Dinesty - steamy goodness in YVR

On (another) recent trip to the big-city of Vancouver, we happened upon the Robson Street location of Dinesty Restaurant (we had izakaya'd already the night before, so soup-dumplings sounded like a good plan for day two).

Dinesty has a dark, modern interior with a long line of shiny wooden tables along the entrance wall and a larger space near the back of the restaurant....


If you come near closing times, there are quirky signs about last-order timing - but the waitresses come around with "last-call-for-food", so no need to watch the clock too closely.


The large menu is filled with pictures of nearly all food selections - which was immensely helpful to those of us new to this type of restaurant (hello!). There are appetizers (potstickers, dumplings, fried buns),  soups (wonton, hot & sour, tofu & beef), noodles & rice (noodle soup with beef, fried rice with scallops), and main courses (simmered chicken with basil, salt & pepper spare ribs, pineapple shrimp) to name but a few offerings. Trust me, the pictures are a life-saver.

We narrowed our choices down to vermicelli soup with beef & tofu, fried beef buns, shaomai/siumai dumplings and, as these appeared to be Dinesty's specialty, soup-dumplings (pork ones for us). Bring on the steamers. Seriously - this place must have hundreds of these little bamboo numbers.

First dish to hit our table was the vermicelli noodle with deep-fried tofu, beef and green onion.

Fried tofu, beef and vermicelli noodle soup

Hidden beneath the simmering broth, floating fried tofu pillows and onions are small pieces of beef and a pile of the glass-like vermicelli noodles. The bowl is quite large - we filled each of our individual bowls 4-5 times. A simple and delicious soup.

Mid-way through the soup eating two of the dumplings were delivered - the shaomai and pork soup-dumplings.

Pork & shrimp shaomai steamed dumplings

Steamed pork soup-dumplings

The shrimp and pork shaomai/siumai dumplings were excellent - very soft meat on the inside with a nice blend of pork and shrimp - definitely very "freshly-made" tasting. The soup-dumplings were also excellent. To assist newbies in eating these, there are very helpful directions (with diagrams) in the menu. This (like the entree photos) was very welcomed....since having out mouths scalded by hot soup squirting out of a steaming dough-wrapper might have put a little dent in the evening.

We can see why these are one of the most popular dishes at the restaurant - they were fabulous! On a return visit we'll order up a few different varieties of them. It's an interesting dish with several textures happening at once - liquid, meatball and soft wrapper….all harmoniously joining together in your mouth.

And finally the fried beef dumplings arrived (we were informed when we ordered them that they take a bit longer to prepare).

The dumplings are pan-fried this time, versus just being steamed. So a similar flavour to the pork soup-dumplings, but with a nice crispy outside.

We had a really great time at Dinesty Restaurant and we'll definitely be back (and we'll bring some friends in tow....all the better to order more dishes!). With the wide and diverse menu, you can order a really nice selection of food for an interesting lunch or dinner - some full meat/seafood/veggies plates, steamed & fried dumplings, soup and rice dishes.

And we're experts with those soup-dumplings now.

Dinesty Restaurant
Two locations:
  1719 Robson Street, Vancouver - 604-669-7769
    Daily lunch & dinner
  8111 Ackroyd Rd, Richmond - 604-303-7772
    M-F 11am-10pm; S/S 4:30-10pm