Vivacity Restaurant

I have been trying dim sum at different restaurants in Richmond for many years now… I’m kind of an addict and come up from Seattle where the standard is not the same. This was my first time eating here and I was blown away! The first item to come out that I ordered was the baked char-​siu bun… OMG this was incredible. I bake myself and cannot figure out how the chef was able to keep that dough so light and yet fill it with delicious bbq pork. I also sampled the har gow, hom sui gok, and the pot sticker… all were very good! The service was friendly and quick and all the patrons were eating up a storm and having a good time. The restaurant was packed by 10:30 and I can see why with food that good. I can’t imagine what the dinners must be like, but can’t wait to try! This is about as good as it gets for dim sum in my opinion. A true treasure for dim sum in Richmond.

This has the typical modern Hong Kong dimsum vibe — lots of people and chatter, so make a reservation ahead of time! No carts though; we ticked off our choices on their menu sheet and our jovial waiter with the cool spectacles took our order. Our food came out in good time! We took advantage of the early bird special where if you pay before 11:30 you get a nice deal for congee plus a variety of dimsum offerings. We arrived at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning. For the seven of us Cantonese foodies, we enjoyed a bunch of favorites (a large bowl of congee to share, siew long bao, ha-​gao, steamed spareribs with Japanese pumpkin, haam sui gok, phoenix claw, and more) Each piece was an ample size, tasty and fresh. Good thing we checked our bill though. With a quick apology, they delivered our forgotten order of egg tarts within minutes. Quite understandable for their oversight, considering the place was just roaring by that time. Another big plus was parking — we had no problems finding a spot in the big lot that the restaurant shares with the strip mall. CDN $ 60 before gratuity for our meal and we ate well!

This restaurant is ranked relatively poorly compared to its peers in Richmond, despite being consistently popular among its patrons. Why?
This is a traditional cantonese style (relatively) high end restaurant. I say relatively because I feel like many high end chinese restaurants get taken over by non-​cantonese customers — I’m looking at you, Kirin — and then the flavor profile of the cuisine seems to take a nosedive as it slants toward pleasing their mainstream audience. Frequently, such places will start to taste more like Shanghai style, Northern Chinese style, or even fusion westernized versions.
At Vivacity, you get what you get in Hong Kong before 1997 happened. This is old school Canton cuisine. Shark’s fin soup and bird’s nest soup figure prominently. The dishes are not inventive or innovative, and the recipes are not expected to change in the next hundred years. Even after all the sharks are extinct in the world. Extinction is just another excuse for raising menu item prices.
There is a place for this cuisine, especially in the Greater Vancouver area. The older folks I ate with here are accustomed to this style of food. They come here specifically for this kind of food that they grew up eating in Hong Kong. They don’t want Shanghai style food or some asian fusion. This is a very specific style with a certain service style expectation in a very specific atmosphere and ambience. With the private room next door going wild like a KTV, I could close my eyes and imagine that I was in Hong Kong.
If you have friends or family visiting, and they specifically request Hong Kong style dinner from the early 90’s when Chow Yun Fat ruled the cinemas, this is the place to go.
The prices are in line with my expectations for a place of this nature. Meaning, it’s quite expensive relative to other places in Richmond for this type of food, but you’re paying for the emphasis on Hong Kong tradition, ambience and style of cuisine.

I booked a table for four people at 6pm at Vivacity Restaurant. My family and I took a look at the menu and ordered the food. We ordered a crab meat tofu soup, half of a chicken, yang zhou fried rice, pork chop, veggies and scallops. All these dishes arrived quickly. All of them tasted great and the portion of each of the dishes was big. The prices were a little big higher than other Chinese restaurants but the environment was comfortable and clean; the service was good; and the quality of the food was excellent, so paying a little bit more was worth it.
While we were eating, many customers went into this restaurant and it was full quickly. The waiters and waitresses served quickly as well but they never rushed us to eat and leave quickly. They served red bean paste soup and some Chinese cookies for desserts. All of them were good!
I tried their dim sum in the past. It was great. Tonight I had an opportunity to try their dinner. I would definitely come back to this restaurant if I want to eat Chinese food.

Lobster special was not fresh, pricey ! for this price Kirin is a better deal and courteous service.
Not a tready place but out dated.

One of the best places to eat in Richmond. Despite the slightly higher prices, the environment and the good food make up for it. Service is good and everything was delivered promptly. Easily one of my favorite places in greater vancouver area.

