Its been a while since we had vegan dim sum (a little more rare than it should be) so it was nice to figure out that Little Bird has some specifically listed items that are plant based. We headed for Vancouver on this surprise (did you know that it was a stat?) statutory holiday Sunday.
Located at 2958 West 4rth, it was one bus from Burrard Street Station for us. We arrived just before noon knowing that they opened at 11am. It was quiet on the patio and we thought for a moment that their holiday hours had changed but inside they were almost a full house!
Easiest order ever! LBDS using erasable marker and plastic coated menus and you circle the items you want. Since there are 8 vegan items on the menu, I made one big circle around them all! First to arrive were the springs rolls. They were crispy and hot and filled with mushroom. cabbage and tofu. Very nice!
Next up were the Crispy Bean Curd Rolls. You may have read about my bean curd/tofu skins experiments not long ago. We really like this as a medium for wrapping veggies and other goodies like tofu and bamboo shoots. They get nice and crispy as advertised.
We definitely got our veggies today. Why don't I buy Gai Lan more often for home? These were still nice and firm and served with garlic and a vegan mushroom sauce that is reminiscent of oyster sauce, for sure.
The vegan Siu Mai actually used Beyond Meat which worked well. There was also a touch of truffle on the top which everyone seems to do these days. We liked it. There was just a nice little freshness from water chestnut as well.
Also arriving in a steamer basket were the Fun Guo. Lots of the same ingredients but will a little bit of a different texture this time. Things that arrive in baskets feel most like dim sum to us! These are usually made with pork and I'm not sure if I have ever had them so that was interesting too.
Sticky rice cooked in lotus leaf is one of my favourite dim sum things. I am so glad that it works so well as a vegan dish. We love the lotus leaf flavour. There was a lot to this including (we didn't really notice) chick peas!
And Shanghai Buns. More of the same cabbage and various mushroom mixture but in a nice pan fried bun. Usually pork laden, with these no on has to die. 
Finally, Green Tea Sesame Balls for dessert! These were very tasty and I could have sworn, chocolatey. Now they may have told us that they were different today and I just didn't catch it, but the menu says matcha and not chocolate. They were delicious either way. Now admittedly, there was no way that we could finish this all and took a few items and some left over rice to go. After me making a fuss about bringing our own containers for leftovers, I totally forgot. We managed to jam everything into one container. lol.
A cozy little place, LBDS service is definitely a team effort. At least one of our servers figured out that we might not want the chili oil as it contains shrimp paste. Nice catch. Everyone was friendly and service was efficient. Prices are decent.
Food 4 out of 5
Vegan Options 4 1/2 out of 5
Comfort 4 out of 5
Service 4 1/2 out of 5
Value 4 out of 5
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