Munchie Adventure: Lucky Gate Chinese Restaurant 前門飯店, Coquitlam

We haven't been here in a while, and after hearing my friend talk about it, I suddenly had a craving for their food. I remember their delicious dumplings, noodles which were made right before your eyes, and the fresh quality ingredients they used. However, that was quite a while ago, probably more than a year ago. I was SO disappointed when I finished my meal. Sad to say, they changed owners and the quality has declined dramatically =(

Restaurant: Lucky Gate Chinese Restaurant 前門飯店
Location: 1139 Austin Avenue, Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Shanghai, Beijing
Price range: $10-20



Date of visit: August 21, 2012
Atmosphere: 2.5/5
Staff/service: 2/5
Food variety: 4/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 1/5

This was the Tan Tan Noodles. I don't really like the soupless version, and this was soupless and salty. Noodles were chewy though, so it doesn't fail all the way?

This was on special, Marinated Pork Bones, and the pork was so tender it fell right off the bone. Again, very salty. We brought it home and added more pork and had it for a few more meals xD

Only dish that wasn't as salty was the Pork Dumplings in Soup. However, they didn't use the traditional wrapping, and it was more like a wonton than pork dumplings =S Taste was mediocre.

Annnd Steamed Xiao Loong Bao (Shanghai pork dumplings)!! I used to love it here cuz it was so juicy and the skin was so chewy. Yeah, they've kept it juicy, but OH MY GOSH. It was SO SALTY. I know it takes some skill to keep these things intact, and they did a good job on that, they just need to go easy on the salt.

So after all that, I was looking forward to my favorite dish at this restaurant-- lamb dumplings! Sadly, I didn't get them. The waitress goofed up and thought I said FISH DUMPLINGS, which I must say, are very different, PLUS I pointed to what I wanted and it was far away from fish dumplings. T-T I was sad. (Yang Yoo and Yui Yoo, pretty diff??) But we didn't wanna be mean, and ate these instead. I was even more disappointed because this was terrible. Besides it being salty, the fish was really mushy and didn't go well with the skin at all. Skin was chewy and good though, only bonus? Does it even count?

All in all, I was so disappointed by this visit. Food was way too salty, and the service wasn't good either. I actually had to wait for her to notice I was waiting to get back into my seat cuz she was too busy socializing with the cashier and was blocking my seat ==; The rest of the restaurant was empty btw, dunno why they gave us that table ><