Thai Son was one of the first restaurant reviews we made when we started blogging two years ago. We used to go there very often until one day the entire strip mall along the No 3 Road in Richmond was torn down. In place of that strip mall is the still under construction final stop of the new Skytrain Canada Line.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had reopened on Garden City and Leslie Road. It’s just across the road from Fabricana. Thai Son is now also opened in three other locations. They are also at:

• 373 East Broadway, Vancouver
• #230-2800 East 1st. Avenue, Vancouver
• #201 4501 North Road, Burnaby

They had labeled themselves as “The Best Vietnamese Food in Town”. For us, they are really one of the best Vietnamese places we had been to.

The place is much larger than the old Thai Son but just as packed as it was then. I am pretty sure many of the patrons are return customers because there is no way a new restaurant in this location could draw that many people. This new location is quite out of the way for many.

Their menu is still the same ones we were so accustomed to from the old Thai Son restaurant on No 3 Road. It’s exactly the same except that they are newly printed. Oh, I remember their #30 … always had that. I remembered going to Thai Son and just ordered #30 without even looking at the menu.

The bean sprouts were blanched. It would have been nicer if it was blanched a bit longer. Great with a little sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Nanzaro ordered the large Seafood & Rice Noodles in Soup for $6.75. Nice hot broth and richly adorned with artificial crab, fish balls, squid and shrimp. Their portions are above average which is what we like.

This above is their #30. If you like spicy soupy noodles, then this is what you MUST order. #30 is known as the Thai Son Special Spicy Beef and Vermicelli in Soup. A large bowl costs $6.50. Put in dollops of oily chili flakes for that extra kick, if you like. What I like best is that meanest looking piece of pork hock … always enjoyed it and always regretting enjoying it too … it is nothing but just bones, skins and FAT. Oh yummy!

Arkensen had the ho-hum Beef Balls and Rice Noodles in Soup, $5.95 for large. We love the aromatic stock. The smell really sticks to our cloths, no kidding. If you eat here, take a moment to take a sniff of your shirt … the smell will stay for hours. Nice.

Their servings are huge and so Suanne decided to arm herself with an empty bowl and taxed each one of us. The total bill came to $20 including tax and tips after a 10% grand opening discount. Highly recommended … you must go.

Here is one more really, really old post.  We were here for dinner on one of the Vancouver fireworks night.  Oh … that must have been late August or was it July.  Anyway, it was really old.

We have a fixed ritual every year.  We love to go to the fireworks, not so much for the fireworks but we simply love to set ourselves down next to the waters and just wait hours for the firework to start.  This one time, we decided to check out places in and around Broadway and Granville.  One does not need to go far as there are lots of great eateries that caters to all kinds of tastes and budget.

I did not feel like spending much for food those days because we had just gotten back from a long (and expensive) vacation.  :-)  From the outside, we know this place serves pretty affordable meals.  If I recall correctly, this is a Vietnamese restaurant (not pho … but Vietnamese).

Since there were only three of us (Arkensen was away camping), we ordered a Dinner Combo for 2.  It costs only $26.80.

The combo comes with a Soup of the day which is a Hot and Sour Tofu Mushroom soup, the thick version.

The appetizer is a Crispy Shrimp Dumpling serves with vermicelli on the side.  The Shrimp Dumpling skin is made of yam where the outside is fried to crispy and the inside is creamy and soft with shrimp filling.

The appetizer also included Garlic Bread with herbs, very nice and refreshing.

The main dishes include Beef Brisket with Tomato Sauce.  Nice big chunky beef.

Our favourite is the Curry Jumbo Prawn where the creamy sauce is great with both the steam rice AND the garlic bread.

Bet you think that a Combo for Two had just two main dish but no … we also the Chicken Steak and Pork Chop.  It’s so sweet and juicy and what we liked most of that it was grilled with some charred edges.  It was, like the Cantonese says, very heong!

The dessert was just a scoop of vanilla ice-cream — no big deal since we had such a good meal already.

So … what do you think?  For less than 30 bucks, it’s good eh?  Here is roughly where the restaurant is:

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That’s it … our summer vacation. Hope you all enjoyed following this series as much as I had blogging about it. I think when I look back over the years, we will remember this particular vacation like no other vacations we ever had — this time we had documented it.

Looking back over the past month blogging about this vacation, it is amazing we managed to do everything we did. Some of them counts for one vacation alone to most but being able to do all these within two weeks were unbelievable to us.

