Calgary’s Chinese restaurants tend to lean either to Westernized fare or to so-called authentic regional Chinese dishes, but some do offer a mix. The restaurants below represent the best of both equally delicious worlds.
Critically acclaimed, this Northwest restaurant serves primarily Cantonese-style cuisine. However, Shanghai and Szechuan dishes as well as Western favourites such as ginger beef and salt-and-pepper squid appear on its extensive menu. This mouth-watering array also includes meat and seafood hotpots and sizzling plates. The value-priced buffet is a cut above the usual.
One of Calgary’s best-known dim sum spots, the Silver Dragon also offers a full Cantonese menu. Fish and seafood dishes are a standout, including live crab and lobster plucked straight from the restaurant’s seafood tank. This is also a top spot to settle in for sumptuous Peking duck, which is served in one, two or three courses.
It’s been a fixture on the Ninth Avenue strip in Inglewood for decades, and the Dragon Pearl continues to satisfy. Though dishes such as Mongolian chicken, Szechuan beef and Singapore rice noodles have Old Country Asian roots, the menu leans to the West. Also consider the ginger-fried squid, palace chicken and almond chicken, but always, always order the house-made pan-fried or steamed pork dumplings.
This is Western-style Chinese comfort food at its finest. You’ve got your sesame shrimp toast, hot-and-sour soup, and mu shu beef pancakes, as well as your pineapple sweet-and-sour prawns and special fried rice. And, for your convenience, you’ve got free delivery on orders over $30. Sounds like steamed and stir-fried heaven!
The sprawling restaurant on the third floor of Chinatown’s Dragon City Mall, Regency Palace features an open dining area as well as private rooms. Featuring both dim sum and buffet lunch service, its sit-down supper menu is primarily Cantonese. The seafood is tops. The Regency’s chefs prepare live crab and lobster umpteen ways. Western-style standards include chicken with cashew nuts and oyster-sauce beef, but traditional preparations abound such as winter melon soup, braised duck and stuffed crab claw.