Chow Times » Vietnamese

New Asia Deli on Cambie and Sexsmith in Richmond

Ben — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:41:27 +0000

I heard a lot about New Asia Deli but we had never eaten there before. Word has it that they used to operate a small but popular place near Richmond Center before moving to this new bigger location.

The New Asia Deli is located at the Continental Mall. This is the same mall where there are a number of our favourite restaurants such as G-Men Ramen, Pearl Castle, Taiwanese Cuisine, and Lam Chu Kee to name a few. They describe themselves as serving Vietnamese and Asia Pacific cuisine. Their claim to fame is their Banh Mi which some people swear are one of the best in Richmond.

New Asia Deli is a no frills restaurant with poorly coordinated decor and simple furnitures. For all intents and purposes, I would classify this as a hole in the wall.

Other than that, the service is friendly and warm. They speak fluent Cantonese which makes me think not only that they are not Vietnamese, they are actually one of the many ethnic restaurant operated by enterprising Chinese owners. Not that this matters much to us as long as the food is good.

Despite seeing that we each ordered our own dishes, our waitress even asked if we wanted bowls for sharing. That was thoughtful of our waitress to suggest it.

Suanne ordered their Special Baguette which is just $3.75. The baguette was what one would expect from a good Banh Mi with the necessary crunchiness. The fillings are ham with some fish cake like stuff. It also had cucumber, carrot and pickled daikon. While the baquette was good, we wished that they had more stuffings in this.

You know, I must say that for a person his age, Nanzaro is quite adept in picking his dishes. He is the one who really reads the menu from cover to cover and is always the one who takes his sweet time deciding what he wanted.

This time, his selection was called the Combination on Rice B which is $9. His choice turned out to be a really mouth watering dish.

It has lemon grass chicken, shredded pork skin, Vietnamese ham and a very nice piece of fried egg. The chicken was juicy, moist and has a pleasant …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of New Asia Deli on Cambie and Sexsmith in Richmond (181 words)

Hai Phong Vietnamese Restaurant on Kingsway and Inverness, Vancouver

Ben — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:00:06 +0000

Every now and then we do get emails from our readers sharing with us a review of their favorite restaurants. About two weeks ago, Julie sent us a longish email giving a description of what we should check out in her family’s favourite restaurant. That restaurant name is Hai Phong. I had heard of Hai Phong, reading it from Tiny Bite’s site and was actually on my list of restaurants to visit.

The Tamarind Crab above was what made us decide make the visit. We had enough of Pho, as you probably already know. We want to discover more of Vietnamese cuisine.

For meals with crabs and such, we had to have more people. We asked if Julie wanted to join us but by the time she got back to us, well, the dinner was already over. However, we got Angie of Sea Salt With Food to come along for this meal. Oh I want to mention this. If you are not familiar with Angie’s site, her site exploded onto the blogosphere a couple of months ago — at the peak she had 40,000 pageviews in a day and that made her Alex ranking leaped to 60,000. Gosh, her site was also featured on BBC two days ago. She is like a superstar of recipe blogs now. [Note to self: blog about recipes, not restaurants. LOL!]

Anyway, Hai Phong is located along Kingsway by Inverness. With so many Vietnamese restaurants along this stretch of Kingsway, it is very easy to dismiss Hai Phong as just one of the many.

The interior is bright because of the glass wall along the facade of the restaurant. The place looks new and even have wide screen TVs mounted on the walls. A very pleasant difference; its not only it looked clean but it is also spacious.

Service was great. We like it when the waitress is genuinely helpful and takes the time to help us understand the menu. Admittedly I do sometimes ask of the waitress questions like “So, what is YOUR favourite dish?” or “what is the dish you are most proud of here?”. I find that this sort of questions do tell a lot depending on how they answer these type of questions. Sometimes they would just sort of decline to answer by asking in return if you like beef! Sometimes, they would point out their most expensive dish. But sometimes I could see the genuineness in their answer and could sort of sense the recommended dish is what we should go for … we often use this way to validate our selection.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Hai Phong Vietnamese Restaurant on Kingsway and Inverness, Vancouver (866 words)

Pho Viet on Kingsway and Nanaimo, Vancouver

Ben — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:30:30 +0000

Our boys had been hankering us for Vietnamese Pho. I know it had been a while since we had Vietnamese. It is because I got so bored with Pho. I mean, there is really very little that separates one Beef Noodle place with another.

So we decided to drive along Kingsway looking for a Vietnamese restaurant. It’s amazing how many Vietnamese restaurants there are along Kingsway, particularly the stretch on Vancouver East Side. I think there must be more than a dozen from small hole-in-the-wall places to more fancier ones.

