Dim Sum Garden Restaurant

Dim Sum Garden Restaurant
268 King Street
Winnipeg, MB
(204) 942-8297



January 2011

Through much of Winnipeg’s history, our Chinatown featured three restaurants which acted as the hub of Chinese dining: Marigold, Grand Garden and Dim Sum Garden. In recent years, Grand Garden’s doors closed for good and Marigold has new ownership and a new name. Quietly, Dim Sum Garden remains the lone survivor in the heart of Chinatown’s evolving face.

Picture in your mind a typical Chinese restaurant. The seating capacity is enormous as the cavernous dining room can probably hold 500 people. The walls have some flashy (some would say cheesy) decorations, usually a few dragons and peacocks. The big banquet tables seat 12 people each and the smaller tables hug the perimeter. The typical banquet chairs sit by the tables, which are covered in multiple layers of garbage bag plastic. Yup, that’s how most Chinese restaurants used to look and that’s how the Garden looks today. I’m not a fan of the garbage bag plastic but you can’t argue with the ease of table clearing as one of the servers quickly scurries by with a bagful of dirty dishes.

Dim sum traditionally comes on carts, rolled through the aisles by numerous servers. If something on the cart attracts your attention, you flag the server and he/she sets it on the table for you. Recently, Chinese restaurants have moved away from the traditional carts and gravitated towards menu ordering or (gasp) buffet dim sum. I’m very progressive but there are times I like tradition—and I like being served from the traditional carts. Sometimes, I find Chinese servers curt, brusque and downright rude. The cart drivers here are fast, friendly and efficient, as they greet you every time they come with selections.

The Garden carts come frequently and they come heavily stocked with food. I am bothered by restaurants that only have a few plates on the carts and they run out just before the server gets to your table. You ask if they have any more and they tell you to wait for the next cart. By the time the next cart comes around with the item you want, you hope desperately that the tables before you don’t scoop them up again. Yes, table position was a key factor in the speed and selection of your food—no worries here.

The Garden offers the usual dim sum items that you expect. The plump pork dumplings have good flavour with little pork fat (often I find the dumplings too fatty). The Garden makes their shrimp dumplings with the traditional mash of shrimp and scallop meat. Some restaurants offer shrimp dumplings with the shrimps whole, encased in the rice flour. I prefer the traditional method of mashing the seafood, thus giving a more cohesive dumpling. The pan-fried dumplings come with either just pork or pork and vegetables. I prefer the vegetable option, where the chives provide colour and flavour contrast.

The Chinese pierogies, which are not real pierogies if you ask any European, come generously filled with ground pork and chives. The fried shell gives a nice, crisp texture to the sweetish dough. The steamed rice noodles have plenty of stuffing, immersed in Japanese soy (I much prefer Japanese soy, which tastes sweeter and less salty, over Chinese soy). Rice noodles often come swimming in oil but these are virtually fat-free. If you want something a little more Canadianised, the Garden also offers fried chicken strips, battered in a sweet sauce, presented on a plate of vegetables and hot peppers.

As dim sum restaurants increase in numbers, the drive to offer new and innovative items also increases. While I like trying new foods and new combinations, sometimes the tried-and-true reminds you of what you originally liked. Dim Sum Garden hasn’t done a lot to develop new dim sum dishes but what they do is continue to serve quality, traditional Chinese food, and there’s nothing wrong with that. As a bonus, if you can hold off on lunch for a bit, the Garden offers happy hour prices from 2 pm to 5 pm, where all dishes only cost $2.49. Sign me up.

**** /5

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