Sunday, April 3, 2011

Dynasty Restaurant

546 Fisgard St.
250.388.6818

Dynasty is a Chinese food restaurant that doubles as an all-day dim sum restaurant! I can't remember how we came across it, possibly wanting dim sum at a non-dim-sum-time, but ever since the first time we've been hooked. This last visit was so satisfying that I knew I had to post about it, mostly because hardly anyone has voted for it on Urbanspoon. We also went on a Friday night and we were their only customers. We were a little thrown off by this because, while the restaurant hasn't ever been super busy when we've come by, there have at least been other customers.

Their dim sum menu is pretty thorough except it is missing vegetables! I like that we can order off a dim sum menu rather than it coming around on carts like at Don Mee's. Because of the lack of vegetables we ordered the green beans in black bean sauce off the regular menu. The male owner came out and told us that they unfortunately did not have enough green beans for the full order and asked if it was ok to add snap peas, which it more than definitely was! The veggies were absolutely delicious!! Crisp, fresh and yummy yummy sauce!!

Next up were our dim sum orders. We ordered the pot stickers (not pictured because they were gobbled up before I remembered to take a picture!!), pork dumplings and the chinese sausage sticky rice.
The pot stickers came with a weird pink sauce that SM said tasted like a wine reduction, so we stuck our pot stickers in the green beans for the black bean sauce! Yum! They were very crisp on the outside and deliciously seasoned on the inside.
The pork dumplings were.. like any other dumpling I think. If you try to explain a dumpling to yourself you'll understand the complexity of putting it into words!
The sticky rice is probably my favourite item of the dinner. Pan fried with chinese sausage, green onions and egg, it is full of flavour and satisfies different taste levels with the slight sweetness of the sausage and the punch of the green onion.

We were glad to see that the food was still delicious despite the quiet Friday night for them. The owners are sweethearts and were consistently checking in on us, clearing plates and topping up our waters. Even with other customers in the restaurant previous times they have been attentive.

I highly recommend checking out Dynasty if you're craving dim sum, or even check out their full Chinese/Cantonese menu.

Dynasty Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Shine Cafe

1548 Fort St.

250.595.2133

shinecafe.ca


I mentioned Shine Cafe in my review of Avalon because I have yet to find a breakfast place that is better than Shine!

It is BY FAR our favourite place to go for breakfast. YUM YUM YUM!


Having made my way through the menu over the last 3 years I have been going, I always go for the Nemo Benny. Smoked salmon, avocado, red onion and their house hollandaise sauce. It is super delicious. Bennies elsewhere have not compared because of the hollandaise mostly. I find their hollandaise nicely balanced, not too salty, lemony or buttery.



Shine gives you options as a side: roasted hashbrowns, grilled tomato, or Scottish potato scones. I have tried the hashbrowns, which were the cubed variety often found in breakfast places now but I find them a bit too heavily seasoned with rosemary. But whatever floats your boat! I have also tried the Scottish potato scones and I found those to be very plain, and too heavy to have alongside a benny. You can upgrade to fruit salad for $1.50, but I usually just ask for toast on the side.


The coffee is also EXTREMELY delicious at Shine.

The wait to get in, depending on time and day, can be a bit much but usually never more than 25 minutes. They give you a cup of coffee while you wait though, so we never really feel extremely anxious to get in!

The staff at Shine is the topper for us. They are so helpful and friendly. Always checking in and you can really see that they enjoy working there.


I will be going to Shine for many more years :)


Shine Cafe on Urbanspoon

Pluto's

1150 Cook St.
250.385.4747

We stopped by Pluto's one morning/afternoon looking for somewhere to eat brunch. We were pleased to see that they serve breakfast until 2!

Given the time of day, we both felt like having breakfast, but also felt like having lunch. So, we ordered one breakfast item and one lunch item!
For breakfast, we ordered the chorizo scramble. Eggs scrambled with chorizo, topped with cheese, with a side of sour cream and salsa, served with toast and hashbrowns. It was delicious! The eggs were perfectly done, nice and fluffy but not anywhere near dry. The chorizo was spicy! Such a good kick to it! The toast options were sour dough or multi-grain. We asked for multi but unfortunately got sour dough, was fine though. The hashbrowns were cubed potatoes, nicely pan-fried so they were soft inside but crunchy outside!
For lunch, we both thought the shrimp and avocado sandwich sounded interesting. It was not. Served on multi-grain (we thought that was where the mishap with the toast might have come in), with baby shrimp and fairly fresh avocado, it was seriously lacking in flavour. We were pretty disappointed with it, but it came with yummy onion rings.

Given the location, I'm sure we will go back to Pluto's for breakfast and to try some of the many other menu items!

Pluto's on Urbanspoon