All Entries in the "Beijing/Northern" Category
Harbour Spirit Restaurant on No 3 Road, Richmond
The opening of the Harbour Spirit Restaurant was perhaps one of the most anticipated on over the last few months. One of the reasons is that they were taking an old location vacated by Sammy J Peppers which is a large space and highly visible along the No 3 Road.
They are so big that we were told by the restaurant that they will “specialize” on Cantonese AND Sichuan AND Northern AND Hot Pot when we went there (did not eat) on their opening day (see here). I can’t find that comment now but I distinctly remember someone saying that with trying be everything to everyone, they will either succeed big time or they will fail big time.
The initial reports from this place were mostly unfavourable. I was not surprised because with such a big operations there are a lot more kinks to sort out. As much as Suanne and I would like to go check them out, we decided that against it. We sort of knew what the experience would be like — no different from all the early reports.
We finally went after they were opened for 1.5 months. That should be enough time to have things to settle down and well past the dry run periods.
It does seems like the Harbour Spirit have deep pockets. They want to open up with a bang to awe people. On the surface they did quite a good job. The chandeliers and the heavy set chairs were highly visible. But on a second glance, they are still very rough around the edges. It is in the details that they fell short.
OK things like this bother me especially when they try to be classy but ignore the details. The white table cloth above, I find them distractingly nonuniform. That was not just it. The materials are cheap and too light that it shifts when you move the plates or teapot around. And they are wrinkled.
They must have spend some … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Traditional Beijing Cuisine on Kingsway, Vancouver
You are not gonna believe it when I tell you when we went to the Traditional Beijing Cuisine.
The Traditional Beijing Cuisine had just newly opened. It must be at most three months, most likely less than that. It is new and it has one of the most eye catching restaurant front for sure — especially at night when the LED lights on the window is turned on.
The Traditional Beijing Cuisine is located on Kingsway. Actually it is located just next door to the Luckynoodle Chinese Restaurant which I blogged about yesterday.
Believe it or not, some of us went to the Traditional Beijing Cuisine RIGHT AFTER the 13 course dinner we had in Luckynoodle. He he he … after the feast, some of us just walked over next door for more food. In the picture above, the entrance on the left is Luckynoodle and the one on the right is the Traditional Beijing Cuisine.
About 10 of the 21 who attended the dinner at Lucknoodle stayed. Don’t look at me funny, OK? I am just a follower … albeit a very willing follower.
The restaurant is kind of quiet.
Unlike Luckynoodles which was packed, this is quiet. Sorry to say this up front but the first thing that came to my mind when I walked in was the words “restaurant graveyard”.
As opposed to what we see outside the restaurant with all the LED lights and all, the inside is completely different.
Suanne and I was just hanging around the die-hard foodies. So we left all the ordering to them.
If the print above is too small for you, you may click on the image to show a larger version.
If you can recognize the two set of hands, they are the ring leaders. I had eaten out with them many times before and let me warn you they are huge eaters.
How huge? Well, one of them went to Romer’s Burger Bar two hours before coming to the Luckynoodle feast of 13 dishes … and after that we are here for more food. LOL!
And despite all the eating they are not at all fat. I really wonder how they do it.
In the picture above, they were complaining how hard it is to take pictures of skewers. They love skewers … and don’t they work well as a team?
Actually I was kind of shocked how much food they ordered again.
TWELVE different dishes! OMG!
Luckily, Traditional Beijing Cuisine serves popular Beijing street food … so their servings is a TAD smaller.
The Fried Shredded Meat with Garlic Shoots above is $9. The garlic shoot tasted sweet.
The picture of this dish they have outside the restaurant looked a million times better. The one they served looked different. This is simply called the Flavour Pork Skin Jelly. I did not like it — too salty … or maybe I should say too flavorful. In it are tofu, carrot and beans.
Of course we got a number of skewers. We had the lamb ($1.20, chewy, salty) but the one that takes the prize is the one above.
Know what that is?