Location: I think I was in China when I hit there. Chinese people walked Around as well as thousands of Chinese restaurants. This place is well decorated with so many Chinese factors and is exactly the same interior decoration like many mainland Chinese restaurants
Food: got seafood, soup, and veggies. I understood why it has a low Unilocal rate. Because this place is very southern Chinese cuisine and it is hard for Canadians who prefer fried food like this place. If OMG judged by its dinner quality, this place is a four star for sure. Pretty good delicious!
Overall: after so many restaurants flushing into Vancouver, this is the place to go.

Had the seasonal
Spot prawn, the roast squab, and pea tips with garlic. The boiled prawns were delicious, the squab was good but nothing special and the pea tips as well. The host was rather inattentive at 5:30 pm
But the waiter kept changing our plates and was attentive. It was rather overpriced and the décor outdated. Food good, prices too high and service just ok.

Service horrible. Waiters/​waitress kept on rushing & asking my parents when other party is coming. My parents already ordered food on table, not like they were just waiting for us to come. Chinese restaurants are notorious for bad service.
After rushing us for table, it took over ½h get our order of shrimp dumplings. When asked waiter to chk on it, he doesn’t.

Here for my grandma’s birthday dinner and was pleasantly surprised. What I had no idea about this place is that the cuisine isn’t your standard Cantonese cuisine, but it’s from a different Guangdong region. It was rather refreshing from the abundance of Cantonese styled restaurants in Vancouver.
Besides the food, everything came promptly, the interior décor feels high end and is brightly lit, and best of all there is ample parking — which is really really realllly rare for Alexandra rd in Richmond!
Tonight we tried:
— fried milk — sweet, batter was too thick for my liking, might as well have been fish and chips.
— fish and cilantro soup
— pea tips
— fried oysters tossed in celery and peppers — very good!
— specialty chicken steamed in an iron pan with taro and goji berries — heavenly cooking wine flavour
— braised duck in black vinegar, ginger and sugar — tangy and has a nice kick from the ginger.
— duck web with sea cucumber, dried scallops, shiitakes

When it comes to dining out, I always like trying places I’ve never been to. Vivacity was recommended to us by my friend’s mom who loves this place. I was sort of wary after seeing all the reviews on Unilocal but I had a completely different experience: the food was great and the servers were friendly. Although it was a little pricey, I still enjoyed it.
We ordered the usual fare — siu mai, pork dumplings, spring rolls, sticky rice etc. We even got some sort of deep fried spicy squid. They were all delicious but what really stood out for me was the deep fried milk. They’re one of the very few places in the city that serves this. It’s basically a milk custard that’s deep fried. It kind of looks like McDonald’s chicken nuggets but it tastes like sweet milk custard.
It’s a little difficult to find parking in this area (considering there’s tons of establishments around) but Vivacity along with a bunch of other restaurants have their own parking lot. That was a huge plus.
I’d give it a 3.5 stars but bump it to 4 here on Unilocal.I would definitely come back and bring my friends for a dim sum date.

It’s true guys — it’s 2.5 stars for a reason.
This place has the price of Sun Sui Wah, Gingeri Seafood, and other high-​end Chinese places, but is no better than just a mid-​range dim sum place in terms of food flavor.
Guys it’s just plain expensive for what you get. Go somewhere else cheaper.

Pretty well your basic dim sum with an interior and quality a notch down from the big boys, Kirin, Sun Sui Wah, but still a bit more pricier than average.
Does have its own parking along one side of the plaza.
I recommend ordering the usual, though the bbq pork bun, sponge cake were below average.
XO passed the spice test, probably the highlight.
nevertheless, it’s worth checking out if there are too long lineups as it wasn’t too bad on a sunday 1pm. that’s what will make me return but not a glowing recommendation off the top of my head.

I was a but apprehensive coming here, seeing all the 2-​star reviews, but I thought this place was actually pretty good. It’s definitely on the pricier side for Richmond dim sum, but the quality here was a pleasant surprise. Service is decent, and the place is 20% off if you order before 11am on weekends.
Gold stars for: the deep fried milk. That stuff is crack, it’s so good. We also ordered the mushroom e-​fu noodle stir-​fry since I consider it to be comfort food and I was feeling sick. Both were good. I also ordered a shrimp and mushroom dumpling which turned out to … not have shrimp in it. Apparently the English translation was incorrect. Wut.
Even with the discount, the food came out to be pretty pricey — a $ 30 bill for 6 dishes. it’s definitely okay, but not the best in the area. If I find a few more awesome dishes, I’ll bump up the stars, but right now it’ll have to be a two.

