Munchie Adventure: Ruby Chinese Restaurant 紅寶石大酒家, Port Coquitlam

New dinner menu! Ruby now offers a set dinner menu option, which is not bad, but honestly doesn't compare to Deer Garden. Good for the area and price though!

Restaurant: Ruby Chinese Restaurant 紅寶石大酒家
Location: 2228 McAllister Ave, Port Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Western Chinese
Price range: $10-20 per person for dinner




Date of visit: May 8, 2013
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4.5/5
Food variety: 3/5
Food quality: 3/5
Buck worthy? 4/5

Besides their new deal for a New York Steak meal for $8.95, their new set dinners range from 4 person to 10 person meals. We ordered their 6 person meal tonight which cost us around $106 in total (with tips and tax). This wasn't bad at all since we had lots left over for another meal xD

Here is the soup, which was a kabocha with pork soup, the kabocha was boiled to the point that it melted into the soup (not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but I liked it)

The chicken is a highlight of the meal because it was very nicely done, it's a cold plate, but the chicken was seasoned very well, all the flavors were infused into the meat and the meat was cooked nicely. However, I still prefer the chicken from Deer Garden.

This is the beef slices in a gravy-like sauce. Tasted a bit like the New York steak we got for lunch last time. Tender beef slices smothered in sauce. Pretty good, but nothing to go crazy over.

Perhaps this was because we know the owner, but it seems like this buttery pork chops was not oily at all. I really liked it because it was so fresh and juicy. The shrimp crackers on the side were very fresh too, so crispy!!

Another highlight of the meal, their prawn in special sauce. The prawns were very large and fresh, the shells were lightly fried, so I could just ingest the whole shrimp without de-shelling (except for the tail part of course) I like how it's not too salty either.

The steamed rice wrapped in lotus leaf could use some work. It's a bit too solid and broken, flavors are good though. It's also GINORMOUS.

There's a snippet of the veggies that also came with the meal, on the top right corner =P It's veggies in soup with bean curd, literally oil-less and quite healthy.

Finally, the steamed fish that was something I've never had before. Looks like a tropical fish! But man, that fish has some solid "teeth" (more like a beak!). Nicely steamed, just right so it was flaky and smooth. So good!

Lastly, dessert. Purple yam sweet soup was way too sweet and the yam was all dissolved =( Also very purple to the point it felt a bit...abnormal. Although I believe her that she just bought it and cooked it (no added color-- by her anyways)

The red bean pancake was the usual that you can order during dim sum, amazing and fresh as usual.

Overall I was satisfied with my meal, they definitely have room for improvement, but that potential for greatness is there!

Munchie Adventure: Ruby Chinese Restaurant 紅寶石大酒家, Port Coquitlam

So, finally got a chance to do a dim sum review! Last time was for dinner, so now it's finally lunch! :D Mainly the people who come for lunch are familiar faces, or people from across the street (from court) and taking a lunch break. Dim sum is steamed to order, so it's fresh. No carts being pushed around here =P

Restaurant: Ruby Chinese Restaurant
Location: 2228 McAllister Avenue, Port Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Canadian Chinese, Dim Sum
Price range: $5-10




Date of visit: July 28, 2012
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 3/5
Food quality: 3/5
Buck worthy? 4/5

I think they just increased their prices to $2.75 for all dim sum (used to be $2.50), which I find reasonable, since most other places around the area are minimum $2.95. They've added a few items to their menu, including congee, which isn't too good in my opinion, but not terrible. I've just had better =P

My aunt really likes to get these Stir Fried Noodles in Soy Sauce ($2.75), childhood memories she says. I like them, they're filling and seasoned right.

Lately my brother has been liking Beef Tripe ($2.75), so we got this. I didn't like it too much. The sauce was too thick.

I know this is dessert, but I order it early anyways. Deep Fried Read Bean Pancake ($2.75) It's so good!! Crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside with a little bit of red bean paste. It's not oily-feeling either! Oh gosh, it's delish!

I'm an oddball, I really like how the shrimp isn't pureed in their Deep Fried Tofu with Shrimp in Soy Bean Sauce ($2.75). I love the crunchy shrimp which is a bit hard-- just me though. My aunt doesn't like it. Usually I just eat the shrimp and someone else will get the tofu haha

This was a new thing we haven't tried before, Deep Fried Bean Curd Wrap with Shrimp ($2.75). It was pretty good, I thought it was a bit oily though. Very fresh.