It is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Beijing Cuisine on Cambie and Sexsmith, Richmond
May I have your permission to get excited again … please? LOL!
Let me cut to the chase … this is a restaurant that:
- serves good food
- portions are big
- waitresses speaks English and very friendly, and
- most importantly, very reasonable prices.
We just chanced onto the Beijing Cuisine last weekend while driving around deciding where to eat next. That’s what we do sometimes when we don’t know where to go to and we don’t want what’s on the to-try list. In Richmond, there are plenty of places to eat. Every now and then, you see new restaurants opening.
The Beijing Cuisine is located in the Continental Center which is on Cambie and Sexsmith in Richmond. This exact location can be considered another “restaurant graveyard”. Before Beijing Cuisine, this was called Taiwanese Cuisine (blogged in June 2009) … and even before it was Taiwanese Cuisine, it was Vogue Chinese Cuisine (blogged in April 2008).
We were drawn by the simple bright red sign. With darkened windows, we thought this would be one of the higher end restaurants. We were wrong.
The interior is exactly the same as we remember it when it was Taiwanese Cuisine. Even the furnitures and the lightings are the same.
Service was friendly and surprisingly all three waitresses speaks very good English. That helped a lot because we could chat with them and ask them all sort of questions.
At a glance at the menu cover, I thought that looked very familiar and saw it somewhere before.
The name of this restaurant in Chinese is translated as “Old Beijing” or “Traditional Beijing”. But it was the red cover with the yellow fonts that I remember. When I flipped open the menu, the sections and selections also look awfully familiar.
It was after a few minutes when I ask the waitress “Are you by any chance related to the Beijing Noodle House on Buswell?”
“Yes” she said adding that they had only opened for 10 days. She even flashed all her 10 fingers to emphasize that. I think she was kind of proud that after just ten days operating they are running almost full house.
She told us that the owner of Beijing Noodle House (we blogged about them here before), had just sold that restaurant and opened this one instead. The Beijing Noodle House is still there, sporting the same name. If you go to that Beijing Noodle House blog entry and look at the menu on the table in the second picture, you will see the identical red menu.
See? I have good memory of good menus. :-)
I like menus like this. There were so many to go over that we took our sweet time. The waitresses came by twice asking if we are ready to order and on the third time, we told told her we will just order the appetizer first because we need more time.
If you want to check the menus above, let me tell you a little trick. Just right-click each image and select “Open in new window or tab”. That way you don’t have to flip to the menu, come back to this post and click the next one.
The appetizers are as cheap as $3.00 to $6.50. The Mouth Watering Chicken was supposed to be $7.95 but they scratch it out to say $12.95! Now that one is expensive.
Here are some of their other price ranges:
- Main dishes are mostly $10 to $13
- Soup are $6 to $12
- Noodles are mostly $7 to $8
- Beijing style snacks are $5.00 to $7.50
- Dessert are $4 to $5
The prices are not too bad right?
The above was the get-off-our-back-we-need-more-time-with-the menu order.
Actually it was recommended by the waitress … the Beijing Style Sauteed Pork with Green Onion in Bean Sauce and Pancake ($11).
Actually I didn’t want to … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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O’Tray Noodle in President Plaza Food Court, Richmond
Honestly, I never had the desire to visit the President Plaza food court.
We had been there several times before over the years. What I saw there did not impress me at all. It looked like a dead food court to me which to an extend is true. I have never seen this food court with crowds anywhere the likes of Yaohan Center or Crystal Mall. Each time I go to the President Plaza it is to go to T&T.
My indifference is there even though the local chowhounds had been raving about this stall called O’Tray.
But … oh boy … I realize now what I had been missing! This is one classical case where ONE stall made all the difference to the food court. I think if we take O’Tray away, the President Plaze FC will lose 1/2 of their customers overnight.
View Larger Map
O’Tray is located in the President Plaza food court. The anchor tenant of President Plaza is the very popular T&T Asian Supermarket which happens to be the only T&T in Richmond. That is if you do not include the Osaka Supermarket which is basically the same as T&T.