In case, just in case, you want to re-read our entire vacation, I have categorized them under the following links:

• We started off in Las Vegas where we had some of the best buffet. We managed to visit the Hoover Dam and the Fremont Street Experience made a lasting impression on us.
• We then drove past Death Valley on our way to the Yosemite National Park. One word describe the entire trip … jaw-dropping!
• Next came our visit to the Bay Area during which the high-point was the day spent at the Great America theme park. Our boys enjoyed this the most.
• San Francisco was absolutely marvelous. We all love SF and did all the sights we wanted — Alcatraz, Fishermans Wharf. Chinatown and rode the Cable Car. Oh … the sourdough bread too!
• We then moved on to Reno and Lake Tahoe for the final leg of the trip.

We landed in Bellingham, WA in late afternoon. As much as we enjoyed the trip, it was really good to be back home again. Before we headed home, we knew already what we wanted to have — Vietnamese noodles. Despite all the great food we had during the vacation, we simply miss good old Asian food.

This restaurant is located in the Empire Square strip mall on No 3 Road in Richmond. It’s on the same strip mall as Hon’s.

It’s strange why we had never blogged about the Westlake Vietnamese Cuisine restaurant before. We had been coming here for lunch at least once a month and is our boys’ favourite place.

What we particularly like about this restaurant is the low prices and that they have a free drink with any set ordered. Their menu is really like the many HK-Style cafes around Richmond except that it is with a Vietnamese twist.

We tried the Salted Lemon Soda — it is really good. You can sweeten it with the included sugar syrup if you like.

Their bean sprouts were blanched. We prefer blanched over raw ones.

The House Special Beef Noodle Soup costs only $5.95. It does not come in a big huge bowl like those you normally see in other Vietnamese restaurants because its the Happy Hour Menu and considering that it came with a drink of your choice, this is really cheap.

Nanzaro ordered the Spicy Noodle Soup with Pork Hock and Beef Flank for $6.25.

I shared the Curry Rice with Chicken with Suanne.

This costs $5.95 too. The curry gravy is thick and rich but not as spicy as I wished. They make really decent curries.

The total bill was $22 which includes tips. You should try this restaurant if you had not yet.

Anyway, here ends our series on our summer vacation. I hope you are entertained … but do tell me your opinion on our series here. Is that too long, too tedious? What did you like and what did you prefer we blog less of? At any rate, thanks for the many comments.

It had been a long day at Great America where we only had hot dogs, M&Ms and chips to sustain us since breakfast. We were quite hungry by the time we got out of the theme park. We already knew where we’re gonna go for dinner that day. Where we were staying in, there seems to have a lot of Asian restaurants, in particular Korean. It had been quite a number of days since we had a full Asian meal and we really wanted rice and noodles.

Just a walk across the street from our hotel was Pho Hoa. We have already spotted that familiar name the day before. It was an unanimous choice for dinner. Besides fried rice, our boys are quite addicted to pho too.

We had been to a Pho Hoa in Richmond before. We don’t rate the pho in Richmond’s Pho Hoa as some of the best we tasted but since we’re on the road and have been missing real Asian food, this is just perfect.

Pho Hoa is a franchise and have dozens of outlets throughout the US, Canada and Asia. They proudly pasted a big sign on their entrance about them being in the Top 400 Restaurants in America. I don’t know what the significance it is of this Top 400 rank … I guess it is a big deal here in the US.

We also found out that Pho Hoa first started in the neighboring city of San Jose. Wow … we are close to the epicenter of the Pho Hoa movement. This had gotta be good.

In Canada, pho restaurants will give the adults hot tea and kids iced water. Did any of you notice that? I did not think of it until now and just took it for granted.

Here they gave all of us iced water. The ice is different … not in cubes or tubes but in pebble size. Nanzaro calls these ice-cutes, not cubes.

The bean sprouts were fresh and crunchy. You can see they are not fresh if the roots are brownish. We see some people putting these bean sprouts in their pho … yucks, we hate to do that. Instead, we just munch on them while waiting for the pho to be brought to the table. Oh, we don’t use the leafy vegetable and lime too.

Pho Hoa claimed that their food is a “healthy choice” on their menu. Well, I don’t know about that. I have always thought that it’s a “hearty” for sure. Without finding out, I always assumed that such food contains a fair bit of MSG. Also, I think red meat is not exactly healthy food, especially the cuts they serve in phos.

All of us had pho. BTW, what’s your favourite cut? For me, I love tendons and tripe. I don’t care much for the thinly slice beef flanks. My boys love meat balls. Suanne, well, she takes whatever we had.

I can see that our boys are bigger eaters now. Already, Arkensen have an entire large bowl of his own and his younger brother is gobbling down more out from Suanne and my bowl. By next year, we gotta adjust our dine out budget by another 33%.

