Mott 32 Vancouver was recently voted the best Chinese restaurant in Canada, and you’ll get no argument from me. I certainly haven’t been to better.

First off, the place is stunning, not in an overdone or overly elaborate way, but with just the right touch of traditional and modern character.

The menu is extensive both at dinner and especially at lunch, where there’s even more dim sum available. We started with the hot and sour soup, which is extremely complex and flavorful. Then we shared the Peking duck salad and the Marinated Cucumber and Pomelo. It’s hard to pick a favorite and not give both of them a perfect 10. The duck salad was perfectly balanced between dressing and the complex aged duck strips and lots of fresh greens, while the cucumber salad had complex flavors that had also seeped into the pomelo, which was not overwhelmingly citrusy. I think it’s my favorite cucumber salad of all time.

Those three dishes would certainly have been a meal, but we just wanted to try a few other things. We also shared the crab meat fried rice (a very generous serving), the chive dumplings, which were baked (an approach I had not seen before with dumplings), and the BBQ pork buns, which were also baked. They were all very good, but maybe not quite as good as our first three dishes. The BBQ pork buns were almost more like a dessert because of the sweet honey barbecue mixture.

The wine list is extensive, with many international selections and some reasonably priced wines from BC. The Little Engine Chardonnay is particularly noteworthy. There’s also a great list of cocktails.

Service was friendly and perfect.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/mott-32-vancouver-2

This is a beautiful restaurant with very precise service and a spectacular wine list. It’s well deserving of its one Michelin star. The specialty here is, of course, Beijing duck, which, for larger parties, is carved at table side (with a 60-minute preorder required). We went for Saturday lunch and were pleased to get the set lunch, which is not prominently displayed on the electronic menu, but we asked about it and we’re happy that they had it. It consisted of this:

全聚德双人迎珍筵88套餐 ¡Den & Quanjude Curated Experience for Two | $88

STARTER 精致前菜

香薷捞汁鹌鹑蛋

Slowly Infused Quail Eggs in Master Five-Spice Blend

SOUP 养元汤品

全聚德传统老火靓鸭汤（两位）

Quanjude Signature Duck Soup (Two Servings)

MAIN 厨师主菜

琥珀花雕醉基围虾

*Amber” Drunken King Prawns Perfumed with Aged Shaoxing Wine

百年全聚德招牌烤鸭（半只）

Quanjude Signature Beijing Duck (Half Duck)

豉香古法玉唐生

Flash-Poached Lettuce Hearts with House-Brewed Seasoned Soy Sauce

DESSERT 清润甜品

桂雪初凝酿玉丸（两位）

Sweet Rice Dumplings in Osmanthus and Fermented Rice Soup (Two Servings)

We also added two different types of dim sum:

• shrimp, pork, and chicken buns
• chive dumplings

The duck was delicious, as one would expect. My favorite courses ended up being the amazingly complex flavored quail eggs and the equally intriguing shrimp.

Service was precise and extremely scheduled, driven by the availability of the foods in the kitchen.

While the wine list is quite expensive, with many of the bottles running over $1,000, I found that the Joseph Drouhin Bourgogne at only a little over $100 was an excellent accompaniment to the meal. The set lunch, on the other hand, is a bargain at only $88 for two people.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/iden-and-quan-ju-de-beijing-duck-house-vancouver-4