What’s For Dinner? Little Bird Dim Sum Does Dinner Yum Cha
I do Dim Sum A LOT! Mainly because I’m a Vancouver Food Tour guide and we have a Richmond Dumpling Trail Tour so you’ll often find me in Richmond leading hungry dumpling fans to dim sum and exposing our guests to many other Asian dumplings. However, I still crave Dim Sum on many of the days I’m not touring, and sometimes that craving is outside the regular hours most restaurants serve up those little bundles of goodness that I desire. Fortunately now there’s a dinner spot in my neighbourhood that I can count on when that dim sum need has to be met, Little Bird.
Little Bird is owned by members of a family of avid Dim Sum restaurateurs, as their grandparents, mother and father ran Flamingo House, once on Cambie and Fraser Street and now on Marine Drive. This spot is still a family business and owner Jonathan Lee told us just how involved each member was. “Little Bird is a venture that I pursuing with my siblings, my older brother (Jerome) and young sister (Natasha). They are not active daily in the restaurant as my brother is a doctor and sister is a civil servant, but you’ll see my sister from time to time, as she puts on an apron and becomes our super server. My father and mother have been in the industry for a very long time; over 40 years (Flamingo House). Both of them provide valuable coaching which has been instrumental to the business. My brother in law, Anthony (Digital Insomnia) , is the creative director for Little Bird.”
I was curious as to how they produced so many variations of dim sum and Lee told me that all of the Dim Sum is actually made in house. They have a central kitchen where the dim sum is made every day and a few items that are prepared on premises; including the Scallop Taro Puff, egg tarts, and tofu bun. When asked about the recipes, Lee commented that “Little Bird is not your typical East meets West restaurant and is definitely not trying to be a fusion restaurant. We want to bring the best of the East, in our case it is traditional Cantonese Dim Sum and tea, and pair it with a Western style service, aesthetic and serve local BC beer and wine.”
The menu is a selection of our favorite and most popular Cantonese dim sum items and the majority of the items are traditional. Lee worked with the head dim sum chef to come up with some items and make changes to ingredients to items to ensure they can be inclusive and many items are suitable for vegans and are gluten free. The goal is to enable as many people, regardless of dietary restrictions, to enjoy yum cha.
Tea is usual at dim sum and, but Lee is also known for their craft beers and local wines. “Jasmin and Pu’erh tea are your typical go-to’s when having dim sum. We’ve also included the Chrysanthemum tea with rock sugar because my late Aunt from New York introduced this combination to be when I was kid. The addition of rock sugar is very much a New York cantonese thing to do; but I honestly can not get enough of it, so I had to include it on the menu.” In terms of beer and wine, Little Bird is committed to sourcing this locally and everything that they serve is from BC.
Lee commented that “Dim Sum is typically light and delicate and the goal was to find both beer and wine that would not over power the food. Through a lot of tasting, we discovered was that beers that have a clean finish or beers that include notes of spice and fruit pair well with Dim Sum; surprising so did some darkier and hoppier beers.” They will be changing the line up to rotate through more of the local breweries.
In terms of wine, Lee knew that I Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay would pair well with Dim Sum and relied on my cousin, Bettina (once again keeping it in the family), to help narrow down the list. They always have a bottle that is always meant to be more experimental with dim sum. and it was a Rose the night we were in.
I was curious as to how involved Lee was in his father’s restaurants growing up. “My extended family (all my cousins on my dads side) would be the restaurant on the weekends and our parents and Grandparents would be there so naturally would we spend time there. If you ever saw kids running wildly outside back in the day, it was probably me and my cousins. As kid I worked at both Flamingos bussing tables, getting the table settings ready (plate, napkins, bowl, spoon, tea cup) and dishwashing. I never graduated further because my Chinese is horrendous. My grandparents and my parents never wanted any of us to get into the restaurant business. They wanted us to pave or own path. My brother, sister and me all finished university and my brother has become a doctor, my sister a civil servant and I joined the world of business consulting and became an executive at a large global consulting firm. When my family began to grow (wife and now 2 kids) I desired a lot more work life balance (I was travelling 50 weeks a year gone Monday to Fridays) and decided to return back to home to Vancouver. I had the idea of Little Bird for long time but never thought it would actually happen as I was focused on my career in consulting. But here I am now, like my grandfather and father, delivering dim sum to Vancouver!”
Little Bird is 2958 W 4th Avenue and is open from 5-10 Tuesday to Saturday and on Sundays from 11:30-2:30 pm and again from 5-10 pm.
