My friend has been talking about this Taiwanese restaurant in Richmond with awesome popcorn chicken that his friends brought him to. Last week it was my turn to try it out. They were hyping it up a lot!

I obviously ordered the Popcorn Chicken, but also ordered a Beef Roll. Our group of 5 actually also got even more popcorn chicken. I think 4 in total, along with a Chicken Cutlet, and a Sweet and Sour version of the popcorn chicken. Yup, it must be that good right? The other dish we ordered was the Taiwanese Sausage. The cooks in the back were shocked that we had 4 orders of popcorn chicken (2 with rice, 2 without), I guess I would be too.

My popcorn chicken meal was also served with rice, and 3 side dishes – tofu, chop suey, and green beans. I’ll admit the popcorn chicken is good! The amount of chicken is quite a lot. This isn’t like some places where it’s all batter, or just slivers of chicken. These are nice big juicy chunks. The breading was very flavourful, and crisp. However, I think there was some MSG in there, as near the end of my meal, I was getting very sick of it, and very thirsty. I don’t know how my friend ordered chicken cutlet plus an order of popcorn chicken. It was basically the same thing, just cut differently. He was struggling after finishing just his cutlet. I think it’s good in moderation, and I’d gladly order it again here. Of the sides, I enjoyed the tofu the most. It was fried tofu packed with lots of flavour. The chop suey was good too, but I think they have some small pieces of squid in there. The beef roll was nice too. Fairly crisp roll, and  a bit flakey. They used a bit of a thicker cut of beef than I’m used to seeing, but still was tender. The Taiwanese Sausage was really good too.

My meal also came with a yummy custard pudding that Beipas usually brings back for our friends from Taiwan, and it was just as good if not better.

To order you have to look at the menu, then mark down your order on a piece of paper to order. That’s where the prices are on that sheet I think because they definitely were not on the menu. It wasn’t too expensive, as I think my popcorn chicken combo was $8.50. Also note, it’s Cash Only!

The popcorn chicken did live up to the hype and I do recommend ordering it, but try to limit yourself and not go overboard like we did. We had a bit of a headache an hour or so after our meal, but we still crave for that chicken!

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Tri-Ty Cafe
130-8100 Ackroyd Road
Richmond, BC

(604) 231-8997

A couple of my LA homies were in town for a weekend, they have requested to get dim sum for brunch, so we ended up at Sun Sui Wah in Richmond.

We ordered the usual suspects of dim sum, shrimp dumpling, Sui Mai, rice rolls lots of other shrimp based dumplings.

My favorite of the day was rice rolls with chinese donuts. The chinese donuts were crispy but soft on the inside, it had a nice chewy texture. I was happy with their version of my favorite dim sum dish.

My other favorite of the day was fish maw with shrimp paste. The broth at the bottom of this dish was really nice.

My friend ordered a steamed rice ball dish. It was meatball, rolled with rice and steamed. The meatball filling was a lot like the filling in a sui mai. I’ve never had this dish before, and it liked it a lot.

One of the desserts we ordered was tapioca pudding with red bean. I was a disappointed with this dessert actually. It came out luke warm, and the crust was rather soft.

The food in general was good but it wasn’t as good as the couple times I had dim sum here before. The services here also needed some improvement that day, the waiters were rather aloof and had little patience. After this experience, I’m not sure if I’d come back as there are a lot more better options for dim sum out in Richmond.

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Sun Sui Wah
4920 #3 Rd
Richmond, BC V6X

Ever since I visited Golden Oscar Cafe I begged my friends to take me to a better Hong Kong style cafe. This time, he brought me to Ginger & Garlic in Richmond. This marks my 3rd time at a Hong Kong style cafe.

This time I decided to try the Portuguese style baked Chicken, while my friends got the Baked Pork Chop in tomato sauce, House special Spaghetti, and Seafood Noodles in Lobster sauce.

Each of our individual dishes also came with soup (borsch or cream) and choice of drink. I got the cream soup and Hong Kong style milk tea.

The soup came first, it wasn’t bad at all except I didn’t know what kind of cream soup it was. It had little bits of vegetables, and it didn’t really have any distinct flavor, it was just creamy.

The Portuguese style baked chicken was in a very subtle curry sauce. It had some potato wedges and red bell pepper in it. The portion size was generous for a $9.50 dish. It also came with a side of steamed rice. This was a solid dish, I really liked the crispy sears on the outside of the chicken.

I enjoyed my chicken, but my favorite of the night would have to be the Baked Pork Chop. It was a piece of deep fried pork chop smothered and baked in tomato sauce. The sauce was tomatoey and sweet. The texture of the pork chop was great, although it was covered in all the sauce, the batter still had its crispiness, and the meat was tender and moist. There were also plenty of steamed rice underneath the pork.

