I Do, Let’s Eat! Kirin Mandarin Restaurant

The evening dinner reception for my cousin’s wedding was held at Kirin Mandarin Restaurant at the Three West Centre in the heart of Richmond. The entire 350 seat restaurant was booked out for this event.
If you have ever been to a Chinese wedding banquet then you know they are a big deal. I think Chinese wedding banquets ranks near the top of the most expensive list. Dinner cost $548.00 per table of 10 (there was 32 table plus the head wedding table) and I haven’t even added tax, tips and drinks yet. Expensive yes, but you only get married once. At least you hope so!
The twelve course dinner menu was fit for royalty. The service at Kirin was top class. They’ve changed our plate after every course. The menu consisted of the following:
- Kirin Special Platter with Roasted Pig
- Geoduck Sautéed with Prawn and Chicken
- Deep Fried Crab Claw Wrapped with Minced Prawn
- Shark Fin with Crab Meat and Fish Maw Soup
- Live Lobster in Consommé with Light Ginger and Green Onion
- Sliced Abalone Braised with Chinese Mushroom and Selected Vegetable
- Steamed Live Rock Cod
- Crispy Skin Chicken
- Kirin Special Fried Rice
- Stewed E-Fu Noodle with Tender Scallion in Abalone Sauce
- Two Kinds of Dim Sum Dessert
- Chef’s Special Sweetened Soup
Enjoy the pictures. Hope it doesn’t make you too hungry.













- Posted in Fine Dining
- 83 comments what's your take?
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Mmmm…I love banquet food although last time I went, Kirin’s shark fin soup wasn’t particularly impressive.
Reply to this commentShark fin soup is one of those dishes I’ve never tried but always wanted to. It sounds nice and exotic.
I’ve eaten crocodile but that just tasted like chicken!
Reply to this commentoh my.. it’s an hour to lunch here
Reply to this commentis that mushroom over there? ouuhh….
Dude, I’m getting hungry just from all this food talk lol and its like past midnight already.
Reply to this commentI’m just about to have my lunch, Cornflakes, thanks for that.
Reply to this commentCornflakes for lunch - times must be tough! Personally I’m more of a Frosties man.
Reply to this commentLOL Corn Pops, that’s where its all at.
Reply to this commentGood Chinese food is the best! These photos are making me sad as I eat my boring sandwich!

Reply to this comment- Raymond
Gotta love Asian weddings! Invite as many people as possible, and serve them the best food as possible and as much of it as possible.
Reply to this commentLOL, I wonder how much that ended up costing them with everything factored in or how much John spent on his own dot com mogul of a wedding
Reply to this commentI wonder if John got them a good deal with the restaurant in exchange for this post as a wedding present. That would be typically
of John I think!
Reply to this commentI guarantee that if John had anything to do with it he got an exceptionally evil deal - probably involving no actual cost!
Reply to this commentLooks delicious!
Reply to this commentAlmost all Chinese wedding food menu is the same!
Reply to this commentYeah, you go to enough of these, you’ll get sick of the free food.
Reply to this commentYou can never get sick of free food - surely!
Reply to this commentYou will if you have to eat the same thing over and over again.
Reply to this commentI’m old fashioned, I’m a big fan of free beer at weddings. The food I can take or leave.
Reply to this commentYeah I’m with you - free booze is the real reason to go to weddings - after enough of it you can’t even taste the food on offer!
Reply to this commentthose purple squares look good for some reason
Reply to this commentGeoduck Sautéed with Prawn and Chicken
Reply to this commentYUMMY! :p
It is 8-10 course per table in M’sia and S’pore. It is rare or never heard of to have 12 course here.
Reply to this commentThe pictures are very nice!
Personally I can only stomach 4 or 5 courses - especially after all the alcohol that flows at weddings - too much to drink and too much to eat followed by drunken dancing are not good combinations!
Reply to this commentdude, where did you put all that food???
Reply to this commentI am sure with that many people, it shouldn’t be hard to find a place for all the food.
Reply to this commentTons of left over. That is a requirement of a Chinese wedding dinner. It’s consider bad form if there is no food left at the end. Generally, the first five dishes are consumed. After that, you’re pretty much full and the rest of the stuff you take a bite here and bite there and pack the rest home.
Reply to this commentYou get to keep the leftovers? We’re so far behind in the UK! Is that a common thing elsewhere, what about restaurants?
Reply to this commentYes, you can pack the leftovers home. As far as I know, nearly every restaurant in Vancouver will let you pack a dogie bag.
Reply to this commentYeah I think the doggy bad phenomenon is mainly a North American thing - i’ve never eaten in the UK and seen it and the same can be said over here in Australia.
Reply to this commentTo be able to afford laying on a spread like that you need to be a dot com mogul - oh hang on!
It’s a good job earnings are up!
Reply to this commentHaha, I think John makes more than enough =]
Reply to this commentOh John hasn’t yet seen banquets of Albanians, where they spend nearly 10k Euro and the medium payee is around 250 euro a month…now thats what i call “stupid expensive”.
One thing i like, both chinese and albanians attend 300+ people during the evening banquete, but what i can’t understand is that albanians are couple millions while chinese are couple billions
Reply to this commentUnfortunately there are too many idiots in this world who spends excessive amounts of money on needless things (many celebrities for example). While I am all for spending a lot to have a good once in a lifetime wedding, I wouldn’t spend a ton for no reason.
Reply to this commentWow - that is a lot of cash. What kind of food is traditionally Albanian? There must be some rich grooms in Albania to be able to afford that kind of outlay.
Reply to this commentThat third picture is just scary John. Don’t drop it while you eat or it may snip something important!
Reply to this commentLooks amazing.
Reply to this commentmalaysia have all the foods,
Reply to this commentjuzt vacate it
come here,Malaysia,Malacca
http://doubleuisw.blogspot.com
The noodles look pretty tasty
and that desert looks good as well.
Reply to this commentYummy..the crispy roast pork is my favorite!!
Reply to this commentMy favourite Chinese food is Peking Duck - yum yum!
Reply to this commentCan I get discounts from restaurant.com?
Reply to this commentIt looks great John!
I’ve also been to a few Chinese weddings and they both had a 10 course meal!
I love Chinese Weddings!
Regards,
Reply to this commentCarlo
I love them too!
Reply to this commentLove your site. Love the food as well. Yum.
Reply to this commentIt’s interesting to know that the chinese wedding banquet in Vancover is very similar(price & menu) to those found here in Singapore.
Reply to this commentI think you can find the same menu anywhere as long as you find a restaurant that caters the same type of food. They can be found here in the US too.
Reply to this commentjust looking at the food makes me wanna go to a chinese restaurant right now!!
Reply to this commentI was so hungry I went to go get food at 2am in the morning. Now I’m stuffed lol
Reply to this commentIt’s definitely not free food.
They invite almost any distance relative. Even if you decline, you are expected to pay $35-$50 USD. Attending one, cost at least $100 USD pp. More if you are closer to the bride/groom $500-$5,000+++ pp
In Chinese banquet, the whole purpose for the dinner banquet is to MAKE money (and receive jewelry). They probably (100%) make more money on that night than Dot Com Mogul’s August blog earning.
Yes.. all chinese banquet serves the same food. They start out with suckling pork/jellyfish, broil live shrimps, big white snails, abalone with veggies, followed with shark fin soup, followed by dry scallop with black hair thingy, fried chicken, lobster, whole fish, dessert.
Gets boring (and costly) after a while.
Reply to this commentSo you’ve gotta have a lot of disposable income to attend a Chinese wedding. Aren’t Chinese families typically quite big? Sounds like it could get very expensive very quickly - especially if there’s a crop of family members around the same age who decide to get married in quick succession!
Reply to this commentI eat some of those myself since I came from Asia too. I miss those kind of foods sometime here in America.