The food court is located on the 2nd floor of President Plaza.
Let me get this out of the way first and foremost. The entire food court was just recently forced to close by the Vancouver Coastal Health. This happened on July 30th and the cause of this was pest infestation and unsanitary conditions. All of the stalls were asked to close for one week except for one stall, Always Good, which was forced to close for one whole month. This led me to think that the source of the infestation was from one stall but the collective inaction of the other stalls caused a huge damage to its reputation.
Frankly, that did not deter us from going there. If this thing does bother you, I suggest you stop reading.
The first thing we did when we were at the FC was to walk around the stalls. They were noticeable cleaner … very clean as a matter of fact. I kept peering into the kitchen, the floors, the corners, the areas under the table, they were clean. I guess the operators learned a huge lesson.
The Always Good stall remain closed. Everything is stripped clean. The fridge with the glass window is empty. No sight of food or boxes or anything like that. We were wondering if they are ever going to re-open since it is already past 1 month since the closure order.
O’Tray Noodle is the stall at the furthest end of the food court. It is the one which is the brightest because of natural light from the foyer.
BTW, does anyone know where the Irish sounding name of O’Tray came from?
It is run seemingly by a couple who are very friendly and very helpful. You see, I ask silly questions sometimes. Learning that O’Tray is a Tianjin stall, I asked where Tianjin is and which province it belongs to. Yeah, to some of you this is so elementary but really I am just re-learning my Chinese heritage.
Well, Tianjin apparently is a city close to Beijing and it does not belong to any province at all. The city is one of the five municipal cities under the direct control of the federal government.
In many respects, Tianjin cuisine is similar to Beijing. However, one big thing with Tianjin cuisine is their love for tofu.
I love their menu. Just look at the prices first.
We did not bother to search the chowhound archives for recommendations. At least the lady at the counter was friendly. So we asked her for recommendations (she speaks good English).
Without hesitation she said #1. It is the Tianjin wrap. Not even knowing what it is, we went with her suggestion. We watched her making this and asked if we could take pictures … why, she even slowed down for me to take shots. Seems like she had done this before and many people had taken pictures of her in action.
Like Sambamaster from Portland who incidentally sent me the video of the food courts he had visited recently. I was glad to see this video because it showed how the Tianjin Wrap was made.
The lady told me that the Tian Jin Wrap is based on a recipe that is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Sunlock Garden Restaurant on Fraser and East 27th Ave, Vancouver
Have you ever heard of a Chinese restaurant on 51st and Main called Snow Garden?
I sure haven’t.
But I was sure taken in by the banner outside this restaurant that says “The Original Chefs of former Snow Garden restaurant (51st and Main)”.
The banner was just under the awning of the Sunlock Garden Restaurant on Fraser and 27th.
Even though I did not know of any Snow Garden, I assumed that the chefs must have been really famous or something. I checked for any reviews on the internet. I can’t find anything substantial at all. Maybe I did not look hard enough but the only Snow Garden review I found was of a restaurant in downtown which is obviously not this one. Sunlock? Nyada.
Like going on a blind date, we went. We went over the bridge again and with that, the usual complains of “why do we have to drive so far?”.
I am not a Chinese food snob. Or maybe I am but I am not admitting it.
We walked in and found that the restaurant was quite busy for a restaurant in a quiet section of Fraser. It was half full. We were the only Chinese customers that day. Not that it’s a problem but I found that quite strange because the customers were well represented by all the major ethnic groups of Metro Vancouver.
Am not kidding. There were two tables of Caucasian Canadians, a table of East Indians, a table of Filipinos and us, Chinese. LOL … almost in perfect proportions too!
It appears to us that Sunlock is a neighborhood restaurant. Everyone looked like they lived nearby.
The restaurant looked very dated with worn carpet, old tables … even the plates and bowls looked seasoned. I hate to point this out but I thought I can smell the dustiness of the carpet. It is of a fair size with seatings for 50-60 people. The whole area is spacious.
