Note: All food and beverages were complimentary, but all opinions were based on my own personal experience.
I think the last time I visited Crystal Mall has got to be over 10 years ago. Driving in the parkade is the worst experience ever so I avoid this mall at all cost. But when ChineseBites invited me to do a dim sum tour at Victory Seafood Restaurant, I ventured my way out and luckily around 2pm on a Saturday, the parking lot wasn’t as busy (the parking was still pretty bad though!).
We were seated in more of a private room, but outside, the decor is similar with gold being the focus. I could see this as a decent restaurant to host Chinese banquets.
As this was a ChineseBites dim sum tour, we ordered literally almost everything off the dim sum menu – a total of 37 dishes! Dishes range from $4.49-$7.49 depend on size and specialty.
Baked BBQ Pork Buns with Crust Topping looked just like a pineapple bun but was filled with savoury BBQ pork filling. The top was sweet and the bun itself was fluffy.
One of my favourite fried items was the Deep Fried Shrimp Spring Rolls with Garlic. The wrapper was light and crispy and the inside was packed with shrimp and garlic filling.
The Deep Fried Dumplings with Pork & Dried Shrimp were also quite delicious with the outside crispy and interior like a mochi chewy texture. The inside was filled with a savoury pork and dried shrimp filling.
We tried a variety of rice rolls, with my favourite being the Steamed Rice Rolls with Crispy Deep Fried Fish Paste. The rice rolls here are quite silky smooth. The rice rolls with the chinese donuts were also popular.
I like how they give you both the Pan Fried Radish & Shredded Taro Cakes when you order this dish, so you can sample both. The taro cakes are harder as expected, so I do enjoy the softer radish cake personally.
A dish I did not try, but was told by others to skip was the Smoked Salmon with Fruit Salad Sauce Tarts. I guess it’s more a westernized dish, so you can’t expect much at a Chinese restaurant. Apparently, the ingredients just didn’t mesh well.
A new item on their menu was the Steamed Red Rice Rolls with Shrimp. We were all curious about the red colour, but turns out there is no flavour to it. More of a gimmick so I would just stick with the regular rice rolls.
Onto the steamers! Suddenly, everything came out all at once. The Steamed Meat Balls were packed full of flavour and remained moist.
Dim sum isn’t the same without an order of the Steamed Pork Dumplings (Siu Mai). These were topped with flying fish roe and packed full of minced pork.
One of my favourite dim sum items to order is the Steamed Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf. Packed tightly in the lotus leaf, the filling to rice proportion was pretty good.
Other than your steamers and fried food, the dim sum menu also features some clay pot rice, including the Steamed Rice with Chicken & Black Fungus. These were decent, but lacked the crispy rice at the bottom.
Overall, some hits and misses, but overall, a decent spot to have dim sum with a large variety and reasonable prices.
Every Day is a Food Day 