covered the whole kitchen in plastic wrap. No, this is the plastic they use for takeout/supermarket bags.
Once a table has finished dining, the staff bundles up all of the leftover items (plates/utensils/napkins/etc.) and pulls out the plastic sheet like a trash bag and takes it away. I think this is pretty clever as they don't have to clean the table as a result. They just remove the top sheet like a page from a daily calendar. Though a little tacky, I like the functionality of this.
If you are looking for good cheap dim sum in Vancouver, Kam Wah Loong is a great choice.Listed in: Nom Nom Nom-ing in BC
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Review from Peter W.
Vancouver, BC
2/3/2012
instead of going next door, I decided to give this place a try .... yes, the decor was not pleasing - yes, I counted 7 major colours - I wonder who choose those colours. Yes, packed with seniors because of low prices 2.38 for most dim sum to 5+ for bigger dishes. hard to find these prices. Today, there were two Caucasians.
overall they were good, they were : rice noodle (good), fun gou (steamed dumpling) good, sponge cake (bit too sweet) but fresh, etc. the congee bit too salty but unlike other places, here you could really see the grains of rice and thick. Shrimp dumpling was huge (did not try, packed for takeout).
Ordered the pork/preserved fish on rice - aside the oil on pork, rice was not oil soaked like other places (i think they steamed the pork separately, which makes the rice not tasty but the way better for health).
The dessert sesame covered fried donut was good.
what not good : shanghai wonton (broth had layer of oil on top), marinated tripe/stomach (not salty here, few pieces bit too soft, and typical oily as in other places).
services were prompt and good. Sorry the washroom really small. Overall worth second visit(s). -
Review from Cyndi H.
Vancouver, BC
Solid dimsum in the KCC!
Okay, let's be honest. I'm pasty white, I barely speak two languages (neither of them Cantonese or Mandarin), but I've got to say, I think I did a bang up job ordering by myself at Kam Wah Loong. The hunger pains were gnawing and the need for grease to shroud my night of libations was eminent. I needed dims sum--and fast!
My gf's and I darted to Kam Wah Loong and were seated at at a small round table. The server was exceptionally 'straight up' while very caring. I love the blunt honesty that people from other cultures have. It's very refreshing.
For $10 each, we ate like QUEENS. We had to call for backup, and so called three nearby guy friends to come over and finish our food (the table was still full when we were...). Our table grew and grew until we were 8 squished in at a table built for 5. It was fabulous. They offered us a bigger one, but we liked the cuddlyness of it all.
Ok, I know you want to hear about the food and I wish I knew the fancy names but I'll tell you what comes to me.
XLB-- many dim sum places don't serve this but here they do! I ordered it by accident and was overjoyed to see those hot pipin' lil' dumplings in a basket.
Sui mai-- this was some of the best sui mai I've ever tasted (could be the night of debauchery talking). That being said, I've never had a bad sui mai (some less pleasing than others) but this was exceptionally good. Way juicy & tasty.
Chinese donut wrapped in rice wrap-- this was an unexpected win.
Eggplant with prawns-- always a keeper (IMHO)
Sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf-- deeeelish!
I cannot WAIT to go back there. Being in my East Van hood, it makes me overjoyed to have a good option to invite friends too. I've been meeting them all over the place for years for DS dates. Now when my DS coma sets in, I have a short trip back to the ranch. Ya, just how I roll.
**Cash Only** -
Review from Tina H.
Vancouver, BC
1/22/2011
Ordering is not my gift, but the staff will do their best to give you a hand if they have a free second! This place is hoppin! There are so many new things to try and they are all really good, (this coming from someone who is used to just eating at generic burger joints). Dim Sum is totally a new experience for me and I am loving it!!
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Review from sammona g.
Vancouver, BC
4/11/2011
its cheap!!! simple and Cheap!!!
The service is great, I asked their manager if they have veggie dishes he said he's more than welcome to accommodate if we call one day ahead and that way he can prepare something special for us! I love service like that!!!
we will be back for sure! -
Review from wanderlust c.
Vancouver, BC
8/20/2008
yummy dim sum.
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Review from Talley S.
12/27/2009
So visiting Vancouver for one day only from Washington State. Looking for something on our way to Stanley park and saw this had 5 stars. Didn't realize it was only from one review. First off it's one of those order off the menu places which I don't usually like but considering the size of the place you can see why. Although I have had excellent dim sum at this kind of dim sum place. Ordered a bunch of things off the menu. The best things were not the dim sum stuff ( vegetables and noodles which were very good) The dim sum was very mediocre. Wrappers on dumplings very thick and gluey. insides just so so. Shanghai soup dumplings were also very thick and gooey wrappers and not much soup inside. Service was polite and they did come around to freshen the water and brought what we asked for in reasonable order but they forgot some of the things we ordered. switched a couple of things we ordered and we had to wait WAY too long for a couple things so the service actually only gets one star.
Also, this seems to be a thing with Vancouver dim sum and correct me if I'm wrong but this is the second time in a couple years I've had dim sum here and both places put these thin plastic sheets in multiple layers on the table so that when you're done they wrap up your mess and reveal the new fresh layer of plastic underneath. It's like eating your food off a diaper or something. Not to mention non environmentally friendly. Not seen this anywhere else. Maybe I need to go more upscale.