Decided to check this place out, based on a friend’s recommendation. Haven’t been here since the 90s (when it was Grand Buffet), so what do I know.
The parking is pretty ample. With that said, I literally took the last spot in the parking lot.
The interior décor is somewhat high-​class, with wooden accents.
Items are pretty pricey. Pretty shocking, considering restaurants are a dime a dozen here. But you get 20% off before 1100, or something like that. But items here are $ 4.50 here on average?! Even with the discount, several places in East Van are a MUCH better deal.
Now if the food were what I call «$ 4.50 good», then sure, maybe a few extra bucks would cut it. Unfortunately, this is definitely not the case. The food was mushy, and not that fresh in general.
Many people complain about the wrong items showing up, but this didn’t happen to us. Service was actually pretty decent. They brought us whatever we needed, quite promptly.
Unfortunately, I won’t be back here anytime soon because of the lack of value. Many better alternatives out there.

I feel like the quality of the food has been going down. Considering it’s in Richmond and there are enough alternatives, I’m not sure I’ll be returning too many more times.

This restaurant had a better day. Unfortunately, now is not the time to come to this place for dim sum.
I honestly don’t like the flavour of their food. It is almost always overcooked and many times has no taste whatsoever.
The staff is friendly but argumentative. I say this because on many occasions they have brought out the wrong food. They are very quick to tell the people at the table that they are the ones who are wrong. When they realize their mistake, they walk away quickly and finally bring the right item. I don’t think this is the right way to do business.
Once upon a time, probably before the current owner, this place was delicious and worth coming to as a first choice. I hope the ownership understands this and stops expecting business, like many of these places does. That’s why we have so many restaurants going under and reopening all the time.

It used to be wonton noodle soup house for a decade. They expanded and moved to Alexander Rd in Richmond few years ago.
It was the first time been there for dinner. I was quite disappointed.
The dishes portion were huge but taste ok. The service was slow and we had to chasing them for few times in order to get what we wanted.

Amidst the stiff competition of an abundant number of Chinese restaurants in Richmond, Vivacity serves a respectable dim sum faire.
I went there for the first time for dim sum lunch today with my partner and my parents. They offer 20% discount off your bill (excluding the «kitchen specials» on the dim sum menu) if you:
— settle your bill between 9am and 3pm Monday to Friday, and
— place your order by 11am on Saturdays, Sundays & Holidays
Vivacity takes order of your dim sum requests from a bilingual order sheet that you check off and present to the wait staff. Menu ordering for dim sum is being more and more common with many Chinese restaurants. It beats ordering from carts being pushed around so you don’t have to ask what it is in the basket every time the carts come around and your conversation will not get interrupted every time a cart pusher asks if you this or that.
The only drawback of menu ordering for dim sum is that you don’t know how many pieces of dumplings there are in each order so you can order accordingly based on the number in your party.
We order 9 dishes for lunch based on the naming of the dishes on the menu by the restaurant:
— Steamed pork dumplings (aka siu mai) — 4 big flavourful pieces.
— Pan fried water chestnut cake (squares) — 4 pieces of lightly sweetened gelatin squares with water chestnut chunks in side. They are good dessert alternatives to the popular egg tarts or sesame seed balls.
— Steamed pork dumplings with peanuts (aka Chiuchow dumplings) — The order came with 4 pieces. I am not a fan of this type of dumpling because there are a lot of ingredients in the stuff (ground pork, vegetables, peanuts …) and there are just too many things going on for me.
— Steamed spareribs with Japanese pumpkin — If you like fatty meat and crunchy cartilage, it is a common dim sum dish with a twist using Japanese pumpkin in lieu of black bean sauce, offering alighter alternative in terms of flavour (definitely not calories but you shouldn’t be counting calories when you have dim sum anyways).
— Steamed pork roll wrapped with bean curds (not really bean curds but soy bean sheets) — 3 solidly good pieces.
— Steamed duck tongue with special sauce (technically braised, not steamed) — the tongues were very flavourful. Allen had an obligatory one but I don’t think he’ll have another one because he doesn’t like the texture nor the idea. I liked it.
— Steamed chicken buns — There are 3 pieces in the basket. I usually don’t like the BBQ pork bun type of buns but the introduction of ginger in the chicken buns won me over.
— Deep fried pork dumplings (aka salt water dumplings or) — 4 solidly good pieces. Flavour was a bit on the light which was what I preferred.
— Homemade style baked pastry — The name doesn’t really tell you much. It is a regional item from northern and central China called or yellow bridge baked pastry. They are little pastry with a flakey outer crust sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds stuffed with pork. My parents liked it but I didn’t — just my personal preference.
The bill came to just under $ 35 for the 4 of us before gratuities. Not bad for lunch! We will definitely return to try the other items on the menu. My parents did the ordering so my partner and I did not order our usuals.