The seafood noodle in lobster sauce came with spinach noodles that were really over cooked. The dish got rather mushy after a little bit. The noodle had strong seafood taste though. It had lots of mussels, squid, shrimp and fish.

3rd time’s the charm. This HK style cafe didn’t disappoint me, and I liked the pork chop and HK style milk tea quite a lot. There were also a lot of Malaysian food on the menu, I guess I will try those next time.

All the single dishes that came with soup and drink are mostly just under $10, it is definitely a place for cheap eats.

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My friend Andy had his birthday dinner at Jade Seafood Restaurant last month. I was one of the 10 invited for the birthday king crab feast.

Given that it was king crab season, it was what Andy wanted for his birthday, so for our dinner, we ordered a large king crab with a 10 course set meal.

There were 3 ways to cook the king crab, we picked the legs to be steamed with garlic and green onions, deep fried claws, and the rest for a baked fried rice.

Steamed king crab with garlic is the best, it’s probably my favorite way to prepare king crab legs. The meat was super fresh, there was a really nice blend of the sweetness from the crab and the garlic. I could eat a whole plate of this and not get sick of it.

The deep fried king crabs had a really light batter and it was really crispy. It was seasoned really nicely with pepper and deep fried garlic slices. The crab meat was super moist, and again like the steamed ones, you can really taste the freshness of the crab.

Our 10 course meal started with Fish Maw soup, my favorite chinese soup. It was quite tasty, but not the best I’ve had.

The 10 course meal also included Peking Duck prepared in 2 ways, crispy skin wraps, and lettuce wraps. Unlike our dinner at Su Huang no mis-prepared peking duck drama here. The duck was delicious.

Other dishes in the 10 course meal were chicken chow mein, stir fried scallops, and steak with vegetables. Most of the dishes in the 10 course meal had some sort of seafood in them. It was nice that we were able to swap some dishes for one of our non-seafood eating friend there with no extra cost.

The 3rd dish of the king crab, baked fried rice came towards the end of the meal. The fried rice was baked in the king crab’s body shell, and it was topped with melting cream sauce. I really liked this dish because the fried rice had really nice coconut curry flavoring, super tasty.

We all really liked the food, and we all totally over ate. The service was friendly. The birthday dinner was a success here.

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The Jade Seafood Restaurant
8511 Alexandra Rd
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 249-0082

I don’t often visit a bubble tea joints for food, but my friends brought me to the newish What8ver Cafe because they wanted to try it.

We visited this place after we visited Steveston Pizza so we weren’t exactly too hungry for dinner. We decided to get a few items to share, which included Salt & Peppery Chicken, Club Sandwich, and Minced Pork Rice.

The deep fried chicken bits of the Salt & Peppery Chicken didn’t taste greasy, the flavors were pretty authentic.

The Minced Pork Rice was stewed pork pieces on rice. It pork has a strong soy sauce flavor and there were some fatty pieces in it too. I’m normally not a fan of this particular Taiwanese dish, but my friend enjoyed it a lot.

The Club Sandwich was kind of a let down. The sandwich had an fried egg, dried pork, tomato and iceberg lettuce. It came in a basket sitting on top of some fries. The sandwich just tasted bland even with all the ingredients.

Other than food, I ordered a warm Aloe Green Tea. It came in a big tea pot, but the tea was way too sweet. My friends didn’t really enjoy their bubble teas either.

After our visit, even though the food wasn’t bad, my overall impression pretty much summed it up like their restaurant name, whatever.

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What8ver Cafe
1108 – 8328 Capstan Way
Richmond, BC
(778) 297-5992

This Chinese New Year we celebrated with a dinner at Suhang Restaurant in Richmond.

The five of us decided to order one dish each except myself, because there were two dishes I really wanted to try here. I ordered Peking Duck and Pan Fried Rice Cakes with Vegetables, and the rest of the table ordered the Xiao Long Bao, Shanghai Fried Noodles, Tofu with Ham and Chinese Pork Hock.

The Xiao Long Bao came first and they were really good. They were really juicy and the meat tasted fresh.

The Peking Duck’s crispy skin was really crispy, fatty and yummy. This dish only came with 8 wrap sheets, which wasn’t enough for all the crispy skins on the dish or all of us to have 2 wraps. So we asked for more wrap sheets, they gave us another 8 without telling us it cost another $4.

The Tofu with Ham dish didn’t look like what it sounds at all. It was tofu cut in noodle like shape in a soup with vegetables, shrimp and thing slices of ham. This dish was flavorful, the tofu was tough enough without breaking. It was one of my favorite dish of the night.

