Northern Delicacy in Aberdeen Centre

We hardly go to the Aberdeen Centre, not sure why even though we know there are quite a few nice bloggable restaurants there. Suanne and I had an afternoon by ourselves and decided to go to the Aberdeen Centre to check out the restaurants there.

The Aberdeen Centre s actually named after the Aberdeen Harbour in Hongkong. This centre is actually a new reincarnation of the old Aberdeen Center which was demolished and rebuilt again to compete with the other new Asian Mall around Richmond.

The Aberdeen Centre caters primarily for Asian-Canadian shoppers — mainly Chinese, Hongkong Chinese. The primary tenant is Daiso where everything is sold for two dollars. Unlike other Asian Malls around the Vancouver area, this one is very clean, spacious, bright and uncluttered.

Someone recommended the Northern Delicacy restaurant to us sometime back. I can’t be absolutely sure but I think it was Daniel and Clarina. The restaurant has a very wide entrance, untypical of chinese restaurants and you can’t miss the two Terracotta warriors by it’s entrance.

I know very little about Chinese cuisines, especially the little subtleties of cuisines around the various regions. So, I got a question for you readers … what exactly is termed as Northern Cuisine? My impression is that it consists of things like steamed buns (especially xiao lung bao) and noodles in soup. Somehow, I felt that Northern food are more “steamy” because of the cold weather in the northern region. Any expert who can enlighten us?

Suanne told me that the chinese name for this restaurant does not translate to Northern Delicacy but instead it should translate to something like “Full House Restaurant”.

Whatever it is called, the Northern Delicacy place a lot of attention to details. The waitresses are dressed in silky and embroidered traditional Chinese costumes. The tableware too are printed with their logos. We like details like this.

Their menu is very easy to read and is sectionalized clearly with color pictures. This makes selection much easier especially for people who are not familiar with Chinese food. The menu is also very extensive and includes the following:

• Cold dishes and appetizers
• Steamed buns and dumplings
• Pan fried and deep fried buns
• Noodles in soup
• Seafood
• Meat

The “Dan Dan” Handmade Noodles in Black Sesame Soup appears popular here. As we passed by the tables we see quite a few customers having this. It is also unique to us and so we promptly ordered this. This costs $6.50.

The soup is very thick unlike the normal chinese noodle soup which is served in broth. It is very peanuty and had a strong hint of spiciness with thinly sliced cucumber. We like this.

This one is called the “Shanghainese Style Fried Rice Cake with Shredded Pork and Snow Cabbage” on the menu. I think it’s shortened to “Nien Kao” in chinese. I had never had this type of rice cake before. The rice cake is sliced like the way you sliced sausages into oval shapes. It is particularly chewy and does take a lot of jaw work to eat through the entire dish.

The rice cake is practically tasteless but the mushroom, spinach, sliced pork, sliced bamboo shoot, snow cabbage gives excellent flavour to the entire dish. We love this but would have been perfect if this is a bit easier on the jaw! Price is $9.50.

Service was rather slow though. It was a Friday afternoon and understandably many people from the nearby offices would go eat out. What we liked about this place is that the price were actually cheap for such a restaurant and the dished were unique. We’ll be back soon to try out their other dishes. Highly recommended … you should check it out when you are in Richmond.