Usually, when I visit a restaurant for dim sum, I’m going for the small dishes filled with bite sized morsels for sharing amongst a table. Things change at Jumbo Lobster where seafood is king. Especially since they only have 24 dim sum dishes (one being French fries) on their menu.

It’s a restaurant made for large gatherings, even a table of four is too tiny. Otherwise, it’d be difficult to order one of their two lunch menus where charges are based on the size of the lobster: $35/lb for 5lbs+ and $36/lb for 10lbs+.  While the price difference is minimal, the surcharge for the 10lb+ meal allows diners to have the lobster prepared two ways and arrives with additional dim sum dishes (eight vs. five).

The 10lb+ lunch menu (or L2 for $36/lb) includes lobster, eight dim sum, congee, fried rice, and a vegetable dish. Out of the stir-fried green onion and ginger and deep-fried dry garlic lobsters, I preferred the traditional onion and ginger as the crustacean’s flavours were more pronounce and felt juicier and plumper.

Despite the mountain of ingredients filling the deep-fried garlic version, it just tasted salty with a hint of sweetness. I can see the dish being favoured by children as it sits on a bed of French fries, which were kind of stale given they’re prepared ahead of time.

Any lobster tomalley is reserved for the lobster roe and shrimp fried rice, which was prepared well. The dish had decent wok hay, and the rice dry enough so there were distinct granules of grain. It was so good that our table finished the entire plate.

To balance the heavier items, there’s a generous portion of poached snow pea tips with goji berry, which were stir fried until tender but still crispy and fresh.

After ordering it does take about 30 minutes before dishes arrive - an anomaly at dim sum where things normally start flying in as soon as the menu is whisked away. In fact, the first item presented isn’t even dim sum, rather a large bowl of chicken congee that’s piping hot and contains tons of bone-in skin-on chicken. It’s a hearty and flavourful way to begin.

What I enjoy about Jumbo Lobster’s dim sum is that they make each item smaller to include more in a dish, making it easier to share. For example, a dish like shrimp dumplings generally arrive in fours but there are six at Jumbo Lobster.

The exception was the steamed rice rolls, which may be slightly longer but contained two rolls instead of three. Nonetheless, they were thin and silky and likely one of the items made in house.

Dishes like the steamed buns seemed like they were purchased frozen wholesale as they were all perfect spheres making the filling indecipherable. Wanting a pork bun, I played Russian roulette and was left with salted egg yolk instead. To their credit, it’s a solid interpretation of the dessert – a creamy molten centre with small egg yolk pieces mixed throughout. Sadly, the sweet and salty filling is not for me.

Much to my chagrin, it’s the same filling used in their deep-fried sesame balls, which were warm and crispy but not filled with lotus paste.

As for the staple dishes, their siu mai just contained pork but were rather juicy. Contrasted against the beef balls that were too dense, even when eaten hot from the steamer.

And while Jumbo Lobster provides a decent portion of meat in the pork spare rib, it lacks flavour as there’s more pumpkin than black bean sauce. The table seemed to prefer the beef belly with special sauce instead.

We were thoroughly sedated after our meal and were quickly pushed out after 1.5 hours to accommodate the bustling Sunday crowd. And for the financially savvy: paying with cash will net you a 10% discount. But, if plastic is your thing, stick with debit as credit card payments command an additional 3% surcharge. Whatever you do, just gather a group of at least ten, you’ll need them to get through the mountain of lobster.