I always see Pan Fried Rice Cake with Vegetables on other people’s tables when I visit a Shanghainese restaurant. This time I finally get to try it and it wasn’t a disappointment. The rice cakes were chewy and it was fried with minced vegetables and pork. I liked it a lot in both the flavor and texture.

When the waiter came with our pork hock we were all mesmerized by how jiggly it was. The bone in pork hock on bok choy was jiggling like a huge jello. The pork was really fatty, it was almost impossible to find a lean piece of meat with out getting some of the fat. The fatty pork just melts in your mouth. It was a guilty pleasure.

The restaurant was super busy that night and it didn’t take long for us to notice that the service had slowed down quite a bit.

Our second dish for the Peking Duck was lettuce wrap but it never came. We asked one of the waitresses about the lettuce wrap and she gave us a confusing shrug and just walked away. We had to ask about 2 more waiters for our dish, one of them apologized for the wait and said it was coming. Once our dish finally came but it wasn’t a lettuce wrap, it was stir fried duck with vegetable, and it was pretty obvious that there was no duck, the meat was substituted with pork.

Our theory was, our lettuce wrap got sent to the table next to us, and instead of apologizing they sent the dish to the wrong table, they tried to cover it up by giving us a complete different dish without telling us. Not cool. You can’t not admit your mistake and still charge us full price for the dish.

The food was good here, but it’s just really too bad that they have such shitty staff, including the managers. There was the grumpy one, the confused one, and most of them ignored us when we spoke English to them. Even though they did apologize again when we were settling our bill, the apology didn’t seem genuine. It’s really too bad because otherwise I’d return to this place for sure.

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Suhang Restaurant
#100-8291 Ackroyd Rd
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 278-7787

This past Sunday I had another dim sum brunch with a few friends, and this time we visited Fisherman’s Terrace Seafood in Aberdeen Center.

This was my first time visiting the restaurant, and judging from the crowd, it looked pretty promising that we’re going to get some good food. But to be honest, our experience wasn’t so great.

The dim sum dishes were rather mediocre and there weren’t any special dishes. I was most disappointed by their Chinese donuts in rice rolls. The donuts were soft and soggy.

There was a Baked Portuguese scallops dish that we ordered out of curiosity. It was very weird. It was a tart with sweet crusty top, and beneath it was a scallop and ground meat. It was just a confusing dish with all these different flavors that don’t really mix.

Fisherman’s Terrace Seafood has one of the worst customer service even for Chinese restaurant standards. While settling our bill we asked a manager to break a 20 dollar bill for some loonies and toonies. She didn’t take our instruction well, and it required her to make a second trip to get us more change. But before she made her second trip from our table, she threw us an attitude and warned us that this had better be the last trip she’ll have to make to get us changes.

Mediocre food, and lousy stuck up attitudes from the staff, No thanks, I will never return nor recommend it to anyone.

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Fisherman’s Terrace Seafood
4151 Hazelbridge Way
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 303-9739

I love dim sum restaurants with pushy carts because you can get your food right away when you sit down! I love dim sum restaurants with pushy carts because it’s old school. I love dim sum restaurants with pushy carts because you get to take a look at your food before you order them. Pushy carts ftw!

When I walked in to Continental Seafood Restaurant and saw pushy carts, I was like: holy awesomeness! Besides the pushy carts, this restaurant was also really big! We arrived at 10:30am and it didn’t look like we needed reservations at all.

We pretty much started eating as soon as we sat down. We ordered the usual suspects for dim sum, the shrimp dumplings and sui mai. They were all tasty and fresh. There were also the Chives and Shrimp steam dumplings that was full of chives flavor, super yummy. And the steamed Scallop dumplings had a lot of juices from the shrimp and the scallops.

There was also a corn and shrimp dumpling that looked really delicious, but turned out to be quite bland. It was worth to try though.

Besides steamed dumplings, my faovrite dim sum food is Chinese donuts wrapped with rice noodles. The donuts were really crispy and they were in good bite size pieces.

The savory parts of the dim sum was really good here. But besides the custard buns, the desserts were pretty disappointing. The mango pudding lacked mango flavor, and the egg tarts were really greasy. We were sad that we ended a good meal with bad desserts.

The pushy cart ladies were really nice (for Chinese restaurant standards). They said ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘thank you’ a lot, and were quite chatty. I really liked this place, and I totally come back, just not for desserts.

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Continental Seafood Restaurant
11700 Cambie Rd
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 278-6331

Ever since I visited Shanghai River I’ve been on the hunt for other restaurants for good Shanghainese food. After a little search on the internet, I went to Dinesty Chinese Restaurant with a couple friends for dinner.

Since everything was sort of tapa sized, we ordered 5 different dishes to share. We got the Xiao Long Bao, Garlic Pork, Seafood with Home Made Noodles, Vegetable Dumplings, Pan Fried Beef Bun, and Tea Smoked Duck Sliders.