Reply to this commentchinese food iS very delicious~~~


Reply to this commentJohn, I can’t stand the food reviews and pictures. The reason is that you make them look so good and make me unbelievably hungry with the beautiful pictures.
Today is labor day, I have no plans but to hang out with my girlfriend. I’m up early and she’s next to me sleeping. So until she wakes up, and I take her out to breakfast, I’m stuck here starving and staring at your pictures!! Evil!!
Reply to this commentJust check out the old lobster video nasty - that might put you off food for a while! It did for me!
Reply to this commentSo delicious…. I feel at the party with you John…
Reply to this commentIs there Indonesian menu there ?
Damn, i never have this nice foods for quite a while.!
Reply to this commentPrice per table sounds pretty cheap… only thing is there was so many of them!
Reply to this commentThis food looks incredible! I am so hungry looking at it now, hope you had a blast and eat for a week
Reply to this commentGreat photos! Have you ever considered a career in food photography?
Reply to this commentJohn - with all this great food you are eating…how do you stay so thin?
Reply to this commentMy stomach hurts. I feel like going to my Chinese buffet. It has AYCE sushi, crab legs, and of course noodles.
Yum Yum
Reply to this commentI hope you enjoyed and savored that food.
John, u still have this great appetite for food.

Reply to this commentWow these pics are making me hungry
Reply to this commentCome on maan, your bring along your camera even for a dinner at hotel? Imagine all of the guess delicously tasting the food but suddenly there is one man shooting your food with macro shoot in front of you. Aaah maybe its normal in Canada…
Reply to this commentYou mean to tell me you don’t bring a camera to a wedding?
Reply to this commentGreat! but abalone is sliced which is not so great. There better be 4 head abalone for everyone
Reply to this commentI’m officially hungry.
Reply to this commentis that a chicekn head?
Reply to this commentWhat a feast in Vancouver? Vancouver right?
I thought Chinese Banquets are popular and a must in Asia. Wow, it’s available in Van ! Bravo, John.
Reply to this commentAhh, the joys of Chinese food in Richmond! I just had dim sum myself and I’m stuffed. But yeah, you gotta love the dinner at Chinese weddings…you just eat, eat, and then eat some more!
Reply to this commentthe roasted pork and the deep fried crab claw looks tasty ..
in hakka roasted pork is called sao chu lol
lol my mouth is watering now eheehehe
Reply to this commentThose noodles look delicious… I think I may have to order some in tonight for dinner.
Reply to this commentLooks nice. Did you know all those people john?
Reply to this commentGlad I just got done eating a good home-cooked meal before reading this post or it probably would have made me hungry.
Reply to this commentToo much meat. Not enough vegetable.
Reply to this commentWow.. makes me wanna have chinese wedding
Congrats to the couple!
Reply to this commentWow. I think it’s lunchtime now…
Reply to this commentCool, I ate some similar Chinese food at my friend’s wedding 2 weeks ago. It was freakin’ good, we were all wasted though…before…during…and after…
Reply to this commentOh, YUM. You said you hoped you wouldn’t make me too hungry, well, you did. What a feast. I have to go get something to eat now.
Reply to this commentI would love to attend such royal receptions. I can just imagine how classy the whole ambiance of the place would be.
Reply to this commentAnd yes John You have made me feel very hungry.
Get me some foooooood
hmm.
http://www.romangelsi.com
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