Tang Li Yuan 唐荔園食藝館 (Guangzhou, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

A couple of weeks ago, I got the memo to start planning for a trip to Guangzhou after Easter. It’s my first trip to Guangzhou in 20 years and part of me was really excited about the chance to witness all the changes in the city over the past two decades.

We took the morning train at 8am-ish trying to get an early start. By the time we arrived in Guangzhou South station, it was around 9:30am. We hopped onto the local metro line and 15 stations (and around 40 minutes) later, we made it to Ruyifang station (如意坊站). We knew it wasn't good news when we saw a bunch of people hiding from the rain just inside the station. Soon, we found out ourselves that the heavy rain had caused a lot of flooding in the Liwan area. It was virtually impossible to cross a few of the main roads.

We had to really dig down and battle against the strong wind and heavy rain. It took us a while to get through all the obstacles but we finally made it to the edge of Liwan Lake Park (荔灣湖公園). Our clothes, jeans, socks, backpack; everything was soaking wet.

But we decided to stick with our plans. To kick off our visit in Guangzhou, we'll first enjoy a relaxing dim sum lunch at Tang Li Yuan (唐荔園食藝館), one of the four famous garden restaurants in Guangzhou (廣州四大園林酒家之一). 

Situated on the south side of Liwan Lake Park, Tang Li Yuan boasts a stunning lake view in a traditional Chinese setting reminiscent of the architectures from Tang dynasty.



Our tour of the iconic Xiguan food culture would start right here with our highly anticipated dim sum lunch.

It would have been a nice adventure to dine on board with one of these small boats but they were not in service amidst the poor weather conditions.

Instead, we're going to dine inside two-storey building by the lake. 

The dining room upstairs was nicely decorated with a lot of space in between tables.

We could enjoy a partial view of the lake at some of these tables by the window.

As soon as we got settled down (and started drying our clothes), our server came over to get our tea ready.

Time to enjoy something nice and warm after a hectic two hours.

Steamed rice rolls with mixed sauce (三色混醬腸) – I was excited to have this arrive as our first dish. The rice rolls beautifully decorated with the usual sesame sauce, sweet sauce and chilli sauce already sprayed on top, were so soft and tender. A very nice start to the meal.

Steamed shrimp dumplings (四色水晶鮮蝦餃) – This came with four distinctively different colors which had me immediately thinking that it was four different flavors. 

Well.....while I still believed they had four different flavors to it, I really couldn’t tell the difference. The red one looked like it’s been flavored with chilli but I couldn’t really tell.

Steamed turnip cake with nuts and preserved meat (果仁瑤柱臘味蘿蔔糕) – I like my steamed turnip cake to be really soft and loaded with ingredients but this was custardy like a pudding with very little ingredients in the middle. Not good.

Rice rolls filled with twisted cruller (蔥花金勾炸両) – This was finished with a sprinkle of fresh chives but I thought the twisted cruller was pretty hard and not nearly fluffy enough. 

Liwan-style assorted meat congee with sliced fish (馳名荔灣艇仔粥) – Sampan congee (or riverboat congee), a specialty of Liwan district! An order of this could easily serve up to three to four people. 

I thought this congee was by far the best dish of the meal hands down. It came with so much umami-rich flavors thanks to the fish stock and the amount of ingredients such as sliced fish, shredded pork, crispy pork skin (豬皮), squid and thin slices of scrambled eggs brought so much joy to every bite. 

Crispy puff with taro and scallop in curry sauce (咖喱帶子荔蓉酥) – The puff pastry was a little on the hard side (same for most pastries here this afternoon); same goes for the mashed taro.

But I thought the scallop and curry sauce were fine.

Crispy puff with assorted sweet potatoes (垂涎欲滴酥) – a signature dim sum here with with filling of three different types of sweet potatoes (mashed red potato, purple yam and what I heard was mochi 麻薯).

Again the pastry was a little thick and chewy. 

Cantonese steamed sponge cake (正宗馬拉糕) - Not bad.

While the ambience (including the lake view of course) warrants a second visit, the dim sum itself does not yield the same result. Other than the congee and steamed rice roll, the rest of the dishes didn't really make a strong impression on us but that's okay, we've got three more garden restaurants to check off the list anyways.

P.S.  Tang Li Yuan does not take reservations, online or by phone so don't bother giving the folks here a call.

Food Rating: 5.2/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Huangsha Boulevard, Ruyifang Road, Liwan Lake Park South Gate, Liwan District, Guangzhou, China

广州市荔湾区黃沙大道如意坊路口荔灣湖公園南

Closest Metro Station: Ruyifang (如意坊)

Tel: +86 (20) 81702228

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 9:00pm daily