The Xiao Long Baos were really delicious. They were really juicy, and size wise they were smaller than the ones you’d find at Shanghai River, they also had thinner wraps. The XLBs were awesome, but the Vegetable Dumplings weren’t. We found the vegetable dumplings to be extremely dry, it was like they dried out all the vegetables in the filling.

The Garlic Pork was our favorite out of all dishes. If you love garlic, you’d love this dish like we did. It was thinly sliced boiled fatty pork topped with garlic sauce. The garlic sauce was really garlicky. It had a really strong kick at first bite, and then it was just garlic magic dance in your mouth. So yummy. Good dish to start off or eat throughout the meal.

The Pan Fried Beef Bun is a good alternative to all the pork buns. Be really careful when you bite into one of these, because they are very juicy and it is very easy to burn your tongue if you’re not paying attention. I really liked the flavor in the filling, and the crispy crust.

The Tea Smoked Duck Sliders was a dish we decided to get last minute, and it turned out to be a disappointment. We were expecting a small portioned dish, but it turned out we got a full duck. The duck was deep fried and they were pretty dry. It had smokey and subtle tea flavoring. We wished it came with at least some sort of sauce.

We sort of went a little dessert crazy that night and we ordered 5 desserts. We ordered the Coconut Tapioca, and the Almond Tofu. We also ordered 3 types of sweet steamed buns, Black Sesame, Taro, and Salted egg in Condensed Milk. Yup, we really like desserts.

The Almond Tofu was missing some almonds, it was very bland. Out of all desserts, I liked the Salted egg in Condensed Milk buns the best. It sounds really weird, and in fact that’s why I ordered it. It was the sweetest out of all 3 sweet steamed buns, and the filling smelled really nice. It tasted sweet rather than salty, the salted egg made up for the texture. The Coconut Tapioca was also a really yummy dessert.

The restaurant gets super busy, getting a hold of a waitress was kind of hard, but they were all really nice. I had a good time eating here, there were some good dishes, and they were some no so good ones. I’m not too sure if this is a Shanginese restaurant, but it’s a decent place to get some XLB and home made noodles.  I’d come back to try other dishes.

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Dinesty Chinese Restaurant
8111 Ackroyd Rd
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 303-7772

I have been craving for Peking duck for the past couple weeks and one of my friend suggested getting it at Shanghai River in Richmond.

Walking into Shanghai River, I immediately got the smell of vinegar and steamed buns. Then I saw the kitchen behind the glass window, where the chefs were rolling out doughs and making steamed buns, I knew this place has more to offer than just Peking duck.

There were a lot of items on the menu, and I was really excited about a lot of the dishes in there. For our dinner we ordered the Peking Duck, Xiao Long Bao, Pan Fried Buns, Fish Maw Soup, and Stir Fry Shell less shrimps.

The Xiao Long Bao came first in a steam basket, and there 8 little buns in it. The buns were super juicy, I actually made a mess eating them. The fillings were meaty and had nice seasoning, and they weren’t super greasy. The wrapping of the buns were thicker than I’m used to but they were hand made and they had the chewy texture from the dough that I liked.

The Pan Fried Buns were also really good. But it was a little redundant to order this and the Xiao Long Bao to be honest, because I think they had the same filling.

Crab and Fish Maw Soup is my all time favorite soup to order at a Chinese restaurant. I really enjoyed the soup here. It was filled with generous amount of crab and fish maw. I was very happy eating this soup.

There was no such thing as ordering half a Peking duck. Since the Peking duck only uses only the skin for the wraps, you basically have the choice of how you want the meaty part of the duck to be prepared. We decided to get Stir Fried Duck, other options were duck lettuce wraps and duck soup.

The duck was everything I imagined it to be. The skin was really crispy and fatty. Some of the slices also had some meat on them. The wraps were thin, all together with the green onions, cucumber and hoisin sauce, it was so yummy. It really satisfied my craving spot on.

The Stir Fried Duck had slices of duck meat, tofu, cabbage and mushrooms. It was stir fried in a sweet sauce, also hoisin I believe. It was not bad.

The Shell-less Shrimps came last and it was as delicious as the previous dishes. I loved this dish mainly because it reminded me of and tasted like the shrimp dish my aunt used to serve at her Shanghainese restaurant. It tasted like my childhood. It was a very simple dish, and the shrimp was cooked in oil, green onion, and a hint of rice wine. The wine gave a really nice aroma, and made it super tasty.

