Kam Wai Dim Sum

I schlepped over here from the west end of Pender on my lunch hour to discover it’s a «CASH ONLY» business. It would have been helpful had they put a sign, in English, somewhere to tell you that. I was embarrassed to order my food then go to pay and find out they don’t take even a debit card. I left the food at the register never to return. I’m guessing the woman there put it all back into the cabinets.

Delicious and affordable fare. My wife and I asked a resident where to go and we have no regrets. The shrimp shui-​may was better than that of 4 star restaurants in NYC’s Chinatown, if that is an indication. Wonton soup blew me away too.

Eating here twice I have mixed reviews. Price and convenience was good but consistency maybe was the difference. 1^st time place tasted good and the 2^nd it was just ok. Wasnt sure if I should write a review or wait till my 3^rd try here then comment. I guess I’ll update this when I return again.
Pros
A variety of dim sum selections
Cons
Most of the food was ok, nothing to write home about.

Best deal in town for dim sum items, without the frills of decors or staff with manners.
Self serve hot tea in the back with a couple seats. Sometimes items aren’t prepared in their steamer so just order something else.
I usually just get the Big Bun, BBQ pork bun, chicken or pork bun. These are all steamed buns, they don’t serve the baked versions. Once you see the steamer up front and the wall of freezers it’ll be apparent that they produce too many varieties to have all hot prepared.
I’m pretty sure this shop supplies restaurants around Vancouver but you can purchase frozen in bulk too.
Selling mostly commercial bulk the shop front cash never gets busy so no need to worry about line ups. If anything it’s hard to even find this shop as the shop front is so small and bland– just look for the signboard on the sidewalk.
I’ve been here over six times in a six month period, food is consistently good.
There’s street parking and a parking lot just halfway down the block.

Ghetto dim sum — a beautiful thing indeed.
Parking is available on the side streets if you look carefully.
The food is reasonably priced, and it’s great that you can just walk in there and lukewarm dim sum to your heart’s content — it honestly reminds me of eating a takeout container right after getting home.
Service is brash and rude, so you know you’re getting the real deal. The pieces are big, and the prices are reasonable. The taste? Just like what you’d find at a restaurant. Excellent.
There is a small dining area in the back, that seems to have been put there as an afterthought. Guess the owners decided they had to fill up the big empty space in the back with *something*.
They also sell frozen dim sum goodness, as well as buns.

For the price and convenience, it’s actually quite good.
Not the best I’ve had, but it’s average.
Prices are very good.
I recommend the sticky rice wrap, har gow and sui mai.

For the price, it is a great place to get dim sum.

Went with some friends. Food was good for the price. That’s about it.

Interesting place. For the $$ I spent here, it was great value. I stuffed myself and a friend up with less than $ 15. Everything is pretty fresh. I can buy BBQ pork bun and pork bun as my lunch for$ 2 when I am around the area. $ 2 lunch, it is hard to beat. It is also good to know if I like my shrimp dumpling, I can buy some and steam myself at home. The service is ok since it is typical Chinese hole in the wall store in the typical China town.
But, where is the missing star? Well, its the taste. I can go on and complain about ratio for the shrimp rice wrap and su-​mai is not mince enough and too much starch in the shrimp filling. BUT, the $$ I spend here, I really am not looking for the best quality. I am satisfied with my food, so I am happy. Cheap food with ok quality, that is where it is.
Ps. everything taste much better with sweet soy sauce and chilli oil, so do get them.

For what it is, I’m giving it four stars. It’s cheap, decent, and they serve Dim Sum during non-​dim sum hours! And you get to buy the frozen version of the dim sum so… it’s kinda like trying before buying! (Yes, I realize you have to buy to try the frozen stuff, but at least you’ll know what it taste like when you go home and steam it properly.)

As long as you keep in mind that this is a tiny a la cart operation meant to give you dim sum as fast as possible, this place is worth 4 stars for the food prices and reasonable quality. It’s not the best dim sum you’ll ever have, but it is cheap and will satisfy a dim sum craving for all but the dim sum snobs out there!

This place was pretty good despite it looking and feeling like a hole in the wall. The food was pretty solid, and great prices. We had Sui Mai, pork and veggie dumplings, tofu wrapped pork, beef balls and 1 chicken bao and 1 BBQ pork bao for only $ 11! And couldn’t finish it all. The service was a little lack luster but the food more than made up for that. For a quick dim sum fix I recommend this place if you aren’t scared of dirty floors and stryofoam plates and plastic cutlery.

3 solid stars. Sticky rice was the best I have ever had. Su-​Mai was good, little big. Har gao was delish! Pork buns were ok. We could see them before we purchased so knew what we were getting, but I really like the super fresh ones that are fluffy rather than compacted. The shrimp rice noodle was standard.
Great customer service though! Love the ambiance, this place has it right, get in, get fed, leave happy.
Small seating area in the back but you order up front and pay first.

Delicious DimSum… totally hit the spot. I was just walking around Chinatown and was getting hungry. Saw this spot and I had to stop because of the delish smell… it is a hole in a wall place so you could of easily walked passed it and not notice. Once inside you see them steaming the food and you get to choose what you like right there and either take with you or eat there.
I ended up eating there because hard to eat, take pictures and walk… I got their Shrimp Rice Roll and their Hai Gaw (sp) and it was delish. It cost me about $ 5.40 which was not too bad considering it was good and fast.
For those who want to take things home for another time… they had a lot of their items and then some for sale frozen.

