As one of the top Chinese restaurant chains in Vancouver, Neptune Chinese Kitchen opened this year at Hard Rock Casino Vancouver in Coquitlam. Its newest restaurant under the Neptune Restaurant Group, this new Chinese restaurants offers visitors a wide range of high quality traditional and signature Chinese dishes from dim sum, wonton noodles and congee, to seafood dinner dishes.

We had the opportunity to be invited to a special media dinner where Neptune allowed us to try 13 of their signature dishes that are served at lunch or dinner.

We sampled some of their dim sum dishes such as large shrimp dumplings, pork siu mai with fish roe, and creamy egg yolk custard buns that oozed out when you split them open. Their shrimp spring rolls are one of my favourite dim sum dishes as they use a spring roll pastry wrapped in the same shrimp paste as in their shrimp dumpling, then fry it and accompanied with Worcestershire sauce.

One of their popular soup noodle dishes, which I also wrote about last time at their Burnaby Neptune Wonton Restaurant, is their wonton noodles in soup. We didn’t have a chance to try it out this time, however I highly recommend it as its filled with shrimp and the noodles have the perfect consistency. We did get a chance to try the minced fish and pumpkin congee. I enjoy how the congee was stewed to a thicker texture, and the pumpkin and minced fish were nice and light, a bit on the healthier side than some of the other congees.

Some of their signature seafood dishes we got to try included the chilled spicy shrimp (as I’m not a huge spicy fan, I found this dish a bit too spicy), the crab with salty egg, and my favourite of the evening was the steam lobster with sticky rice in bamboo steamer. The lobster is steamed on top of the sticky rice, making the rice fragrant and tasty with its juices.

Another favourite of mine for the evening, which I will most likely come back for dinner to order would be the Neptune signature ribs. These ribs are cooked in a sauce similar to sweet & sour, but using a different type of Chinese vinegar for the unique flavour.

Another unique dish was their sticky rice on crispy chicken. The chicken bones are removed, chicken is sliced and attached is a layer of sticky rice. It is then fried to make the chicken crispy on the outside. We were in awe as to how much work and attention went into making this dish.

No Chinese banquet is complete without some more carbs! Normally Chinese dinner banquets end with either fried rice or noodles, or both in our case! Neptune’s curry seafood chow mein had a layer of crispy noodles topped with seafood and veggies cooked in a Singaporean style curry. The Yang Chow fried rice is a staple on most Chinese restaurant menus. I enjoyed it because it was not too oily or salty and was full of flavour from the shrimp, Chinese sausage, veggies and egg.

For those like myself living in the Tri-Cities, if you’re looking for a quality dim sum or Chinese dinner for a large party, you may want to consider calling ahead to Neptune and making a restaurant. Better yet, you can request from one of two VIP rooms – best for a more intimate and private lunch or dinner setting. They have one room that fits 20 and another that fits 10. This restaurant is family friendly as it has a separate outdoor entrance for the general public, and another entrance that connects into the casino for those 19+.

Neptune Chinese Kitchen is open 7 days a week for lunch a dinner.
For more information, visit: www.hardrockcasinovancouver.com.