Dinesty Chinese Restaurant- Way Below My Expectations

Many years ago when Dinesty Chinese Restaurant just opened, I laughed at the name thinking it was an error due to some bad Chinese-English translation. However, people told me that it was done on purpose and this Shanghai restaurant is actually pretty tasty.

I’ve tried to dine here on numerous occasions but the ridiculously long line up always deterred me away. Today, Kirma (my mama) and I finally tackled this restaurant and I have to say... my experience here was like waiting and waiting for the perfect Christmas present, and to open the pristine packaging to find a lump of coal.

The interior is quite modern and their big chairs are very comfy.

I thought the wall of teapots were pretty cool. By the way, service here is pretty much nonexistent. I don’t think I’ve gotten such inattentive service in a long time. I was ignored two times when I tried to get the waitress to write down my name on the list, our bill was given to the wrong table, and it took forever to get back our change.

I absolutely love their menu because it made me want to order everything! I wish every restaurant had a menu that looked like this.

Maybe these beautifully styled pictures contributed to the disappointment of our food because it definitely did not live up to the expectations we had, especially after seeing the menu.

I did appreciate the completely open kitchen because it means they have nothing to hide.

The Radish Slice Cake ($3.95) came with three pieces and I have the XLB sauce dish beside it so you can see the size in comparison.

The radish cakes were much smaller than I thought and I’ve definitely had better elsewhere.

I liked that the pastry was flaky, but I would have preferred defined slices of radish in it. I’ve gotten radish cakes at the food court in Empire Center and it was wayyyyy better than this.

Kirma was very excited to get the Noodle Soup with Salted Vegetable and Pork ($6.50) but it ended up being a disappointment because she said the traditional Shanghai way of making this dish is to use white soup. Instead of a creamy white soup, it was more like a watered down beef broth.

Also, the noodles were thick and resembled ones that one would get in Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. Shanghai noodles are supposed to be thinner and softer. I didn’t mind this too much but I did agree that the dish as a whole was neither flavourful nor tasty.

The Pork Dumplings ($5.95) aka Xiao Long Bao were pretty good. The size is relatively smaller than regular ones and the skin is very thin.

I personally like bigger XLBs because I like more soup and I found these ones not quite as juicy as the ones from Shanghai River or Chen’s Shanghai Kitchen (post here).

When the Salty Soy Milk ($2.50) was first brought to our table, we both did a double take. The soy milk looked kind of weird! Instead of the smooth creamy texture of... well, soy milk, it was lumpy and looked kind of like tofu instead.

This was the end product after stirring it around a little bit. Clumps of tofu-soy milk. Is this another version of Salty Soy Milk I don’t know about? Kirma and I barely touched this because it wasn’t good at all. I can’t even tell you how large of a difference this is to the one I had from Chen’s Shanghai Kitchen. I’m going to stick with Chen’s whenever I want salty soy milk.

So here’s the damage. For roughly $12/person for lunch, I absolutely did not get my money’s worth here. From the nonexistent service to the ‘meh’ food, I will not be coming back anytime soon. There are way better restaurants than this in Richmond. However, don’t completely take my word for it because other people have had good experiences here so maybe mine was not the norm.

Service Rating: 1.5/5

Food Rating: 2.5/5

Price: $-$$ (below $20)

Overall Rating: 2/5

Happy Eating!

courtesy of http://www.soyfoods.com/soyfoodsdescriptions/soymilk.html