I hate being one of those people who says, “back in the day… things were better.” Let’s be real - sometimes it’s true, sometimes not. But as I take my first bite at Tak Fu Dim Sum Emperor, I can’t help but think: this tastes like my childhood. A time when dim sum felt handmade, not mass produced.

Tak Fu even prices things the old-school way (by dish, no specials) with categories ranging from $5.99 (S) to $9.99 (SP). Tea’s a humble $1.50 a person, softening the blow of slightly higher food prices.

So, what’s so special about Tak Fu?

Start with the siu mai or steamed pork dumpling ($7.99). Most places pulverize the pork into springy meatballs. Not here. The pork is hand-chopped, juicy, and tender, breaking apart easily with each bite. Finely diced mushrooms add a hit of umami, while a plump shrimp crowns the top instead of being hidden inside - simple, balanced, and traditional.

Then there’s the har gow or De fu steamed shrimp dumpling ($8.99). The shrimp are properly cleaned and not over-tenderized, keeping their natural flavour and crunch. They’re cooked just right, encased in a slightly thick but satisfyingly elastic wrapper.

The steamed bean curd roll with satay sauce ($7.99) is dense and hearty… half a roll will do. Its filling leans pork-and-cabbage heavy, more like a spring roll in taste, so it’s not as exciting flavour-wise but still comforting.

For a contrast, the steamed rice noodle roll with fried dough in special style ($7.99). The hot, crunchy fritter wrapped in silky rice noodle is spot-on texturally, though the hoisin and sesame sauces could be thicker. Maybe they’re thinned out for easier pouring?

The steamed rice noodle roll with BBQ pork ($7.99) is stuffed to the gills with big chunks of meat and nothing else.

Pair any rice roll with the congee with preserved egg and pork ($8.99) and you’ve got a hearty solo meal. The pork’s properly seasoned, the preserved egg plentiful, and the texture rich and smooth.

For something lighter, go for the dried scallop & seafood dumpling in soup ($8.99). It takes time, but arrives piping hot with a massive dumpling stuffed with shrimp, octopus, scallop, mushrooms, and BBQ pork - generous and satisfying.

The deep-fried squid ($9.99) might just be the best I’ve had: crisp, tender, and barely battered. There’s also plenty of it to go around. Say what you will, Tak Fu doesn’t skimp on portions.

Even their fried rice noodle with beef ($13.99) impresses. Sliced beef, bean sprouts, and onions get a good kiss of wok hay, and those caramelized onion bits add a hit of flavour. A solid, classic version.

If you can wait half an hour, end with the steamed milk ($7.99) for dessert. Lightly sweet, perfumed with ginger, it’s a silky, nostalgic treat you won’t find in many places anymore.

Tak Fu isn’t fancy it's cozy and part of its charm. It reminds me of the old Chinatown dim sum joints: small, crowded, and full of heart.

One thing I loathed about Grandeur Palace was their ridiculous wait times. I would channel my inner Zen master while waiting for a table on weekends. It was a test of patience that I rarely had, so while I really enjoyed Grandeur’s dim sum, it’s a restaurant I hardly visited.

Then COVID struck and now Grandeur’s pivoted to “all day” dim sum and from 10am - 3pm, essentially the normal brunch hours, any small, medium, or large dishes are $3.88. No trying to order before 11am, when the special pricing is normally in effect, there is now five blissful hours to get your dim sum hit.

The only small hiccup is getting an order placed, which essentially means going old school and calling in. Of course, there’s always the trusty delivery apps, but you’ll be paying a premium – the $3.88 dishes will instead range from $5.85 to $7 before all the ancillary charges. So, get used to redialing starting at 10am and after a dozen tries, you’ll hopefully get through.

As with all my other dim sum experiences, takeout and delivery just isn’t the same. As soon as the lid is lifted and the steam escapes, the dish starts to wilt - it’s as if the protein packed dumplings are a plant. The wrapper on the steamed shrimp chive dumplings starts getting sticky and hard (although Grandeur smartly places them further apart, so they don’t meld together). They’re just as huge as normal, but the filling is skimpy on the chives, so they end up tasting like har gow.

While still the size of a golf ball, the shrimp sui mai loses a lot of its juices so they’re much harder than at the restaurant and sits in a shallow pool of liquid causing the wonton wrapper to become soggy. But when you haven’t had one of these pork dumplings in a few months, it still tastes awfully good, despite the sad state.

