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Have been here plenty of times for dim sum. Great variety of dishes, tasty, good value, consistent. Usually pretty easy to get a table even on the weekend. The atmosphere is above average for dim sum places, as is the service. Since the place isn't too big, you don't get the sometimes hectic feel from the service staff that you do at bigger places. Overall, the best dim sum I've found in the Tri-Cities.
I've been to Kirin downtown and on Cambie. If for no other reason than the great design and ambiance of those locations, my experience was good. And perhaps it is because I was comparing the different Kirins that I was disappointed with the Coquitlam one. It's like a big hotel banquet room - boxy with high, uninspiring ceilings. The price is the same as the other Kirins and, I don't know if it was the ambiance or actually the food, but I wasn't inspired by any of the dim sum. Certainly none was memorable - either in a good or bad way. So, overall too expensive for the quality of the experience.
My friend and I went in for lunch at Into the Fire (previously Craig's Cafe) the other day. She had the turkey club sandwich with New England Clam Chowder, I had a chicken/feta/mushroom/pepper sandwich with a salad. I didn't try her sandwich, but she was very pleased and the chowder looked great and was freshly made. As for mine... for the price I wasn't expecting much, really. But after one bite it was clear this wasn't food to eat, but to savour. With all those ingredients in a sandwich, I thought it would have been like a "salad" sandwich, but instead the different elements were carefully arranged, not mushed together. So there were little, delightful encounters with flavours throughout the sandwich. All this for the same price as a meal across the street at McDonald's... I'll definitely be back. The two of us were in and out for $20 - and that's after leaving a generous tip for Edna, our waitress.
The ambiance is okay and the location a little unexpected, but we were able to have a very nice, long, confortable chat - much of it about the unexpected food.