We decided to check out Pho Viet simply because they had the prettiest signboard along Kingsway. Moreover, it has the words “Vietnamese Fine Cuisine” on the signboard too. Despite that Pho Viet has the cheapest Pho in town too (more about that later).

There is a also Pho Viet in Richmond but I think the Pho Viet on Kingsway have nothing to do with the one in Richmond. The one in Richmond seems Chinese owned (they speak Cantonese) but this one is Vietnamese operated. This Pho Viet is located on 2141 Kingsway which is between Victoria and Nanaimo.

I was rather stunned by the interior. It was very tastefully decorated with orangey lightings. I can quite certainly say that Pho Viet is the cleanest and well decorated Vietnamese restaurant I had been to.

Service was excellent. The lady (seems to be the owner) came by with our tea. One would normally be served hot tea but here they served iced tea. It is a good idea since it was a hot day too.

The menu had exactly what I wanted. Although it had the usual noodles, rice and sandwiches, they also had an interesting Dinner and Chef Special section.

The lady owner was really helpful with our questions on their dishes which we are not familiar with.

They serve very fresh beansprouts. You can see it from the sheer whiteness of it, especially at the roots. On top of that are the normal basil leave and also this leave below which you will normally not find on other Vietnamese restaurants.

Even though she did not know the English name for this, the lady owner told us it is from the family of cilantro. It has the fragrance of cilantro leave and evokes a nice fragrance on biting it. We like it.

We asked why we don’t see this in most restaurants. She told us that it’s because it is more expensive. We were quite impressed up to this point. It does seem to us that Pho Viet is trying very hard to stand out from other Vietnamese restaurants.

The above is the cheapest Pho that we had come across — and perhaps the cheapest in the whole of Metro Vancouver. For the month of June, they are having what they call the “Anti Crisis June Special” where all phos are $4.99. The regular prices are from $7.75 to $8.50. You got to check this out yourself.

Despite the special price, the pho was pretty good with the normal amount of beef in it as one expects. The broth was flavourful. I expected this to be watered down but it turned out that it is even more flavorful than some of the places we had been to before. Look at the color of the broth.

I decided to be adventurous and went for the Escargot with Green Banana Hot Pot. The lady owner tried to discourage me from ordering this because she said only Vietnamese would like it and was afraid that the guy with the big camera doesn’t like it. LOL!

I told her I wanted to try it. I had never had Green Banana before. I had never had any type of bananas in a soup before too as a matter of fact! And with snails in it … I was totally intrigued. I had to give that a try. This is $12.50.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Pho Viet on Kingsway and Nanaimo, Vancouver (392 words)

Saigon City Vietnamese Restaurant on Garden City and Blundell, Richmond

Ben — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:00:59 +0000

Arkensen and Nanzaro both wanted Pho. Actually they wanted either pho or sushi. We ruled out sushi — Suanne and I just did not want sushi because we are beginning to get tired of the sushi that the boys wanted.

I think we had covered every single Vietnamese restaurant already in Richmond on chowtimes. There is a brand new Vietnamese restaurant … actually a restaurant under new management. Saigon City is located on the strip mall on Garden City and Blundell.

Truth be told. We did not place much hope on Saigon City being great. It has all the trappings of a small time neighborhood Vietnamese restaurant. But we did find a couple of surprises here.

Service was great and down to earth friendly. For a moment we were somewhat disappointed that they spoke to us in perfect Cantonese. It was later then Suanne pointed out to me that they were chatting away in Vietnamese between themselves. So … this was after all a real Vietnamese restaurant. LOL! Faith restored.

The restaurant was not really big but it was quite busy.

We asked them what their specialty is. Without hesitation, they said we must try their Deep Fried Chicken Wings. It was $4 for three wings which I thought was a wee bit expensive. The wings were really good. Not only was the taste good it looked good too. The batter was light and the skin was crisp. It was not particularly greasy. I remember it was really hot … of course, it just came right out from the deep fryer.

Suanne decided on something light. It was not on the menu but Suanne saw a an old sign (perhaps from the previous management’s menu) of the Green Papaya Salad Special ($5.50). They told us they don’t serve this anymore and after a while, the waitress asked us to wait while she goes to the back. She came back and told us yes … they will make it specially for us. Wow, we were impressed.