Last was Pork and Veggie on Flat Rice Noodles ($4.90)-- it's not on the menu actually, but they're really flexible, so you can change to w/e you like pretty much (be reasonable!).

Usually I order this Shredded Pork with Veggies on Flat Rice Noodles in Soup ($4.90), which is really good, cuz I like flat rice noodles in soup =) Not the best looking place, but friendly and easy going. It's the place to just stop by if you wanna be lazy and grab a snack or smth, they won't judge if you don't order a lot of stuff (I've had some places discriminate against me cuz I ordered two dim sum for two people).

Munchie Adventure: Ruby Chinese Restaurant 紅寶石大酒家, Port Coquitlam

This visit wasn't particularly a special visit to try something new, since I've known this place ever since it opened, and the restaurant before it too. The owners are very friendly and the atmosphere is very homey. Don't be intimidated by her loud voice, she's actually very friendly but just... loud :) They're trying to improve the looks of the restaurant (and I've been helping a bit) and it's starting to look better. There have been reviews that make this place seem really negative, but really, they actually do a really good job of keeping their food clean and fresh. I've always had a problem with restaurants using old oil (oil that's been used to fry stuff for a very long time), but I know they change their oil very frequently, so their fried goods are... good :D

Restaurant: Ruby Chinese Restaurant
Location: 2228 McAllister Ave, Port Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese
Price range: $3-$12 (depending how much you eat/what time)
Date of visit: March 30, 2012

Atmosphere: 4.5/5
Staff/Service: 4/5
Food variety: 3.75/5
Food quality: 3.75/5
Buck worthy? 4.25/5

This particular visit was to help them decorate their place, so it wasn't during lunch. It seems like I was bribed to write good things about them, but I do try to be unbiased and truthful-- you can only lie to people once because they'll find out the truth for themselves after that one time. Dinner was on them, and the owner surprised us with the dishes. We had gone there for dinner before (about a year ago), and I'd have to say, it's undergone good changes.

There was still the buffet portion, which they always change and keep fresh, with over 20 items to select from, and the owners are very good at meeting the customer's needs-- if you want something that you know was on the buffet menu, you can ask them to make it (something that a lot of buffets don't do). The buffet is $10.99, and is only open Friday to Sunday. But watch out, they might decide to close it early if there aren't a lot of customers on a particular night (they closed it around 7:30pm when I was there decorating).

Ok, back to my meal :) I'm not sure of the pricing though, since I see the menu, but I remember from last time most of the dishes were around $15 (usually less).

This was the first dish that came, a sizzling plate, and it really was sizzling! I think it was the beef with veggies (there was beef, onions, and green peppers) in black bean sauce. I found it a bit salty for my taste, but the flavoring was well-balanced, and if you had rice with it (I wanted to save some stomach room for the rest of the food), I'm sure it would've been perfect.

 Then came the fried shrimp in spicy salt (also an item that can be found on the buffet menu). Very fresh, and the shrimp were a good size (so the ratio of shrimp peeling to eating shrimp was good)-- as I mentioned before, I love their fried foods ^^.

 Next came another sizzling thing-- a hot pot. This is probably the seafood with tofu hotpot, and had tofu, scallops, squid, fish, shrimps, green peppers, snow peas, celery, and onions. This was delish! A bit oily, but I like how the sauce wasn't too thick and the combination of items was good, since I like dishes that include a lot of variety in it :)

Then there was honey pork chops. As you can see, they were popular, I couldn't manage a picture before everyone grabbed a piece! I really liked this dish personally because it was freshly fried (so it was still crunchy) and there wasn't an overload of honey/malt soaking the pieces on the bottom of the plate. As well, it wasn't a fat cut of meat, everything was tender and lean. It was a large plate too, so we had to pack away some of the food at the end of the meal.

Here's one of the ribbons we put
on for decorating the drapes  :) 

I don't have any pictures of their lunch, but dim sum is $2.50 and there are lunch specials for $4.90 or lunch combos (which are very popular) for $4.95 (two items) to $7.95 (three items). Their dim sum isn't extraordinary, but you get the quality you expect for the price you paid. (unlike some restaurants where I paid like $6 for the same thing I get here, which I find is rather unreasonable and evil >=[)

As well, they are very flexible with menu items, you can feel free to ask them to change it up (like I always ask for pork with flat rice noodles, which isn't on the menu, but they'll still make it) for no extra charge. They don't charge for tea and there's also a special on wonton noodles in soup for $2.95, which we get every time because it's cheap :D Hopefully I'll remember to take some pics next time I go and put them here so there's a feel of how their dim sum is ^^