Has been craving for some Dim Sum for awhile. Went to Kam Wai thinking that it was a restaurant, but unfortunately it’s not. It’s basically a store with some Dim Sum. They don’t have many selections of dim sum, but they have other pastries. Basically, walk in, pick your dim sum and either sit down and eat or take it home with you. Or you can pick up some frozen dim sum, if you would like. The dim sum was really good and would definitely returning there when I’m in town. And of course, you can’t go wrong with the cheap price.

I stopped by here once last year when Thu recommended it. It felt like stepping into a Chinese restaurant from the 90s with the plastic sheets over the table! But when I stopped by on the weekend for a dim sum fix, it had completed converted itself into something … much stranger.
The restaurant is now a take-​out dim sum counter (think T&T where you order the food and then sit down in a small area if you want to stay and eat it). Since they make all their own dim sum, it makes sense that they would take this approach. It works out well for me too, since you know that the food they steam will be fresh when it comes out.
It was a really busy day for them too, since it was the CNY parade. For $ 8, I got a plate of scallop dumplings, siu mai, meatballs, a bowl of congee.
You can also buy their frozen dim sum to take home and make on your own (I believe that used to be a separate store front). They sell everything from dumplings to dim sum with a huge variety inbetween (siu mai, jumbo siu mai, with the shrimp on top, made from beef, made from pork, etc.).
The tea is pour yourself, and it’s cash only. The only negative I have is that everything is disposable — from the chopsticks to the containers. It’d be great if they would at least invest in plastic chopsticks like phở restaurants and dishes they could reuse.

Friend took me here for the first time and I have to say this place was amazing. For real 5 of us at for under $ 60 after that I was hooked on this place like 2 times a week. I took a break to save the world for about a month then decided to take my BF for a bite to eat there. Sad to say the place is no longer a sit down kind of place. They have converted back into a place where you can walk in and buy there frozen foods. I am going to miss this place for the price, quality and the funny girl at the front desk. Does anyone want to come over and show me how to cook them dumplings frozen lol

*9−11am is 20% off. takeout is 10% off. *
this is the place where i take my grandmother for dimsum. The richness of fried and oilier items in dimsum fare are getting hard for her to handle, so Kam wai’s mostly steamed items, noodles and rice are great. They are a small mom-​n pop business so the selection is fairly small.
Shrimp with eggplant are HUGE. hargow and siumai are decent. whole shrimp and shrimp paste with some solid snap in the dumpling. the rice rolls are their one meh item, being too thick and floury. the rice with chicken and mushroom is CHEAP and very filling.
*there’s an entire vegetarian section. (yes, REALLY vegetarian). the son of the owners is vegetarian and pushed for items to be included on the menu.
For the price, the quality and value are high for this part of town. They make their own dim sum in another storefront a block away. There you can catch a glimpse of them making it and buy their dumplings frozen for you to make at home.
It IS a hole in the wall. there are thin plastic sheets on each table that are removed after each diner leaves to reveal… another thin plastic sheet. As far as no-​frills, simple, solid, inexpensive lunch goes, this is a winner.

Ok I was about to write off chinatown as having terrible dim sum until we checked out this hole in the wall today! Some fellow foodies recommended this place so we had to try! I think I found a hidden chinatown gem and contemplated whether or not to share it with my fellow Unilocalers :) Of course I’d want to tell you guys about it!
The restaurant is barebones, just plastic table tops, small and simple. Looking around you see old chinese women and lots of people just dining alone. We didn’t have to wait at all and eagerly checked off 9 things on the menu! Dishes starting at $ 2.75 is a great great price!!!
I would say the siu mai, har gow, chicken feet, spare ribs are nothing to write home about but for $ 2.75-$ 3 they’re pretty solid and decent. Our favourite dish there was the fried shrimp dumplings. They are these half moon shaped batter with shrimp inside and oh so delicious! We were tempted to order 2 or 3 more of these but at last, we had way too many dishes coming already! Oh, I really liked the onion pancake here (they’re not round, but more like donuts). And also the wonton in spicy sauce was so good!
The best dish on the menu would have to be the super fresh egg tarts. We were stuffed to our limit at this point but the egg tarts just melted in your mouth with the perfect pastry crust too!
The only dish we didn’t finish off was the bean curd with veggies — this was deepfried and just way too oily. There’s a lot more I’d like to try off the menu so I’ll try to get more people to come next time!
Service was quick, tea was refilled quickly, overall awesome experience.
So for ~$ 10 each we had way more than we could eat and enjoyed it so much. The sign says 20% off M-​F from 9−11am too! Definitely check this place out if you want to have decent dim sum in chinatown. We’re definitely planning on making trips here regularly!

I left after my meal here underwhelmed. The whole meal was just meh. The menu is fairly small for dim sum and were mostly variations of the same thing (congee and dumplings). It had some interesting combos too (ie. beef brisket in tangerine sauce) which I elected not to try.
I ordered the shrimp roll, ha gow, sui mai, chicken feet, xiao long bao (against my better judgment, but my friend wanted it) and sticky rice. I felt like everything was either cooked from a frozen state or was purchased elsewhere and reheated. Everything lacked flavour and the shrimp in the roll tasted off.
For a city with so many choices for dim sum, I would skip this place and try another location in Chinatown.