Seven bucks for each bowl of large pho. Nice meal.

Nothing beats a steaming bowl of Pho on a cold and rainy winter day. Pho Hoang is one of our favourite Vietnamese restaurants. Located along Main at East 18th Avenue, it is easy not to miss this restaurant with a wide store front. What we like about Pho Hoang is not so much for their Pho but the fact that they had a very extensive menu beyond just Pho.

From the many reviews we read of Pho Hoang, the biggest beef (pun intended) is with their slow service. I think it is because of the way the restaurant is laid out. It is wide with two wings separated at the entrance. It took about 10 minutes before they came with the menu and our pot of tea.

It is without a doubt that it’s a very popular restaurant. The place were simply packed when we arrived late for lunchtime. Unlike a lot of other Vietnamese restaurants, this place has a good mix of Asians and non-Asians customers.

Thai Peppers! I love Thai Peppers but they game only one — unchopped. This means that they expect the customer to bite into it. They are lethally hot. They are 50,000-100,000 on the Scoville Rating. As a comparison, Tabasco is 7,000-8,000, while Jalapeno is only 2,500-8,000.

The Cha Gio (Vietnamese Spring Roll) costs $3.95 for a serving of three. The skin is deep fried and crisp. The fillings were seasoned with lots of ground black pepper. This is one of the best spring rolls I have tried. I like the way the skin is deep fried. Do you know how they make it so different from the normally smooth skin?

Arkensen ordered the large Pho Bo Vien (Beef Ball with Rice Noodle in Soup) for $5.95. Anything below $6 for a large bowl is a deal. The characteristic of a great bowl of pho is that it must be served piping hot — you must see the steam. This one came served with the all important steam. The soup was great and had a full beefy flavour.

Me, I ordered what they called the Com Bi, Cha, Ga Nuong Sa (Shredded Pork, Meat Cake, Lemon Grass Chika with Steam Rice) for $7.45. I liked the taste of the pork chop. It is both sweet and salty at the same time. The best part is the charred parts — carcinogenic? *shrug*.

The Meat Cake is nice but I don’t know what’s in it. The dish is served with both rice and vermicelli which is great drizzled with the fish sauce. For $7.45, this is like having three dishes for a price of one. Highly recommended.

Suanne and Nanzaro shared the Bun Mang Vit (Duck and Bamboo Shoot with Vermicelli in Broth Soup). This one costs $6.95. They ordered this because they sound unique. They had no idea how it looks like. It was a good choice.

The Duck Meat was so soft that they fall off the bones. Duck meat is known to be tough but with this you don’t need to cut, you just pull the meat apart. It is served on a separate dish filled with crunchy fresh onion rings.

The Bamboo Shoot served in the bowl of vermicelli soup were chewy. This is a good departure from the Phos. We’ll try this one again the next time round.

To us, this is one of the best Vietnamese restaurant. They have a good variety of Vietnamese and Cambodian cuisine, the food is great and the price very reasonable. Be prepared to wait for service, they are a bit slow.

Total bill is $28 inclusive of tax and tips. Not bad.

I’m off to catch a flight to Singapore. The flight is in the afternoon and I have not have a confirmed ticket yet. Calling the reservation office yesterday, they told me I should have no problem getting a seat on the flight but I need to be there as soon as the checkin counter opens to get onto the wait list.

The family wanted to see me off at the airport. So, we decided grab something to eat at the airport while waiting for my flight to be confirmed. There’s this new Hue Cafe little shop we notice along No 3 Road each time we drive past the Richmond Center. We would not have given that place a second thought if not for the big sign that reads “Vietnamese Sub: 4 for $10″. It was just what we wanted — sandwiches to-go for the airport.

They have dark windows and you could barely see the insides. However, when we got in we were pleasantly surprised how clean and tastefully decorated they were. It’s much better than the many Vietnamese restaurants we frequented.

They have limited menu — primarily subs and pho. The prices were very cheap too. Their pho is only about $4.50 each. We ordered the 4 subs for $10 and decided to choose different types. We chose pork, chicken, beef and meatballs.

The bread is the baquette, hard crusted type. There are not much meat and you can see lots of the carrot, cucumber, etc.

The subs were surprising very good. It was just rightly moist which is due to the fish sauce they used.

All of us enjoyed it. Will certainly go back to the little shop and check out their cheap pho one of these days. The joint was owned by a friendly and charming young lady who had kids at the age of our boys. We chatted about our kids.

Here is their address: 6620, No 3 Road, Richmond, BC.

