Newly opened on Denman is Jingle Bao, a dumpling house offering soup dumplings, noodle soups and snacks.
The restaurant takes over the space at 774 Denman St formerly occupied by Rad on Denman (a hot pot place) and Ritual (a restaurant once famous for being the first certified living wage restaurant in Vancouver).
Since my family and I love soup dumplings, we decided to give Jingle Bao a try as it is also conveniently located in our neighbourhood.
Jingle Bao Menu
The signature item at Jingle Bao is their Rainbow Soup Dumplings (spinach, mushroom, shrimp, spicy Szechuan flavour, and original pork).
Other dumpling offerings include traditional xiao long bao (pork soup dumpling), Crispy Snowflake Pork Dumplings, Crystal Shrimp Dumplings, and Vegetable Dumplings.
They also offer dim sum staples like Pork Sui Mai and Shrimp Ha Gow as well as snacks like Chilled Garlic Green Beans, Salt and Pepper Chicken and Crispy Fish Fillets.
FYI, their current offering is smaller than what they have posted on their website.
House-Made Dumplings
The dumplings are made in-house and guests can observe the process through the open window to the counter.
Here is a bit of footage that I took when I was there:
What We Tried
We ordered the following from Jingle Bao:
- Traditional Pork Soup Dumplings (5 for $5.95)
- Rainbow Soup Dumplings (5 for $6.95)
- Shrimp Ha Gow (4 for $7.95)
- Crispy Snowflake Pork Dumplings (6 for $8.95)
- Crystal Shrimp Dumplings (4 for $7.95)
The Pork Soup Dumplings (original xiao long bao) didn’t disappoint being nicely aromatic with a hot, rich broth and thin wrappers.
The Rainbow Soup Dumplings with different fillings (spinach, mushroom, shrimp, spicy Szechuan flavour, and original) were also good in general. The mushroom filling had the strongest flavor while the shrimp filling had the weakest.
The Crystal Shrimp Dumplings were also tasty and not just a dish pretty in pink for the novelty factor.
We also really enjoyed the Crispy Snowflake Pork Dumplings which had a tasty pork filling and was nicely crispy on the edges but not overly greasy.
The Rainbow Soup Dumplings did take a bit of time to be made while all the other dishes were delivered to us much more quickly. I initially ordered three rounds of Rainbow Soup Dumplings but they only delivered one to us after a half hour.
It was slow to receive those dumplings considering we were the first customers in the restaurant for the day. I had to cancel the two other orders as we needed to head out.
The ha gow were OK with nicely, thin, translucent wrappers and bouncy, shrimp fillings. However, they were on the expensive being $2 per piece and I can’t say it was worth it.
The original Pork Soup Dumplings ($1.20 each) and Rainbow Soup Dumplings ($1.40) were more worth it in terms of taste and value.
Service/Operations
Service felt a bit scattered as there was only one server. At one point, one of the staff in the kitchen decided to help the front of the house.
My table was also pretty wobbly so I decided to fix it myself by putting some tissue underneath.
Hours of Operation
The hours of operation posted on Google and on their website aren’t quite accurate. They currently open at 11:30 am and close somewhere around 9 pm according to staff.
Overall Impression of Jingle Bao
All in all, I’d be interested to return. The food and prices were reasonable but the food was slow to come out. I saw a lot of tables which seemed to be idling due to the long wait. They will need to have a faster table turnover if they want to make it on Denman. Rating: 4/5
Jingle Bao
774 Denman St, Vancouver, BC
jinglebao.com