Despite the makeup of their customers, they have Chinese language menu pasted on the walls … which I thought was not any use to the customers they had that afternoon, including us.
A quick look at the menu says that this is a Cantonese restaurant. One would have thought that they would serve cheaper food. For the most part, they have a lot of dishes at the $10-$12 price range but they also have pricier dishes. For instance, the duck dishes are about $30 and sea cucumber at $25.
What interests me was the dishes that had the words “order in advance” on them. Like:
- Sun Lock Garden Special Cold Cut ($33)
- Peking Duck ($30)
- Eight Jewels Duck ($30)
- Braised Duck with Green Onions ($29)
- Beggar’s Chicken ($27)
- Braised Pork Shoulder with Brown Sauce ($20)
- Fried Banana with Honey ($10)
- Fried Apple with Honey ($10)
There is also a complete section with 7 dishes on Crispy Rice too.
We thought rather than chancing it ourselves, we asked the waitress (she was the only one working the floor) for recommendations. Just because we spoke in English, she suggested some very chop-suey’ish dishes! You know things like Egg Foo Yung and Lemon Chicken. :-)
I decided to just order my own. I was curious about the dish called Buan Buan Chicken.
This is $10. This turned out to be a cold dish with shredded chicken on a bed of shredded cucumbers and slathered with a peanuty sauce. It was lightly spicy which we kind of like. Both Arkensen and Nanzaro … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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[CRA 2010 Signature Dish]
Lamb & Hand-pulled Noodles in Soup 羊肉湯拉麵
from Legendary Noodles
On one hand, I wanted to like Legendary Noodles because it is supposed to be a well-established and well-respected restaurant. But truth be told, there are a lot of things that leaves much to be desired with Legendary Noodle — at least with the restaurant we went to. They do some things well, but it is what they failed in that makes us not wanted to go back again.
There are two Legendary Noodle locations in Metro Vancouver. There is one on Main Street and another one on Denman.
There used to be one in Richmond but that closed some years ago. The Legendary Noodle in Richmond was one of the early posts on chowtimes. I remember that it was the first restaurant where we picked the courage to ask the chef to pull the noodles for us so that we can put an interesting angle to the post. He he he … asking them for permission to take pictures scared us then because we were such noobs then. Today, we have thicker skin.
The Legendary Noodle location we went to was the one located on Main Street at the intersection with King Edward.
The decor in Legendary Noodle can be described as tacky … especially the beaded curtains and the wooden paper lantern. It is obvious that they are trying to portray themselves as Oriental in the eyes of the western world. It doesn’t really bother me but it is really in your face.
What really spoil our experience in Legendary Noodle is the service. Mind you, Suanne and I are not demanding customers. I must say that we interact with restaurant staff really well and we are respectful people. Well, the moment we sat down, the young waitress had the sour face like we had just offended her by coming into the restaurant. OK, we shrugged it off while we looked at the menu. When she came back, the same sour face came along. Suanne described her as being very “fu hei” (in Cantonese). We would have understood if the waitress did not smile but giving us that irritated look is what I could not have understood.
OK, to put things in proper perspective, there could be a reason behind this and might not be the same to other customers. But really, I was quite annoyed. No, we did not leave then and there. It is because we were not used to storming out to make a point.
Service aside, the tables are small. It is sized for bowls of noodles and nothing more. It is just that we had to keep the camera and notebook on our lap. We do realize that restaurants are not designed for bloggers. That is beside the point in case someone wants to rebut me on this point for thrashing Legendary Noodle for the rude service. :-) Bottom line, the tables were not big.
You may click on the menu above to show a larger image. They use Mandarin names like Dao Xiao Mian, Gan Ban Mian, Tang Mian, etc. A lot of the items are vegetarian and they are clearly marked on the menu.
The menu is just a 1-pager. The prices were cheap with the noodles costing $7 – $8.
