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The Place Restaurant
Category: Restaurants Chinese Chinese [Edit]
8028 Granville StVancouver, BC V6P
Neighbourhood: Marpole
(604) 261-3948
- Price Range:
-
$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- No
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good For:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
12 reviews for The Place Restaurant
12 reviews in English
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Review from Quan H.
3/10/2012
I come here for my Shanghai food fix, or at least my xiao long bao fix, cuz they are delicious and full of broth! You can get full in a group of two or three with forking out only ~$5. But this isn't just about the price, the food is just really good. The Shanghai styled pan fried rice cake dish isn't too salty and has a lot of ingredients that are not just green onions (peeve); the lamb skewers are HUGE; and of course, xiao long bao is the main reason why my bf and I keep coming back here.
Quick tip on eating the xiao long bao: grab it (gently) with chopsticks and place on spoon. Nibble a little opening at the top, suck out the broth, and then stick the rest of bun into your mouth, chew, and enjoy.
This place is run by an old couple, it seems, and I see at most two people (mostly one) waiting on the place so service sometimes is slow, but you'll get your food nice and hot. -
Review from Marc D.
Vancouver, BC
Updated - 4/30/2011 6 photos
* "The Place" for XLB *
Bouncing around to all the different locations for xiao long bao I keep coming back here to "The Place" for theirs.
Yes, they are NOT the most artfully folded ones and have an occasional clump on top.
Yes, they are a bit too big.
But yes, they have the most flavourful broth.
And yes, they have the thinnest translucent skin.
And yes, they have the most flavourful meat.
Photos: http://www.yelp.ca/biz... and http://www.yelp.ca/biz...
Combine that with their friendly service, value pricing, throw in a skewer of perfectly grilled cumin chili lamb (http://www.yelp.ca/biz...) and it is still a favourite!Listed in: Vancouver Chinese Food, Mary had a little lamb, and I…, Engrish, Vancouver Dumplings
4 Previous Reviews: Show all »
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12/21/2010
* The Place revisited *
How can you possible not love a place called, "The Place"?!?!?! So… Read more »
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Review from Vicky L.
12/28/2010
THANK YOU MARC D FOR RECOMMENDING THIS PLACE!!!
Seriously... who names a restaurant "The Place?!?" It's like if I opened a restaurant and called it "Whatever."
Sample Convo: What do you want for dinner? "Whatever is fine." HAH!
Anyway.... We stopped in here to gorge ourselves on the XLB. They were amazing. Kicked Din Tai Fung's out of the water with how much soup were in these little puppies! The chef also recommended a braised pork belly in sticky rice dish that was done excellently. At the end, we were scheming on ways to sneak the frozen XLB back into the states... alas... we had to settle for dreams and cravings of this place.
OHhh The Place... I will be back!!!! -
Review from Kevin C.
Vancouver, BC
11/11/2011 1 Check-in Here
Go here, get the xiao long bao. They are massive, cheap and delicious. The owners are really sweet too.
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Review from kristin e.
7/5/2010 2 photos
This is a small, no frills restaurant with lots of menu options. Yelp steered me in this direction when I searched for xlb places in Vancouver. I ordered 3 baskets of xlb (6 super large dumplings in each basket at a little under $5 each) among other things. The dumplings were extremely soupy which was a great thing. It's described as "Shanghai Juicy Dumpling" (if I remember correctly) on the menu and juicy was definitely right! Lots of slurping action, I tell you. The filling wasn't really sweet as other fillings I've had in the past but overall, it was a good dumpling and it definitely satisfied my craving for it since Portland does not have soup dumplings anywhere!
I'd go back here if I'm ever back on that side of the border.
Service was friendly and it's cash only (they also accept US dollars). -
Review from Larry L.
11/22/2009 2 photos
This place is THE PLACE and was highly recommended. They have the biggest, juiciest, sonova, XLB's that I've ever seen! My brother has found a new way to eat these, but without making it sound like a Sasha Cohen movie,,,...... I just can't say anymore. BUT!! The XLB's are the top item here and are very very juicy and good. Eat them while they're hot!
It was the four of us dining here tonight and one of my friends frequents here often with her husband. They're definately regulars since she doesn't need to order, they already know what she wants without asking. So we had the XLB's, some spicy Wonton, fried rice and Shanghai Spicy Boiling Fish slices. The Spicy Boiling Fish was good. It was topped with green onions and had a chili dry rub topping which was unique and it gave it that extra special zing HOT Zap to the dish. Good size too.