I was pretty full from all the food, but that didn’t stop me from ordering desserts. There were about 8 dessert dishes, and I picked one that I could understand, Black Sesame Rice Balls in Sweet Wine soup. Actually, I only saw black sesame rice balls, and I was sold. It was a huge dessert and it had 8 black sesame rice balls. The sesame rice balls were sweet and packed with black sesame paste; they were fantastic. The soup however, was a weird soup, it smelt alcoholic, it had eggs and rice bits in it, and it tasted sweet. I was too confused of what I was smelling and what I was tasting. I didn’t like it at all.

Overall the food was really good, the service on the other hand, could use some improvement. Even though our waiter/and waitress were pretty nice, the hostess had this funky attitude. It was really too bad that our experience was spoiled a little by her, they should consider placing a friendlier person up front to meet new customers.

I walked away really full and really satisfied. The restaurant was bright and clean. It was one of those more upscale Chinese restaurants. I’d come back to try other promising looking dishes I saw from other tables.

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Shanghai River
7831 Westminster Hwy
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 233-8885

It has been way too long since Wheel came back for a visit. One of the things he missed the most about Vancouver was dim sum, so last weekend we all woke up extra early to go to Empire Seafood Restaurant.

I’ve been to this place for dim sum once before, and I remembered it to be pretty decent. Our party of 7 ordered a lot of dim sum. Some of the casualties we ordered were the Sui Mai, Rice rolls, and Shrimp dumplings. They were all delicious. The Sui Mai were a little different and fancier from other places because they had shrimp and scallops on top.

Some of the more ‘adventurous’ items we got were the Deep fried Chicken knees, Tripe, and Chicken’s Feet. They probably don’t sound appetizing, but just in case you are bored with the regular dim sum items, those are worth giving a try.

The Deep fried Chicken Knees were basically deep fried cartilages, they had really crunchy texture, from the batter and the cartilages itself. They were seasoned with salt and pepper, and also deep fried onion flakes. They’re really good to eat it as is or with some steamed rice. The Chicken’s Feet were pretty good here. It tasted like they’ve been cooked for a long time, because the bones were just falling right off the meat. The sauce was sweet, and tasty.

Another highlight was the desserts. There are 2 desserts you must get here, the Egg Tarts and the Baked Tapioca. The Egg Tarts were one of the best I’ve ever had. They had really flaky and buttery crusts. The filling had a hint of coconut, and was not too sweet. Eat it while it’s still warm, it’s sooo yummy. The Baked Tapioca was also really delicious. The surprise was that it was baked with taro paste, instead of the regular red bean paste. I also liked it a lot.

Overall, this busy dim sum joint had great food. They had a good pace of getting the food to our table. The only thing strange was that they brought out the desserts before most of our food arrived, so keep in mind, order the desserts last, otherwise you’ll be eating the sweets before the savory.

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Empire Seafood Restaurant
200-7997 Westminster Hwy
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 249-0080

My second attempt to get dim sum at Gingeri Chinese Cuisine was a success! Last time I tried going here on a weekend, and had no luck of getting in because it was too busy. This time I went on a week day, and it was wait free and hassle free.

Like most dim sum places, they had an ordering sheet for you to order your items, however, this order sheet had no English on it. So, if you can’t Chinese, you got to use your verbal skills to order with a waiter. They had a couple menus for dim sum, and one of them actually have pictures of the dishes, that helped us a lot.

We ordered 9 items, the ones that stood out the most were the Seafood Salad Tarts, Steamed Fish Maw and Shrimp, Crab and Vegetable dumplings, Chinese donut in Rice Roll, and Coconut Sesame Rice Balls.

The Seafood Salad Tarts didn’t have much seafood in it. It had 1 shrimp, and it was sandwiched between 2 spoons of corn and mayo salad. It was also topped with shaves of gold sheets. The corn and mayo salad had the sweetness of the corn, and the mayo was a little tangy.  There was just too much of the salad in 1 tart. The shrimp didn’t have any taste to itself, it tasted like it was just boiled.

The Steamed Fish Maw & Shrimp was one of my favorite there. The fish maw were in big chucks, and the juice at the bottom of the dish had a lot of seafood flavor, it was really delicious.

The Crab and Vegetable dumpling was another great seafood dim sum dish. The dumpling wrapping held together really well, every bite was juicy and it tasted fresh. The only downside to it was it seemed like there was more shrimp than crab in it. It was still delicious though.

Chinese donut in Rice Roll is one of my all time favorite dim sum dishes. The Gingeri did not disappoint me. The rice roll wasn’t over steamed, and the donuts didn’t taste stale, they were crunchy on the outside, and doughy on the inside. It was really good.

We finished off our meal with Coconut and Black Sesame rice balls. They did a really good job on bringing out this dish towards the end of our meal, unlike other dim sum restaurants where they just bring out everything at once. The rice balls were still warm when they arrived our table. They were covered in loads of coconut. This was a really nice dessert. The black sesame inside was sweet and really delicious. It’s got just the right ratio of sesame filling in the rice ball. I will order this again without a doubt.

