Daimo • Daimao's comeback
Let's have a chat about "Daimao" before we talk about the restaurant! My teammate tells me "Daimao" in Cantonese means squatting! What type of restaurant would name itself "Daimao"? Probably a roadside stall with low prices and rugged food!
This Daimo restaurant in Richmond was my go-to before the pandemic, its quality declined a bit during the pandemic — the taste was ok, but the dishes were bland and unremarkable. Today was my first visit post-pandemic, and I discovered it's significantly improved! Beyond the basic menu, they've added chef-recommended signature dishes, and shockingly, one of them is "Historian Snake Soup" — very few Cantonese restaurants in the Bay Area can make this soup! The kiddos asked what snake soup is, and were terrified when I answered! However, we didn't order it, because it's heaty — the soup tastes better during winter! Now onto my dining experience:
Signature dishes we ordered:
* Fresh bamboo ginkgo pea shoot soup! I love all the ingredients - fresh bamboo + ginkgo + pea sprouts, soaked in delicious white bean soup. This dish is as rare as the snake soup in Cantonese cuisine!
* Cordyceps flower chicken soup! Soup is steamed separately from water, there's a lot of ingredients, and silk chicken is used in the soup — salty with a touch of sweetness, high nutritional value!
Popular dishes we ordered:
* Black pepper beef tenderloin stir-fried with rice noodles! The beef tenderloin was soft and tender, the sauce well-thickened, sticky and fragrant; the rice noodles tasted even better!
* Salt and pepper prawns! Big, meaty prawns, deep-fried till crispy, there were about 13-14 pieces - very generous portion!
* Kung Pao chicken! I only had two bites of this dish as I was too full from the previous dishes — it's not quite like authentic Kung Pao chicken, stir-fried with bean paste, the flavor is more American-style. Works well as a side dish!
For dim sum, we ordered:
Glutinous rice balls! Their dim sum is cheap, as shown in the menu
#Daimo #Daimao #CantoneseCuisine #RestaurantReview #SignatureDishes #PandemicEats #DimSum #Foodie