(BTW, I am calling the Xiao Long Bao's, XLB's cause everyone else is doing it here in this thread.)
I have got to come here again. I really enjoyed this place and it makes me realize that although I'm mainly vegetarian, I still have to indulge in some down to earth goodness once in awhile.
Love the new Orange paint job. Very colourful.Listed in: Flavours of Qong Qing
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Review from Jonas T.
4/26/2009
This is one of my favorite places in Vancouver to get XLB. The dumplings are pretty big and filled with tons of flavorful soup. Now, if only the skin was a little bit thinner, I'd give it five stars.
JONASAPPROVED! -
Review from Vivian Y.
1/30/2010
Mmm mmm good. I really enjoyed the "hung yao chow sau" which is basically pork wontons in a spicy red sauce. probably the best I've ever had. Other places simple toss the dumplings in red chili oil, but this is tossed in oil and paste which is uber delicious!
Yes, monster juicy xiao long bao and I loved that they were all kind of different in size. It's the charm of hand made products, isn't it?
Minus one star for the dan dan noodles. They were ok. Not fresh noodles and there wasn't much brother. it was more like a dry noodles with a slighly pasty peanut sauce. It was aight....I wouldn't recommend it... -
Review from chester c.
4/30/2009 1 photo
If it was just XLB I would give it a 4 star, but it's not so I have to give it a 3 star. I had a friend recommend Chen's Shanghai, but we were close to The Place so we ate here instead. Parking was ok to find, but had to search the back streets since Granville is so busy.
The XLB was VERY VERY juicy. The dough was the right thickness and had a good taste. The meat was just okay. The taste of the XLB comes from the broth. A definite good choice to eat XLB.
We also had Leen Goh (Shanghai noodles that are shaped oval), green onion pancake, chow mein, and a peppery tofu (like mapo tofu). All were decent for Shanghainese food, but the tofu dish was WAY too peppery like black pepper.
If you are in the mood for Shanghainese food, then this can be a good fix. I would recommend the XLB, Leen Goh, and green onion pancake.
4 stars for the XLB and 3 stars for all the other dishes. 5 stars for service cuz the only waiter working had to refill the tea like 5 times.
Caution, if you have 5 people then you will need to refill the tea EVERY time you pass it to everyone. -
Review from Billy L.
Port Coquitlam, BC
7/31/2010
About a month ago my mom recommended this place to us. This is literally a hole in the wall type of restaurant. Nothing wrong with that as it seemed to be quite busy. I found the food to he quite spicy here. Almost every bite I took accompanied a chug of water to extinguish the fires from my tastes buds. XLBs were okay but I've had better. We tried a deep fries fish and it was alright. Finally we had the pigs ear that was layered and pressed. For some reason it didn't sit well with me. The entire day after I felt sick to my stomach. Not sure if it was the pugs ear, but when I ate it I felt something was off. It was also still frosty in the inside. I wouldn't recommend this restaurant to anyone. I would also add that my gf also stated that her pan fried rice cakes with shreaded pork was disappointing.
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Review from Wayne L.
6/3/2009
A girl recommended me to come here for the best XBL. This probably has to be the cheapest meal of our entire trip. We spent about 50 for like 6 people. We order tons of other food, but like everyone said the XBL is out of this world. The skin was the perfect thickness. It wasn't so thin that any small mistake will break the skin, and all the soup will leak out. but it wasn't thick enough that it fills me up. And not to mention the size of the XBL. it was XL indeed. Anyways XBL RULES Here.. better then the ones i had in shanghai last summer.
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Review from pete h.
3/21/2010 4 photos
If you have a craving for XLB, this is the place to go in VBC. On our recent trip up to VBC, we decided to step out of the ordinary Cantonese food and try something new. I would consider this to be a hidden gem, it's located at the end of Grandville Street and you can easily drive right by it without noticing. However since we made plans to come here and eat, we plugged the address in the Navi and we were on our way. The XLB were big, they come six to an order and each one will cost you under $5. We thought they were going to be small, so between the three of us, we ordered 2 orders of XLB(s), shanghai style rice cakes, green onion pancakes and shanghai style soup noodles (think hand cut noodles). Needless to say we were stuffed and very impressed, the XLB(s) had so much good soup inside them that we didn't even have to use the vinegar/ginger dip at all. This is going to make it onto my map of places to get good XLB when I have the craving for them.
