Phoenix Garden Seafood

Phoenix Garden is a long-standing Chinese seafood restaurant located on Nanaimo Street between Broadway and East 8th Avenue. The interior is rather cramped but we managed to squeeze into a cozy table for 2 by the window. Never being here before, we stuck with some of our go-to dim sum dishes such as the Steamed Beef Balls $5.50. These were fairly standard but it’s difficult to mess this up. The Eggplant with Shrimp Paste $6.50 was our first dim sum item here that contained shrimp. Looking back now, we actually wound up ordering a lot of shrimp dishes on this visit. Fortunately, they do a pretty good job with their shrimp. The Chinese Donut Rice Roll $7.25, however, wasn’t my favourite. Sure, the rice roll was velvety soft but the Chinese donut on the inside was far from crisp… which is pretty much the most important textural component to this dish. For the price, this definitely wasn’t worth it. The next dish was something that I really wanted to try… the Lobster Dumplings $6.75. The thing to know about this dish is that the lobster is only on the top of the dumplings. Underneath the lobster is a large helping of shrimp. Again, the shrimp was nice and bouncy with a snap to the bite, however, don’t order this expecting the whole dumpling to be filled with lobster meat. In keeping with our “shrimp adventure”, we ordered the Steamed Bean Curd Rolls $5.50 with a filling comprised of pork and shrimp. Lastly, and we really should have rethought ordering this dish given all the shrimp we had at the table… the Shrimp Balls with Bean Curd Sheets $6.75. Nothing wrong with the dish – the large shrimp balls were quite tasty. Overall, most of the dim sum dishes here were pretty good but tended to be slightly more expensive than other dim sum restaurants given the location and tightly packed atmosphere.

The Set Meal for breakfast is worth it. Taste wise is not so salty compared to other restaurants. Overall a good experience.

Don't treat my review seriously yet, as I'm going to go again. I wasn't paying much attention to the orders, so it's hard to track down what was going on, but *all* the dim-sum tasted like frozen shrimp dumplings. Which maybe they all were some variation of seafood plus shrimp so it was OK? Or maybe they weren't and it is actually a problem. Standard Chinese service here, in that there's no expectation that you or the servers should treat each other like human beings. I'm going to try again during one of their discount times after doing a bit more research.

Been here multiple times during my 2 week visit to the west coast. Had some of the best seafood and Cantonese cuisine ever, in my honest opinion. They even serve decent dimsum. If you are daring, go for the fried smelt with chilli, or fried garoupa fish, you absolutely cannot miss it!

Horrible lobster with sticky rice, the lobster wasn't fresh enough, rice was over-cooked. Other dishes was below average in Vancouver. Not recommended.

Best place from dimsum to dinner, very nice place , friendly atmosphere

I have been here many times over the years and outside of food being too hot when it gets to your table its good eats . The dim sum is a good Price and the dishes are ample and delish. Parking is fairly available . I did find the menus a little to busy. Its good to see the new owners have shrunk it a bit.

We like a lot going out. Last night we came to this excellent place which friends told us about. We enjoyed a delightful evening there with delicious food and an efficient team and a great chief cook. We added this venue in our phone list and we shall definitely go again soon. We deeply recommend.

Less than satisfactory dim sum experience. Not sure if/when management may have changed here but most deep fried items were majorly overcooked to the point of just being a burnt, dry mess. Potstickers were also very dry. Went here with friends because I have always enjoyed the dim sum in the past but this last trip had me doubting whether I would ever return.

Been here 3 times now and have had a great experience each time. The food is fuss free and delicious, the food comes quickly, servers are efficient and friendly. Depending on what you order it's not too expensive either, and they have good deals for some days of the week. If you're in the area and craving some dim sum I recommend!