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I take my children here sometimes. The dim sum is good and the prices are reasonable.
I usually order the sticky rice (my 4 year old son's favourite), vegetarian spring rolls, shrimp balls and a few other items.
The food is always piping hot and tasty. Tea is provided for free at the table and I like the flavour of the tea.
Some quibbles - the restaurant is narrow and the entrance way is quite small. It is hard to bring a stroller (or wheelchair) into the restaurant - however, the staff are always very helpful.
My other quibble - I rather wish that they would provide some dipping sauces (plum sauce and hot sauce) at the beginning.
Other than that - for a nice dim sum - I'll go to Fantastic any day.
We've been here a couple times because it's convenient for us. The last time we didn't want to wait to get into the Congee Noodle King next door, so we went for dim sum instead. It's quite small and narrow for a restaurant, and we noticed many non-Chinese there. That's not always the best sign if you're looking for good, authentic and cheap Chinese food. In any case, we ordered gai lan, siu mai, beef stomach, bean curd roll, steamed beef rice roll. The beef stomach was the best since we had to order it and it arrived steaming hot. The other dishes were just ok, some served just lukewarm. The siu mai tasted a bit off, like the meat was old. We also ordered congee from what looked like the manager. We waited, finished all our other dishes, and waited more. Finally we had to flag her down and tell her to forget the order, and to get us our bill. She seemed like she had completely forgotten to put the order in, so it was good that we asked for the bill. At one point we needed to get our tea refilled, she took the teapot and never brought it back. The restaurant wasn't even full, and the manager was rushing around so much, it looked very disorganized. We were not impressed at all, and probably won't be back. There are many other better places to have dim sum at, places with better ambiance and a more enjoyable dining experience.
Being a Chinese person, I've been to quite a few dim sum places for lunch. This place isn't great. But if you're out just to mainly chat with friends, then it's fine. If you're out looking for Fantasitc dim sum (hahaha, sorry) then this might not be right for you.
The service was efficient, but the waitresses act weird if you're younger or not Chinese. They kept saying everything really slowly for my friends and I (we're 18 years old) cause they thought we didn't speak any Cantonese.. but yeah. I found the rice noodles in soy sauce to be way over steamed, to the point where it just falls apart if you try to pick it up. The vegetarian fried noodles were okay.. nothing special. The veggie spring rolls were NOT fresh. I bet they ovened it from yesterday. All in all.. the food was mediocre. I only come here cause it's convenient and close to my place.
The place is kind of clean. Ish. I didn't wanna go into the washroom.. might be scary.
Tried some dimsum for lunch today and it was fantastic. Service was excellent. Had 6 dishes and the bill was $16.80. We managed to eat everything and we were beyond full. Restaurant is clean and the place was quite busy for a Tuesday afternoon with limited street parking. Food is carried out in a tray by the waitresses and they show you what they have and you point out what you want. Very efficient and fresh. Going back to try some of the dishes we missed.
Me and a couple friends went by here for the all you can eat dimsum lunch today.
Small place,quite busy.
IT was quite good,and the selection was fairly wide.
it was roughly 15.00 per person.Pop was 1.75 a can.
parking is a bit of a chore. Located right next to the bank on the north east corner of Kingsway and Joyce.
My favourite dim sum restaurant in my local area has now closed and has been replaced by Szechuan Spicy Legend.
I went here many times as I could walk there and found the food good and always reliable - never a bad dish.
Does anyone know if Fantastic will be renewing itself elsewhere? I am so disappointed they have closed.
I have been here numerous times for lunch. Price is very good. We have about 1/2 dozen people and each time the cost was about $5 to $6 per person including tax & tips. For that price, it can't be beat.
We order the special dishes on the menu, not the dimsum style take out cart they have.
The fried noodles and rice is above average.
The service there is prompt and courteous.
Only problem was finding parking around the area which can be a hassle.
But overall, if you aren't picky with food and want a good value, then this is a good start.
I haven't been to Fantastic for several yrs esp. since the renovation. Their dim sum were cheap and decent back then. Never gone for dinner til now.
We went out for dinner on Thurs night. What a complete change in the restaurant! It was quite nice, but such tacky chair cover! Why on earth do the restaurant need to put a dress on a chair, it doesn't make it fancy, just tacky. Anyway, we noticed that the Thurs special was crab for $8.99 each if you order food over $30. Fine, since there were 3 of us, we decided on the set dinner for 2 which was $38 plus the crab.
I came here not having any high expectation on the food since I remember my many dim sum at Fantastic were not that great. Boy, I was wrong! The food here was very good. The amount of food we got minus the crab, there was no way it was a dinner for 2, we are 3 adults and we couldn't even finished it. The quality of food was fantastic. We had their house soup, cold chicken appetizer, mixed seafood w/ snowpeas, peking pork chops, fried rice, dessert and fruit. Plus, crab w/ ginger and onion sauce. Now here is where the service has gone sour.
