Kirin is well-known as being a high-class Chinese restaurant. After having a dimsum lunch there yesterday, I find it hard to justify the price you pay for fine Chinese dining here.
Although I did not front the bill, looking at the prices on their menu suggests that the dishes are almost double what you would pay elsewhere.

Cons:
-sticky chicken rice wrapped in lotus leaf (so small that my 3 yr old nephew easily polished off 2 of the 3 amongst other dishes)
-black bean spare ribs - these were so fatty looking I couldn't stomach it.
-Chinese donut wrapped in rice roll (donut was unexpectedly hard and not fresh tasting)
-Fried stuffed tofu - eventhough we knew this dish was deep-fried, it was incredibly oily. The doiley underneath was completely soaking wet from excess oil.
-as my brother-in-law mentioned, they are not very environmentally friendly. They choose to focus on presentation over being green. Every condiment came on a dish over a plate with a spoon...this is for EVERY condiment. Some dishes came with two sauces which meant 7 pieces of serving ware total. And for leftovers, they packed each dish in a separate styrofoam container (eventhough we only had a few pieces leftover from a dish)

I guess some would look at this as a good addition to service, but we thought it was unnecessary.

Pros: Clean restaurant, good service, plenty of parking.

Overall, nothing special about Kirin. I'd much rather eat just as much for half the price elsewhere.

I've been here a few times for dim sum and while the food is fairly decent service has been inconsistent. They were the best dim sum service I've ever experienced when it was a slower day, changing plates, offering hot towels, and being generally "on"...

today was a different story as they had a full house and forgot 3 of the 11 dishes we ordered. After prompting them twice to check on these lagging dishes, we were told the kitchen never received the order. We also had to flag down the waiter twice to order and another three times to get a chopstick changed (it fell on the floor). No plates were changed, no hot towels. Service was brisk and unwelcoming.

I'll have to go again (yes the food and close location is pulling me back) to see if they can redeem themselves.

The plus about the coquitlam Kirin is the wait time is significantly shorter (30 min max without reservations on weekends) than other comparable dim sum places in richmond or vancouver due to its location.

Also, to the post below: I've found that Chinese restaurants in general are not usually romantic places (no matter how "fine dining" it is) to take your date because the Chinese culture in general IS loud and family-oriented. Restaurant lights must be bright so we can see what we're eating and up until the mid 90's I'd say service and atmosphere was never a priority (it's always been about the food and usually still is).

Kirin is well known for their top quality food and today, a busy Thanksgiving Monday, was no exception. However, my experience with the Coquitlam location was marred by really terrible service and there is no excuse when the restaurant is charging $5+ per dish.

Realizing that today would be a very busy day in the dim sum world, we called in advance to reserve a table so that we would not have to wait. Upon arriving, the hostess was overwhelmed with people peering down upon her but she and the other staff were doing nothing to manage the crowd. People were gathered close to her desk because she was calling names out in a pipsqueak mouse voice.

When our party of three was called in (wait time was perfectly acceptable as we arrived slightly early), we were taken to a table against the wall beside the door where servers emerged with food. Normally, I would accept this as being part of the experience of dining on a busy day. However, because we were a party of three, I was stuck facing the goddamn wall! When we got to our table, there were no place settings and I stood by the table due to the fact that there was NO CHAIR FOR ME for a full two minutes before they decided to bring a seat for me.

The waiter came and impatiently took our order and refused to leave one of the order sheets for us to look over. They only give you one normal dim sum menu so you have to pass it around to look at so it would have been handy to have the sheet for two minutes. Instead of allowing this, he took an order for three items and advised us that he would be back. When we beckoned him over a few minutes later for the remainder of our order, he had already forgotten what we'd ordered previously so I had to speak loudly as he argued with my mother and got the order moving.

Although the quality of the food was outstanding, the food came slowly and not that hot, despite having been custom-ordered.

In the end, we enjoyed ourselves and made the best of a bad situation. Groups of three should not be seated against that wall--fine for two but not three. No one should be subjected to sitting two feet away from a wall, facing it.

Get it together, Kirin! If you don't have enough room in your dining room at a particular time for a reservation, DON'T TAKE THE RESERVATION. I'd rather come at a different time and eat comfortably.

Then Kirin Seafood Restaurant would be your dinning option.

When going to a Chinese restaurant, here are the key things one must remember. 1, customer service is usually decent at best. 2, the ambiance shouldn't be your priority. 3, food should be inexpansive. 4, a lot of good great selection.

However, Kirin tried to change such image to the Chinese food industry. The end result was an expansively renovated restaurant located in a mall with barely enough traffic. Food was only half decent at best and it's over priced.

I was very shocked to find that they have a MUCH smaller dim sum selection than the Kirin restaurant in Richmond. I was at a loss of what I could order to 'feed' my guests.

Neverthess, the food quality is great. You need to arrive before 12 noon to get a table without waiting.

I have been there for dinner a couple of times. Love their dinner menu! The Taro duck dish (cant remember the precise name) is better than the one at Kirin Richmond.

The food is above average for chinese. The restaurant is clearly higher-end, with a clean and formal environment.

I find the staff to be very overbearing. If the restaurant is slow they circle your table like vultures. Good service is one thing, being closely watched at all times is not enjoyable.

My biggest bone of contention is when it comes to the bill. They seem to have no shame in this regard. They watch you like a hawk after putting it down, and the minute you finish signing your name and put down the pen they swoop in like a hawk and snatch it up - greedily and blatantly opening it up to see what their tip is on the way back to the bar.

For a place that is supposedly a higher class establishment, it is a very tacky way to end the experience.