The Green Papaya Salad texture was a lot like semi cooked vermicelli. It has prawns and slices of pork and topped with crushed peanuts. It was great.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Saigon City Vietnamese Restaurant on Garden City and Blundell, Richmond (278 words)

Chau Kitchen and Bar on Robson, Vancouver

Ben — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:00:40 +0000

Suanne and I met up with Gigi and Jenkins of HoYummy a few weeks ago. We had always been following hoyummy for almost two years now. I consider them as one of the earlier food bloggers when sites like van-eats.com, Nancyland and Ho Yummy were the more prominent food blog sites around. It really makes me think that as much as Suanne and I still has the passion to continue to blog, I am sure that one day we will just move on to something else.

We decided to pick a spot in downtown Vancouver.

It was one of the more beautiful days in winter when we met. The weather this year had been horrendous and I so look forward to a drier spring. On a clear spring day, Vancouver is simply stunning … with both water AND snow capped mountains as a backdrop, I am sure there are not many places in this world with such a setting.

Chau is a newish 6-month old Vietnamese restaurant located on Robson by Nicola. Ever since we had an upscale Vietnamese meal at Tamarind Tree in Seattle, I had always lamented that there is no equivalent in Vancouver. I had hoped that Chau would be the closest to that.

As the name states, Chau Kitchen and Bar, they had a small bar right at the entrance of the restaurant. The bar splits the dining area into two parts.

The dining area is pleasant and has an earthy feel to it but nothing overly fancy. We got seated by the windows as we wanted more light for the pictures.

Once seated, we were promptly served iced water with a slice of cucumber in it. Unique, I thought.

I opted for the Chau Lemonade which is a mix of vodka, cucumber and lemon. The taste was refreshing particularly from the cucumber. I enjoyed it but it really was a bit too strong for me.

The menu is small. Basically what you see above is all there is for the main dish section. We were not too impressed with the lack of choices. What really struck me was the 1st item on the menu …

… Spring Rolls. I ordered that even though it does not really compute in my brain that any spring roll could cost $11. They were without any doubt some of the best spring rolls I ever had but still $11 is just a bit too expensive for me. Again, it was great … but the serving is too small, and too pricey.

I was also thinking that this is touted as a main dish while spring rolls are always served as an appetizer else where. Anyway, it’s described as signature chicken and taro … and is very crunchy without the greasiness associated with poorly made spring rolls.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Chau Kitchen and Bar on Robson, Vancouver (316 words)

Pho Tai Hoa on Capstan Way in Richmond

Ben — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:00:57 +0000

This was a few weeks ago … when there were still a bit of snow. This years seems to have a lot of snow compared to the previous few years. I think the worse is now behind us now … unless mother nature decides we get another dump as a parting winter gift. Spring is sure slow in coming this year, huh?

Anyway … cold weather = hot soup.

And … hot steaming soup = pho.

We knew about this place for a little while already and had it on our “to try” list for a couple of months at least. Pho Tai Hoa is new, I think. It is located at the strip mall where Richmond Sushi is and fronts Capstan Way. You will see Pho Tai Hoa driving along Capstan Way but you need to walk around the corner from the car park to see it.

Pho Tai Hoa seems to be a former seafood restaurant or something. The decor is sea themed which is kind of out of place for a pho place. Still this is one of the cleanest and neatest Vietnames Pho restaurants we had ever been to. Seems like they pay a lot of attention to details. That, to me, is a sign of a good restaurant and speaks volumes of the people who run this restaurant.

I love their tea cups. This is even better than most upper scale restaurants. We also like the color choice of the table cloth (under a glass surface for practical reasons). Details, details.

Suanne ordered the Hu Tieu Nam Vang (Cambodian Style Rice Noodle in Soup) which came served in a glass bowl. They gave a lot of green onions — the way we like it.

In it are pork ribs, prawns, pork slices, quail eggs, and pork liver. So, you can see that it’s really loaded with ingredients. This is a perfect choice if you want hot soup noodles but wanted to try something else other than pho. The regular is $6.25 and the large one is $7.25.

I have been eating way too much and wanted to take something lighter. The Bi Cuon ($5) was what I had.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Pho Tai Hoa on Capstan Way in Richmond (382 words)

7-Courses of Beef from Song Huong, Vancouver

Ben — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:08 +0000

Some of you may remember this. This was way back in spring last year when we went for a little vacation in Seattle where we came across the first time the Vietnamese Seven Courses of Beef at the Tamarind Tree. It was one of the most memorable dinners we ever had. We lamented the fact that there is no Vietnamese restaurant like the Tamarind Tree in Vancouver.

Well, we finally found one restaurant in Metro Vancouver that serves Seven Courses of Beef. Suanne and I went with ET and Christina (of Doesn’t TaZte Like Chicken) to Song Huong right after the visit to Pearl Drops Teahouse.