Chinese Restaurant Award 2010 ♦ GOLD in the NORTHERN NOODLES Category ♦ Lamb & Hand-pulled Noodles in Soup 羊肉湯拉麵
The gold award winning dish is known as the Lamb Shanks Noodle Soup on their menu. It came in two sizes — small for $7 and just $1 more for the large one. We opted for the small bowl even though we were tempted to get more value with the bigger serving. No, we had been eating way too much already and decided that discipline is in order.
The serving is small. For us who just wanted to taste it, it is just right. If you are hungry, you’ll need the larger serving.
The broth is not bad actually. It is on the light side but sufficiently … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Sha Lin Noodle House on Broadway and Cambie, Vancouver
It was another one of those days when we had to send the boys to their Olympic Ceremony practices. We had given up trying to get any info from them. Our fear is that we will NOT be able to watch it on TV on the day of because we could end up having to wait to pick them up after the Olympic closes. We’ll see.
Oh talking about the Olympic Ceremony, the response to the Olympic Opening Ceremony Dress Rehearsal give away had been overwhelming. So far we have over 230 responses after 2 days. Just a reminder that we will cut off all entries at 12:01AM this Thursday.
This time we went to Sha Lin Noodle House for a late lunch after the boys practices. Sha Lin is on Broadway near the intersection with Cambie. If you want to come here the next few weeks, you should know that Broadway is designated as an Olympic lane — and that means no more street parking. The best way is to take the SkyTrain and get off at the Broadway/City Hall station.
Sha Lin Noodle House had always been a very popular eatery. The main draw is the good authentic Chinese food and the prices. They had been operating here for a long time already — at least 10 years old.
Many customers will stand and gawk at the poster at the entrance of their popular dishes before going in. We did. All of them looked delicious. Makes us want to get all of them.
Don’t expect much from Sha Lin. The place is rather spartan and does shows its age. The place was full even when we were there after lunch hours at 2PM.
Service here is bad — really bad. Most of the waiters and waitresses have really bad attitude and walk/talk so listlessly. Youngsters! It is like they hate their job, their life or something. If not for the great service of that lone tall slim waiter who tried his best to placate us, we would have left.
This is the kind of place that had success gone to their heads. They have so many customers that they can’t handle, they seem to think that they don’t mind losing customers. This is sad because their food is pretty good. I hate to say this but we like the food for the most part.
For starters we ordered the Sliced Rolls (fried). This is just $2.95. I recommend you order this.
The fried rolls is served with condensed milk as a dip. So it is a very sweet dish. The deep fried bread dough was just perfect — crispy outside, soft inside.
We know that our boys will like it but they will always instinctively reject anything we order for them. Especially Nanzaro, who will put up an act when we asked him to try other food. He will put both his hands over his mouth and make it look like he is going to throw up. He is very convincing in doing this but not to us. He had been doing this ever since he is a toddler and is now a habit.
We normally let them be but this time we were extra assertive that they must try a piece. Guess what? They loved it.
Arkensen said it tasted like donuts. I never thought of it that way before but he is right. And Nanzaro? He flashed me a thumbs up and said “You rock, Dad”.
See? Dad knows best when it comes to food. Nanzaro knows that but he just doesn’t want to give his dad the credit he deserved.
We also ordered 2 sticks of Kabob to share. They were cumin flavoured and were very spicy — we asked for the hottest they can make it.
The meat was a bit dry and tough but it was OK. It took a bit of chewing to down them but it was the whole point because you really can taste the full flavour of the kabob.
Sha Lin is well know for their hand made noodles. They classify them as dragging, cutting, rolling and pushing noodles.
Arkensen ordered the most common type, the dragging noodles. The one he had came with beef and bean sprout in soup which is $7.
Served on the side is a plate of … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Peaceful Restaurant on West Broadway at Cambie, Vancouver
In Vancouver, there are Chinese restaurants and there are Chinese restaurants.