Forget about the deep fried savoury glutinous dumplings with meat. Any crispiness disappears, and it becomes a sticky chewy ball. I have no one to blame but myself – of course anything deep fried would be a disappointment. But I so wanted a bite of that five-spice laced pork with the slightly sweet chewy wrapper. At least the flavours were still on point.

The steamed rice noodle with shrimp was the dish that’s closest to what you’d find at the restaurant. They’ve always made it a bit thicker, so it held up to the travels and the consistency and texture remained consistent.

Strangely, the glaze on the honey sauce beef short ribs ($7.68) sort of melts off, leaving the top pieces lacking flavours and the bottom soaking in sauce. Do yourself a favour and open the takeout container upside down so that the sweet sauce recombines with everything. It’ll taste a lot better.

Following traditions, I had to finish the meal with the stir-fried lobster e-fu noodles ($18.88). Grandeur doesn’t skimp on takeout, really packing the noodles into the container so it’s not the easiest to portion out without having lobster fly everywhere. If I were the restaurant, I’d add a bit more savoury sauce to cover everything since the noodles will get soft regardless – it would allow the noodles to stay untangled.

Perhaps the lobster e-fu noodles aren’t ordered with as much gusto in takeout as the crustacean didn’t taste the freshest – not rancid or off, just not nearly as clean as normal.  

I’m skeptical about restaurants with an extensive menu of varied cuisine. With no focus, how well can chefs actually prepare dishes? Riz is one of these places. The menu encompasses cuisine from so many east Asian countries, that dishes are either decent or a complete flop. Other restauranteurs would likely trim the subpar items from their menu. At Riz they have a permanent home, so ordering is like playing a mild game of Russian roulette.

Having dined-in at the restaurant and ordered take-out a couple of times pre-COVID, something seemed off about the October delivery we had. Maybe we lost at the game of roulette, but the ratio of dishes that disappoint to appease was at an all time high. Could it be that one of the chefs, pivotal to making the dishes decent, was let go?

The Szechuan crispy beef ($19) was the sole dish that continues to impress and truly one of the better renditions I’ve tasted. Thin sticks of beef are just barely coated and deep fried to give the protein a delicate shell and cooked to the point the beef is chewy and not hard. Their sweet and salty sauce is much thinner than ones found elsewhere, still full of flavour but doesn’t saturate the beef to the point it’s too sticky and candy like. Indeed, it tastes even better at the restaurant, but for delivery was delicious.

If you’re in the mood for a “healthier” complete meal, the drunken garlic shrimp ($29) is not overly oily and arrives with a cup of nutty wild rice. Yet, it lacked that fragrant aroma and taste of Chinese rice wine you’d expect, and despite it looking like there was plenty of garlic and shallots sprinkled throughout the shrimp, these aromatic flavours weren’t prevalent either. If simple stir-fried shrimp is what you’re looking for, this isn’t bad. But, for being labelled a “signature dish” and called “drunken garlic” it really needs more oomph.

Like others, the crispy noodles are separated from the sauce for the vegetable and tofu chow mein ($18). While the sauce is a nice consistency and flavourful, there’s so much of it and not much else: several scant broccoli florets, sliced carrots, squares of cabbage leaves, and small tofu pieces - that’s about it. Missing were traditional Chinese ingredients like bok choy, bamboo shoots, baby corn ... things that would make this much heartier.

But truly anything is better than the chicken young chow fried rice ($19). Seriously, was this actually made by someone who had any cooking experience? If you took steamed rice and mixed in boiled chicken and vegetables, then sprinkled finely chopped scrambled egg over everything you’d get Riz’s fried rice. There was absolutely no flavour and no wok hay. I had to scoop crispy beef over it to add any flavour and ended up stir frying the ample leftovers with more eggs and other ingredients the following day to make it edible.

The wrapper on the shrimp dumpling or har gow ($9) was sticky and something leads me to believe these were frozen, but I understand… Riz isn’t known for dim sum and therefore likely not making these fresh daily. For a dinner delivery, they weren’t terrible.

Yet, what threw me off was the black square of who-knows-what stuck onto a dumpling as soon as I opened the package. How much time could it possibly take someone packing the dish to remove the debris? Is a dirty dumpling really the thing you want customers to see?

For everyone’s sake, I surely hope the delivery was just an off night. Because one thing that’s great about Riz’s expansive menu is their commitment to serving those with ingredient intolerances: not many Chinese restaurants offer a gluten-free menu safe for a celiac person and also have a number of vegetarian options that can be made vegan. Unfortunately, these customers will also never get to taste their crispy beef, the one thing we would ever re-order for.