Song Huong is located on Nanaimo St and 1st Ave in Vancouver. For some reason we had the address as 2408 Nanaimo but good thing we travelled south along Nanaimo because we found that it’s located instead on 1613 Nanaimo … otherwise we would have missed this place.

We realized this had to be the right place when we see the words “Bo 7 Mon”. We don’t read Vietnamese but that “7″ had to be it. Song Huong came across to us as a really authentic Vietnamese restaurant. From the outside, the signs they had are predominantly Vietnamese.

It took a while before we found the item on the menu … “Bo 7 Mon”. For a moment I thought “wow, $25.95 per person”? The menu did not quite say how many this would serve. ET was pretty sure it is not for one person. He was right. That $25.95 is meant for 3-4 people.

Song Huong is a large restaurant as far as Vietnamese restaurants goes. Forget about ambiance here. The decor is tacky at best. But the more we are here, the more we realize that this is a really authentic Vietnamese restaurant … a restaurant where Vietnamese goes.

The wait staff is really friendly and helpful.

Since it is meant to serve 3-4 people and that we’re quite hungry since we did not have much to eat at Pearl Drops, we ordered a couple of sides. The spring rolls was a great start. I like this type of spring rolls … I think this is rolled with rice paper which gives it a rougher skin.

The other side dish we had was the fried chicken wings. Again, these were excellent. As good as these were, these are just the supporting cast. My mind was all focused on the main meal … the Bo 7 Mon.

Before long, the main course started. It was bewildering all the items that put on the table. I had to repeat a few times to the wait staff that we need INSTRUCTIONS as we had no idea what to do next.

I had to repeat because she keeps coming and going with more stuff and when I reminded her, she just said “yes, yes”. I wanted to make sure she knew what I was asking. You know how it is, right? Some Asians when they don’t understand what you’re saying, they answer “yes, yes” with a smile. LOL! I just wanted to make sure … I definitely needed instructions.

For instance, we were not supposed to drink from the pot of “soup” above. See what I mean? I needed instructions.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of 7-Courses of Beef from Song Huong, Vancouver (693 words)

Ha Long Bay Vietnamese Restaurant in Richmond

Ben — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:00:29 +0000

Update 21st June 2009; this restaurant had been replaced by another Vietnamese Restaurant called Pho A9.

We had been trying to get to Ha Long Bay for three times already since the mid December. Each time we were there, they were closed for Christmas or we could not find a parking spot in the strip mall. Third time lucky … it was opened. We had always been attracted by the colorful delicious looking pictures of their dishes pasted on the windows.

As far as Vietnamese food is concerned, Suanne and I no longer look forward to Pho. I am not sure why. Maybe we’re just sick of Pho. All Phos tasted the same to us anyway. So the Ha Long Bay seems like the kind of place for us … none of the pictures they had on the window is of pho.

Ha Long Bay is located on the inside of the strip mall right across from the Richmond Public Market on the Westminster Highyway. It is actually on the same row as the Kingspark Steak House and the Red Palms Malaysian Pondok Restaurant.

It was kind of quiet when we visited. We found it kind of strange because we expected people out in droves on a Saturday night. Perhaps its because it snowed again that night we were there. The pictures we saw on the outside window extends all the way inside. So, the menu is not necessary. All you got to do is just order by the pictures.

Decor-wise, it seems a lot like a DIY affair. The theme is green but we do feel that the colors and lighting were somewhat ghastly … not that it bother us at all.

I had the Grilled Pork and Grilled Pork Patty with Vermicelli. I just fancy the clear taste of vermicelli and did not want any beef at all. I think Vietnamese does pork very well myself. This was excellent … especially the grill pork patty which was tender. $7.50.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Ha Long Bay Vietnamese Restaurant in Richmond (557 words)

Pho Queen Restaurant in Richmond

Ben — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:00:27 +0000

It had been abnormally cold the past week or so here in Vancouver. It’s kind of unbelievable that we have temperatures below the freezing point even in high afternoon. The sun was shining ever so brightly but as soon as you step out doors, you just feel the chill right down into the bones.

The boys were away at their friends which leaves Suanne and I alone again. It’s a blessing that we have more time to our own but then again, we know that as the boys gets older, they will spend lesser and lesser time with us. Eating out together is what I had always enjoyed.

Suanne and I had nothing much in mind. Weekend after weekend, we normally do not know what we wanted to eat. When it is time to eat, we just jump into the car and drive. We decided to drive to the Union Square, a strip mall with lots of Chinese restaurants along Capstan Way. Since it was so cold, we actually were thinking of either pho or hot pot. We decided to check out the Pho Queen.