I didn’t know this place existed until a couple months ago. It was probably because it’s located at a pretty remote side of Lansdown mall in Richmond. The service at the place was pretty good. I had a great brunch here. I would definitely come back, but only on a week day, because it was absolutely a zoo here on weekends.

Note: 20% off dim sum 9am – 11am

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Gingeri Chinese Cuisine
323 – 5300 #3 Rd
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 278-6006

On one particular weekend, my mom brought us out to Richmond for Sunday dim sum without making any reservations at any restaurants. To not have make reservation in Richmond for dim sum on a weekend, was not a very smart thing to do. After some calling around for the least wait times, we ended up in Shiang Garden.

I’ve been to Shiang Garden a couple times before for dinner, it was some what a more expensive restaurant for Chinese food, and I never had bad experiences there. We were seated on the first floor of the restaurant, I never knew they had more than 1 floor of restaurant space. They own the first and third floor of the building, I wondered what’s on the second floor.

Their dim sum menu had mostly the normal things like Shu Mai and Shrimp Dumplings, but I was more exited to try their chef’s specials. One of them I liked a lot was the Pea Leaf in Rice Flour Rolls. The pea leaves were cooked perfectly, they were well seasoned, and had a nice crunch to them.  I usually get Shrimp in Rice Flour Rolls when I’m at dim sum, but I think I just found my new favorite rice roll dish; pea leaves, were way better.

Their Scallops and Shrimp dumpling had great flavor, however it was a little bit over steamed. The rice flour wrap that’s holding the dumplings together were breaking as we picked the dumplings up from the steam basket. I think some of the flavor was lost because it was over steamed, otherwise this would be a great dim sum dish.

One of their dish is called Eggplants in Spicy, we ordered it for it’s funny name in English. It turned out to be a little hot pot of eggplants in meat sauce, which was something we did not expect. The name of the dish was misleading, I don’t think vegetarians would be very happy to find minced pork in this eggplants dish. It was a very flavorful dish, and it would be perfect with just a bowl of steam rice.

The service here was pretty good, but just like most Chinese restaurants, they were a little under staffed. The waiters will get you what you want, as long as you can get their attention. We did have one dish that wasn’t cooked fully, the waiter did apologize to us and took it off of our bill.

The dim sum dishes averages about $5 dollars per dish, which was on the pricey side. It’s probably one of the restaurants, where you go when you feel like splurging a little on dim sum.

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Shiang Garden
4540 #3 Rd
Richmond, BC V6X
(604) 273-8858

Honestly, I’d never even heard of the place before Friday. I just got into Taiwanese Beef Noodle on Friday (yah, yah, I had some back in January but that didn’t really count), so this was my second taste of the delicious soup in the past 72 hours. My friend told me about this place today, and then I quickly looked at Urban Spoon, and saw the huge grey 29%. I got a bit worried. I went onto read some trust worthy reviews by Sherman, Chowtimes, and Follow Me Foodie and wasn’t so worried anymore. The lines looked ridiculous, and I probably wouldn’t have waited an hour on my first try. I came in with not very high expectations. I definitely wasn’t falling for the hype to only be let down.

We got in at about 7:30 PM tonight, and the place was empty. Yay no wait! The decor is pretty nice, and the waitresses were kind and attentive.

I didn’t look at the menu, I just described what I wanted to my friend, and they found them. You order by checking off stuff on a piece of paper - like Dim Sum/AYCE Sushi.  We all ordered the Champion beef shank with noodle in a spicy-ish broth with flat noodle for $10.95. Yah that’s pretty pricey for a bowl of noodle soup. I spent $9 on a large bowl of soup at Lao Shan Dong on Friday. We also ordered the Marinated beef wrapped in crispy pancake ($5.95), pan fried ground pork cake ($3.50 for 2), and some cold mixed baby cucumber ($3.50 – my friend loves pickled cucumber).

The food came really quick. The cucumbers came first. They were actually pretty and had some little red chili peppers on top. A bit spicy, and a bit vinegary. It was definitely good, and got my mouth ready for the upcoming food. Better than Lao Shan Dong.

Surprisingly our soup came next. The bowl is big, but there isn’t a huge amount of noodle in here like at Lao Shan Dong, that place gives a huge portion. It’s enough though, as I was full by the end of the meal. The flat noodle was a bit undercooked, and still had a bite to it, but meant to be that way, as it was able to soak up a bit of flavour from the broth. It was really good. The broth was hot, and had a bit of spice to it. Definitely more heat than the spicy broth at Lao Shan Dong. What made the dish for me though (besides the excellent noodles and broth) was the chunky pieces of beef. OMG! It was so good. It was so tender and fell a part so easily as you bit into a piece. You’d probably take 2-3 bites per piece, and it was just so tender and amazing. It was marbled with fat. I love it. That’s what made this beef noodle a winner for me. There were 4-5 big chunks in my soup, and every one of them was consistently awesome. Oh and there were also about 4 strips of thin sliced beef on the soup which were just as wonderful and tender.