None of the staff spoke english! It was odd that the manager took our order, I thought it was the waiter's job, to take our orders. I didn't know that til I asked the waiter about the rice, he looked at me and had no clue what I was saying. At that time, we didn't know about the fried rice, so I assume the set dinner didn't come with rice. The poor waiter tried to get the manager's attn to translate for him, but he was too busy helping the other table with their orders. What's the point of explaining to him, so I asked for 2 bowls of rice. He understood the "2" and "rice" part. The rest of the evening, he avoided us. The waitress came and took over. Our plates was changed a couple of times and teapot filled. We had asked for fermented shrimp paste to dip our seafood in, she looked at us and was surprise that we actually like this stuff. Such ignorant staff!! Yes, we are chinese who happens to speak only english and eat authentic chinese food. She only spoke chinese to us, good thing one of us understood her. At least, she made an effort to communicate with us and not avoid us like the cowardly waiter. My girfriend grabbed the menu to show the waitress about our order when we discover that we never received our fried rice. I was so frustrated, I didn't want to deal with the wait staff, good thing the owner came to see what the commotion was. I explain to her about the rice problem, the lack of understanding with the staff, etc. She was very gracious and apologetic and asked us if we want the deduction or coupon. I told her just to give us the fried rice to go, since we had already packed our leftovers. At that point, I really wasn't sure if I wanted to come back with the coupon. Thankfully, we weren't charged for the 2 bowls of rice. If it hadn't been the owner, I prob. wouldn't come back. She was very nice and I remember her from years ago eating here. She's probably the reason the restaurant is doing so well, she is so good to her customers and I can see that the customers are happy to be here. The other manager didn't do a good job dealing with the other table complaints. Thats why I didn't want to go to him, I don't think he wanted to be here either.
I plan on coming back to try their dim sum again. For dinner? Not sure, but I will definitely bring along friends that do speak chinese. I do really like their food, but I find that the restaurant tend to cater to only chinese speaking customers which is unfortunate. If you're caucasion or do not speak cantonese or manderin, don't bother coming here unless you bring someone who can speak the language.
Came in for the AYCE dim sum lunch. Being a table for one they were very prompt bringing the tea pot, the tea was much bolder flavoured than the watered down stuff at most other places. Dining by myself the staff were kind enough to quickly bring over dim sum favourites such as Har Gow, sticky rice, sui mai, and black bean ribs. The dim sum was certainly not the best but thats not why I was there and it certainly was much tastier than some of the a la carte restaurants else where. The pieces were large, hot, and tasted as they should. I did notice that they stopped coming by as often after my 4.5(halved the sticky rice order) dishes, which is fineas I wouldnt not have been able to eat anymore. Some hot sauce would have been nice, but I didnt ask. Overall it was good value for $13.25 with taxes and they appeared happy with the $15 I left behind. Worth going back if what you want decent dim sum at a good price, and not a snob for the pricier high end stuff.
Went back there last friday .. it was busier, so we ordered the $138 meal again ,,, just to compare when they are busy with when they are quiet .. is the food quality consistent? YES it is ... we enjoyed the meal once again.. and had lots to bring home .... Fantastic restaurant is definitely FANTASTIC.
Kids table meal was good also. Had the samethings as listed below
If you are a Dim Sum lover then this is the place for you! Good prices on all their dim sum, and they are all the same price! If you order the special dim sum then they cost a little bit more. They are good sizes for the prices you pay.
We've also been here during dinner time, and our company has had a few dinner party here as well. A good place for a cheap dinner if your are in a group! A party of 10 costed us about 15$ a person and we had about 10 different dishes with soup! Dinner had alot of choices to choose from, and if you love peking duck then this is a cheap place to eat it!
Service is good, most of the server are able to speak english. For the ones that don't i can see that they do try their best! The good thing is the manager do know how to speak english!
Over all this is a very good place to have a nice chinese dinner! You can even order dim sum for dinner as well!
We did our last two dim sums of 2007 at the Fantastic, on 15 & 30 Dec. We found and enjoyed the same good food, but it was being served up in surroundings that had been much-renovated since we had been there last (31 Oct, before heading south on holidays).
The restaurant now has what I guess could be called a more "modern-look" -- redecoration of the walls, tables, lighting, and all. It was a bit of a shock at first, we had become so used to the 'other' (much more 'heritage') look, and I believe we would still prefer to have the "old" look. But places change. Thank goodness the food has not, and that's what we come there for -- it is still the same -- good dim sum stuff, and very good value.
My favourite Dim Sum Restaurant in Vancouver is Fantastic located at 3309 Kingsway (next to Vancity corner of Joyce and Kingsway).
OMG!! I am a food freak and love to try new restaurants and restaurants I have never been to.
In my discoveries I have been to a lot of Dim Sum places but this is by far the best for me. Convenient to where I live, never too long of a line up and the food here is awesome.
I have been 4 or 5 times already and I tend to order the same things pretty much everywhere I go as I am not into Traditional Chinese Dim Sum but rather the mainstream items. Fantastic makes these deep fried dumplings packed full of shrimp and they are so good - I would say these are my favourite item here. The sticky rice is next best with such wonderful flavour. The Gai Lan is to die for as I can eat the whole plate myself.
If you are in the neighborhood check it out!
We went to Fantastic for Mother's Day. Before the renovations, you were able to order two dishes, which came with a "bonus" small dish, whether it be half a small chicken, or soup. We've always gotten good service there.
After renos, the two dish thing was no longer. It was a minimum "four dishes, and they throw in a small bonus dish". Fine...we thought what better way to take advantage of this by going on Mother's Day. Besides...more family members were able to attend.
I made the reservations a week before Mother's Day.
When we got there, we were greeted by the owner, as well as one of the managers.
When we sat down, we were given the menus. My mom had already decided which four dishes she wanted to order. When we looked at the menu, alas! No four dishes. They had "set menus" starting at $88, which consisted of six dishes.
The cold plate was definately cold....the pork hock was frozen! The sweet and sour ribs were all fat, and a couple of the other dishes were bland.
When it came time for dessert, the waitress asked if we wanted any. We asked what it was, and she said it was red bean soup. (typical). As we have been previous LOYAL customers, we asked if there was any mango pudding. She said no. Meanwhile, another waiter was serving mango pudding to the table next to us!
Needless to say, it will be a long while before we go to Fantastic again. Unfortunately losing us as customers will not affect their business, as they always are busy.
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