Pho Queen had just opened because I recall this place used to be a Chinese restaurant. Pho Queen is perhaps the classiest Vietnamese restaurant around because they have a chandelier in the middle of the dining room. The restaurant is roomy and spacious because obviously this used to be a large Chinese restaurant. Even the tables are the expensive marble ones.

Their menu had a lot more varieties than the usual pho places. Despite the name Pho Queen, their menu is dominated by the non-pho stuff. The pricing is very reasonable with a large bowl of pho at $6.50 to $7.00. They even have Cambodian dishes.

I had scanned their take-out menu into PDF here if you want to check out it out.

I had the Egg Yolk Condensed Milk with Soda on Ice. How does that sound to you? What a weird combination right? This one is $3.00. It does seem to me it is blended although I am not sure exactly how this is prepared. It just tastes like a very rich but fizzy milk to me.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Pho Queen Restaurant in Richmond (193 words)

Au Petit on Main Street and 33rd, Vancouver

Ben — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:49:05 +0000

I had always heard so much about Au Petit … about how popular it is but we had never been there nor did we know where it was. All we know was that Au Petit is a Vietnamese restaurant. We met up with Angie’s family again for a weekend lunch.

As many of you already know, Angie is the person behind Sea Salt With Food. Sea Salt With Food specializes in home cooking recipes. What is amazing with her site is that all the recipes were her own cooking … and she blogs everyday. Moreover, she told us that she tries to make her home cooked food better than what she comes across outside. I was just thinking how lucky her family is having such variety of home cooked food everyday.

The Au Petit cafe is located on Main Street and 33rd St in Vancouver. From the outside, it does not really look like what I had imagined it to be. It was somewhat more old and rundown than I had expected.

The place is really small, befitting its name. Despite its looks, it is undoubtedly a very popular restaurant with a lot of customers, many of them taking out. There was once I heard the owner saying at the top his voice that he needed people to order one at a time when there were a few customers milling around the counter trying to place their take out order all at once! BTW, FYI, the owners are Cantonese speakers.

As much as we wanted to spend a lot of time enjoying the meal, we realize that this is not a place where you hang out after a meal. We do feel rushed, not because the owners rushed us but the sheer turn around of the tables and the many take out customers.

We soon realize why this place is so popular. There are nothing on the menu that costs more than $7.50.

I had the Dark French Iced Coffee With Condensed Milk. It was a much smaller cup that I am used to in other Vietnamese joint — much smaller but much better. They made it very thick and what I like best is it is rather bitter’ish too. $3.15.

The other drinks we ordered was the Ice Soda with Lime. $2.50.

And the Iced Tea was $2.

Their Vietnamese Shredded Pork Salad Rolls is highly recommended. It has a very fresh crunchy vegetables and particularly great dipped in the fish sauce. What we like most was the strong basil flavour. It was $6.25 and came in two rolls.

I believe their specialty is not the Pho but their fresh French Bread. They had it mentioned on their signboard and most tables had them too. It was indeed the best such bread we had ever tasted. It is very light but the amazing part is the crust which is thin and crumbly. It does make a mess breaking the bread. You gotta try their French Bread.

The bread actually came together with the Curry Beef Stew ($7.50). This dish quite OK (not great) with lots of firm beef cubes and tendon with carrots which is the saving grace. We wished that the beef stew is made hot and a bit more thicker.

The above is excellent. It’s called the French Bread Sub with Home Made Ham, House Meat Ball, Vegetable and Hot Pepper … and it is only $4.50. Be warned that the hot peppers are deceptively hot. If you like hot stuff, you will like this. It’s messy eating this because I ended up with lots of crumbs all over the table and my lap. If you want to order just one thing in Au Petit, you should try this.

Angie had the BBQ Lemongrass Boneless Chicken with Vegetables. This is served on rice noodles and fish sauce. The BBQ Chicken looked really good and they are quite generous with the amount of chicken meat on this dish. $7.50.

Nanzaro had the Assorted Seafood Rice Noodle in Soup ($7.50). I find this a pretty respectable seafood noodle soup because of the number of seafood items in there.

Arkensen and Justin had Pho. A large one costs $6.75. Arkensen gave a thumbs up for this. I find that it has quite a bit of MSG. Also, they did not serve pho with fresh basil and chili. Maybe they forgot about it. It does look pretty unexciting to me.

The bill came up to about $70 including tax and tips. They accept only cash, BTW. We wished we had a lot more time here but overall the meal was good. I think they have one of the best Vietnamese subs around … all thanks to their bread which made the world of difference. And don’t forget their awesome pork salad roll too.