There was a piece of bok choy floating around in my soup which I didn’t care for. It was too much work for me to eat. They also served the soup with a pickled cabbage or something.. I only tasted it, and didn’t put it in my soup.

The Marinated beef in pancake was thin slices of beef and cucumber wrapped in a crispy pancake. This was pretty good, but it could’ve been more saucier. There wasn’t that much flavour to it. The pancake was well cooked and crispy, but was a bit bland for me. It came with two pieces that were cut into 4 pieces each. It was OK. Maybe if it came with something to dip into it would be better, or just more sauce inside the roll.

The ground pork was better in my opinion. The pork had a bit more flavour but not by much, and the texture of the “cake” was really nice. It was crispy on the outside, and still kind of moist. It had some peas mixed in with the ground pork I think. I’d probably order it again as it was only $3.50 for 2. It’s good but not awesome.

Our waitress came back very often to refill our tea cups also! I think in our hour long dinner she came by 5-6 times to refill our cups. Oh and supposedly the Chef Hungwon best Taiwanese Beef Noodle in 2006 or something, which probably over-built his hype too. I think the soup is worth the hype. My friend did say when they first opened it was a bit inconsistent, and some dishes came out warm rather than hot. She’s actually been 4-5 times since it opened, so she’s had a lot of experiences. Her last 3 visits have been excellent.

Personally, I actually like Chef Hung’s better than Lao Shan Dong, I think it all had to do with the soup. I wouldn’t mind spending the extra $2. Yah it’s not as much and not as filling, but it’s good for a meal, and it tasted awesome. The beef here was just so much better and so consistent. The only thing stopping me from giving it 5 stars is the overall price, and the appetizers/snacks weren’t 5 star worthy.

I wish I took better pictures of my Taiwanese Beef Noodle though =(.. oh well that just means I have to go back =)

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Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle
2800-4151 Hazelbridge Way
Richmond, BC

(604) 295-9357

This was one of the restaurant that I went purely based on its name. McNoodle House is a Chinese restaurant in Richmond serving congee and noodles. McNoodle… Heehee

I went in around 8pm and the place was pretty empty. I was able to pick my own seat. The menu was pretty simple, it had mostly congees and noodle soups. With a quick glance at it, I already had an idea of  what I want. I got Preserved Egg and Pork Congee, Wonton noodle soup, Gai Lan (steamed vegetables), Chinese donuts (to go with the congee), and Taro and Pork spring rolls.

Preserved Egg and Pork Congee is a traditional congee, I was relieved that they didn’t screw this one up. It was pretty good actually. The congee wasn’t too watery, and the flavor was nice. The Chinese donuts ($1.50) didn’t taste fresh. I think they’ve been out for a while since it was pretty much the end of the day. I wish they were made fresh.

The wonton noodle soup was OK. It came with 4 wontons, and they were decent wontons. I preferred the congee over their wonton noodle soup. I got the Taro and Pork spring rolls because I was curious of what it would taste like. It was OK, the wrap was really crispy, but the filling was just OK.

I’m glad that I came to this place, because I had a really good dinner here. The food was cheap, our dinner came to $20.95, that averaged $4.00 dollars per dish, although the portions weren’t big. It was a really simple restaurant, serving simple delicious food, too bad they close early at 9pm. It’s a good place to get your congee fix, if you are craving for it.

Note: Close at 9pm. Cash Only!

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I went to Beijing Noodle House because I was really hungry, and I was craving for some dumplings. Also my friend seemed to really want to try this place.

I got in at 8pm, and there was only 3 tables occupied. The restaurant is pretty big, but it seemed pretty empty. Their menu actually has quite a few items, mostly consists of noodles and dumplings. There were a bunch that I wanted to try. I ended up ordering the Beef Brisket Noodle Soup, Mushroom and Pork Dumplings, Green Onion Pancake, Pan fried dumplings with eggs & leeks, and Beef roll. I wanted to try their Pan fried Pork bun, but they had already sold out.

The Beef Brisket Noodle Soup was the best one of the night. The soup was flavorful, and the beef was tender. The noodles were cooked well, it tasted home made. The rest of the food I ordered were OK. The green onion pancakes were a bit dry, and the Pan fried dumplings with eggs & leeks were not dumplings at all. They were green onion pancakes wraps with leeks & egg filling inside, kinda looked like a quesadilla. I didn’t like the beef roll, there wasn’t much taste to it.

