As the number of Chinese increases in the city, so is the variety of Chinese restaurants. We are seeing a lot of bubble tea station and Chinese skewers focused restaurant open to satisfy the demand. We see openings of Chinese skewers restaurants open from Happy Tree House BBQ, to Li’s China, to Kuan Zhai Road Restaurant, to The Meat Up, and now Big Tree Food Palace. Skewers is definitely gaining traction in the Vancouver food scene. There’s nothing better than bunch of close friends having BBQ skewers with cold beer in the hot Summer night.
Interior space looks newly renovated and clean. Dark furniture with Chinese painting on the walls for decoration. The place is well lit. Customers are scattered around the store. We arrived around 8pm when skewers customers should start to pick up. We only saw a few customers walked in during our time here.
Typical ways to have wall-hung TV playing Chinese reality TV shows to entertain guests. It’s not very interesting, but provide some kind of background noise.
One Large Plate For All Skewers
This is just a snap shot of the food we ordered. They will bring a couple type of skewer to the table at one time. This is because different ingredients require different amount of cooking time. They typically just put the new skewers on the same plate as the one before. If you don’t eat fast enough, you are going to end up with a mound of skewers.
Lamb Is Quite Dry, Not Impressive
Lamb Skewers in a Chinese BBQ skewer restaurant is like the ice cream in a Dairy Queen. They are the foundation of everything. You might not always get them, but they are the foundation of everything else you do. Without getting into it too much, the lamb skewers has okay seasonings. It’s okay to eat, but you can feel that multiple facet of the taste are missing. Almost monotonous. You get the extremes of dry meat, or a piece of fat. And unfortunately, that piece of meat made me thankful. It shouldn’t be like this.
Expensive BBQ Squid Tentacles
Spicy squid tentacle is cooked. Not overly dry, not juicy either. I cannot taste anything spicy in it. There is taste, but nothing to write home about. For $1.50 each, this is not really worth it.
Chicken Wings Are Okay
Chicken wings comes in 2 and were held with 2 skewers. Thoughtful, but not that uncommon to see. Herbs and seasonings are fine. The meat is not juicy. Not super impressed, but it’s okay.
Spicy Special Hot Pot Are Not Very Special
Special Spicy Hot Pot is basically skewers cooked in hot pot and then soaked in spicy soup, served in a heat-retention container. These hot pot have to be very spicy to be good. I tasted a hint of spiciness. Perhaps this Special Spicy Hot Pot is made for customers who can’t eat spicy food.
Seafood Noodle Don’t Deserve my iPhone’s Shutter
There’s one dish I did not take picture for. The seafood noodle. I think it’s about $16, and there are quite a few jumbo shrimps in there. The shrimps do not justify the price point. Also, the noodle was really soggy that it’s only good when you’re extremely hungry. I didn’t think it’s worth my iPhone’s digital shutter (which is pretty much free).
604 Food Critic Assessment
Big Tree Food Palace is not a very good restaurant. Our bill comes to $130 for 4 people with 15% tips. A bill of $150 for 4 equals to $37 per person. I don’t care if their rent is high. Their food quality is not worth $37 per head. The ingredients are sub-par. The majority of the food is slightly overcooked. I’m not sure if it’s bad to a point of “must-try”, but I think customers know when they eat something over-priced. The bad food quality of this restaurant would be acceptable if it’s $18 per person. Not recommended.
Menu
How to get in touch
Phone: (604) 558-3848
Address: 2106 W 41st Ave, Vancouver