There are Chinese restaurants where you will only see Chinese customers. The sight of a Caucasian customer is rare. The real menu of these restaurants are in Chinese. They will have a token English menu which is a small subset of their real menu. Their waitresses can hardly speak English but they can really speak Mandarin in very heavy accent. They serve traditional and authentic Chinese food.
Then there are the other Chinese Restaurant which are more user-friendly to the western customers. You see quite a number of Caucasian customers. They have items like sweet and sour pork and chow mein on their menu. They give out fortune cookies with the check. The Chinese foodie crowd does not pay attention to these type of restaurants. They say these restaurants is not real Chinese restaurants.
You know what I am saying?
But there is one restaurant that has managed to serve authentic Chinese food and yet draw customers who are non-Chinese.
We went to the Peaceful Restaurant before we drop the boys off for one of their many top secret rehearsals. So we went to a restaurant nearby. Peaceful Restaurant is located on Broadway.
The Peaceful Restaurant is a small restaurant. It is long and narrow with a row of tables lining one side of the wall and a glass enclosed open kitchen on the other side. There is a couple of larger round tables for larger parties.
Round tables … hmmm. I am thinking hard here as I type. In all good Chinese restaurants, the dining tables are round and will seat 10 people a table. This is because Chinese food are meant to be shared and are served communal style. Also, round tables allows everyone to be able to talk to each other better.
I can’t think of any other cultures that predominantly uses round tables. Can you help me think of one that does?
Anyway, the Peaceful Restaurant is a Northern Chinese restaurant. The speaks Mandarin with a heavy northern Chinese accent.
We ordered the Sichuan Dan Dan Noodles (hmmm … Sichuan is western, not northern China!) because we heard that they pull the noodles in house.
It came in a bowl nicely arranged with the ingredients and before I could lift my camera to take a picture of it, the waitress dug in a pair of scissors and went ahead to cut it up. She then mixes it up front of us.
Aw too bad. I wanted to see how long these noodles are. Seeing how these noodles are made I am not surprise if this entire bowl is made up a single strand of noodles, all hand made.
So, with my usual itchy mouth, I asked the waitress how long it is. She brushed me aside and said “very long” like she was quite annoyed with my question. Ah … very authentic Chinese restaurant service. LOL!
The main thing about Dan Dan Noodle is only the noodles and the sauce. Very simple dish but yet complex to make it perfect.
The peanut based creamy sauce is spicy and tangy and had a little minced meat and spinach. I tasted a bowl of that. It was good and had a lot of flavour. The noodles tasted great too. Personally I find that the sauce is too thick for my liking.
This is $7. Dan Dan Noodles are cheap to make and so $7 is a little bit on the high side.
Suanne was on a mission for one of our readers. Michelle was asking where she could find Shaobing. Suanne remembered reading about there is Shaobing in this restaurant and it was the primary reason why we chose to eat here. So Michelle, here you go.
The word “bing” on Shaobing refers to biscuits or cookie in Chinese. I am sort of making this up but I think it is rather accurate. I need readers to help me confirm if I am correct or wrong. You see … this is the closest to a cookie in Chinese. The Chinese do not use ovens for their cooking and as such you end up with biscuits pan fried like this. There is no oven baked cookies like the ones you know of in Chinese cuisine. Correct? Yes? No? Yes?
There are actually several variations of Shaobing but the main distinctly is there is a version that is sweet and another that is savory. The sweet ones are usually made round while the savory ones are made in oblong shape like the picture above.
The Peaceful Restaurant calls this the Sesame Flat Bread on their menu. This is $6.
Shaobing is a partially leavened bread and covered with sesame seed which is toasted (pan fried?) to a crunch. The sesame seed gave it the fragrance that you could “taste” even before you bite into it.
Since this is a Northern Chinese restaurant, we ordered the Xiao Long Bao. This is $6.50. We were surprised it came with 8 pieces, normally it is 6-7.
Don’t get this. No good.
See how wet the bottom is? And how flat the edges of the buns lies? Well, … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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