My friend said I would be disappointed with the dumplings because I was craving for dumplings, and he was right. The mushroom and Pork dumpling was not good. While the dumpling wrap was good, the filling didn’t taste fresh, and there were no mushrooms at all. The portions for dumplings were pretty big though. For $7.50 dollars you’d get 15 big boil dumplings. There were about 3 other kinds of dumplings, you’d might want to stay away from the mushroom & pork.

Before I started ordering, I started taking photos of the restaurant, menu, etc. With only 3 tables in occupied in the restaurant, it was pretty obvious to others that I was taking pictures. Almost right after I took a picture of the menu, the waitress came over and said her boss didn’t want me to take pictures of the menu. I asked if I could take pictures of the food, she also said no. Ok.. thank god for camera phones, I managed to sneaked a couple pictures after.

The ambiance, there wasn’t much ambiance. Since the restaurant was so empty, I could hear the cooks talking at the back, and they sounded like they were arguing the whole time. The waitress never came to refill our tea. We had to wait awhile for her to pack our food, and get our bill. The food here is pretty cheap, but I would not come back.

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Beijing Noodle House
90-6451 Buswell St
Richmond, BC V6Y
(604) 278-2323

I’m starting off this post to congratulate Paul & Belinda on their wedding, and thanks for inviting me to one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to.

The wedding reception was held at Kirin Seafood Restaurant in Richmond. The dinner was a 12 course meal including appetizers, various entrée dishes and desserts. The whole meal had soup, vegetables, chicken, various types of seafood, and 3 types of desserts (including the wedding cake).

The food here was excellent. Out of the 12 dishes, there wasn’t a single dish that I disliked a tiny bit. Every single dish was well cooked, and timing on each course was just perfect. Some of my favorites were the steamed fish, the lobster, and the desserts. The crispy chicken was also really good. The skin was nice a crispy, and the meat was really juicy. The shark fin soup, and the rice in the end was pretty magical too. The sweet soup dessert with rice ball stuffed with black sesame was a perfect dessert to end the meal. I wasn’t all the hungry going to the dinner, and I ate everything the waiter gave me. It was so good!

The waiter we had was THE BEST! He was serving 2 tables at a time, ours and the other, and our tea pots, glasses of water, wine, pop were never empty. In fact, I don’t think my glass of water was ever less than half full. He had all the right etiquette, and didn’t have any assumptions. On our first course, he suggested to split the dishes for us, and we agreed. Our big Chinese dish was portioned into 9 little dishes, one for each one of us at the table. I never liked spinning the table for food at Chinese restaurants, so that was a genius idea. Ever since then, he always asked for our consent to split the dishes, to the point where we didn’t feel it was necessary for him to ask, he still did, for all 12 courses. He was a big part of our dining experience, he was so good that we thought he should give out waiter-ing lessons. No joke.

For all of you lovers getting married, consider Kirin Seafood Restaurant as your wedding reception. The food was honestly delicious. Everyone had a great time there, and I didn’t hear a single complaint about the food or the service. The restaurant was clean, and the fact that our dishes were split up before hand, there was no mess at our tables at all.

Thumbs up for hosting an awesome reception, they absolutely earned 5 stars out of 5.

Read my dim sum experience at Kirin Seafood, New Westminster here

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Kirin Seafood Restaurant
7900 Westminster Hwy
Richmond, BC V6X 1A5
(604) 303-8833
http://www.kirinrestaurants.com/

I started going to No. 9 Chinese Restaurant in Richmond back when I was still a student. This would be one of the few restaurants that still serve decent food at 3am, yes, they are open 24 hours 7 days a week.

The menu here is pretty big. They’ve got everything from noodle soups to burgers and fries. If you are craving for french toast at 3am, they’ve got you covered. Burgers, fries and French toasts in a Chinese restaurant? Yep. That’s how they roll.

The last time my friends and I got BBQ Pork fried rice, Honey Garlic Spare Ribs, Soy Beef rice noodle, Beef and Vegetables on rice, and French Toast for dessert.

The food here was generally good. One of my favorites here was the Soy Beef Rice Noodle. I almost always order it every single time I go there. It was pieces of beef, bean sprouts, fried with rice noodle in soy sauce, so yummy. The Honey Garlic Spare Ribs was OK, not as good as the ones from On Yuen. They were  good with fried rice.

One of the things you gotta try here is the French Toast. Their french toast was 2 pieces of Chinese bread with custard filling and deep fried all together. It came with butter and maple syrup. It’s so bad for you, but it was like almost every single item on the menu here, so greasy, and So Good!

Note: Cash only! Portions here are big, so keep that in mind when you are ordering. Parking is free.

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