Stay tuned … I am away from home for the next two weeks on business in Singapore and also making a side trip to Malaysia to meet up with family and old friends. It’ll be a hectic trip but I am looking so much forward to this trip for sometime now.

We did not have a specific place to eat out on a Saturday afternoon. So we tried to cruise down Main St in Vancouver knowing that there are a lot of cheap eats all along that street. We came upon this “new” restaurant called Pho Tan along Main and 30th Ave. We remember that there was a chinese restaurant in this lot we tried many years back.

Click here for the Google Map of this restaurant.

We took a peek into the restaurant and saw that the decor was not bad at all. Most importantly, there were a lot of people in the restaurant — the food must be really good. We had to wait about 10 minutes for a table, which is rarity for a Vietnamese restaurant.

For starters, we ordered the Stuffed Boneless Chicken Wings (Cinh Ga Rut Xuong). There are 3 wings in all. The skin were crispy and is stuffed with the kind of things you find in spring rolls. This dish is $6.50. It was very good and we recommend this.

Arkensen ALWAYS ordered the Pho with at least beef balls. So, this time he ordered the Pho with Sliced Rare Beef and Beef Balls. This pho was pretty much the same pho you get anywhere. This costs $5.85 for a large serving.

Suanne decided to go for something different. She ordered from the House Special menu — the Pho Ga Satay which is a satay chicken with rice noodle soup. The soup is made with peanut sauce and coconut milk. The soup has a slight sourish taste and had a strong hint of lemon grass. This is a spicy dish and costs $6.50.

For me, I ordered the Hu Tiu Mi (Kho Hoac Nuoc) which in English is Cambodian Egg Noodle. You have a choice of having this in soup or dry noodles. I ordered the dry version. There were a lot of big pieces of seafood: prawns, squid and imitation crab meat. The egg noodles tasted very fresh and lingers in your mouth. The large serving costs $6.50.

We will definitely make a return visit to Pho Tan. The food is good, the prices cheap, the place is clean and there are more on the menu we definitely want to try.

Pho Viet is another favourite Vietnamese Restaurant we go to. They serve pretty decent pho but what we really like is their curry chicken with vermicelli. This restaurant is located on Ackroyd in Richmond.

As in almost all Pho restaurants, we were first served with a plate of fresh beansprout with basil leaves and lemon wedges. The beansprout is very crunchy and “watery”. We actually prefer those that were blanched.

The boys will always order the pho with beef balls.

For me, I ordered the Pho with Beef Tendon for once.

I expected the tendon to be chunky but they were sliced. Still it was good.

Here is the curry chicken we like so much. It is really rich with coconut milk.

They really go very well with the cooked and softened vermicelli.

Total cost for this meal is $19, including tips and taxes.

Giving just a crumb to the hungry is worth more than giving lunch to the satisfied.
~ Vietnamese Proverb

I missed authentic Asian food after a week in the states. While there Arkensen MSN’ed me and we agreed we should go for pho this weekend. We went to a place called Pho Saigon along the eastern end of Kingsway, you know, the section just before Kingsgate?

We have been to this place before. What we liked about this place was not so much of the pho noodles but the other Vietnamese food. It had been a while and were surprised that the place had a new coat of paint. It’s much brighter now. Apparently, the owner has changed because we could not see the normal faces and the menu does look different.

Everytime I am here I ordered their dry seafood noodles. I ordered the same this time but they don’t look as good as last time. I prefer darker sauce but this one is much lighter. Enjoyed the squid and prawns — very generous portion.

Suanne and Nanzaro shared the curry chicken with rice. It was not spicy but was very rich. I can see that they used a lot of coconut milk. There was very few meat — just three miserable pieces. There were more pieces of potatoes and carrots. No, not as good as it was last time we came.

Arkensen will always go for Pho. He’s not the adventurous type when it comes to food. This time he has graduated from Beef Balls Pho to the No 1 Pho (all kinds of beef meat) — hmm, I am impressed. He finished off the whole LARGE bowl. I like to see that he finishes so much food.

So, is it good? No, it’s nothing to shout about. The place is simply not the same anymore — nice looking place but the food is just so-so. Total damage (including tips): $24.

Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them
~ Unknown

It was cold and rainy today. Just the type of weather for a hot bowl of noodle soup. We went to the Thai Son Restaurant on No 3 Road. Is just across the road from the Richmond Centre.

The Thai Son Restaurant is owned by a Vietnamese couple. Although the name Thai Son appears to be a Thai restaurant, it is not … it is a purely Vietnamese restaurant. Thai Son has a restaurant too under the same name in East Broadway in Vancouver.

Apparently, this restaurant was very popular back in the 1990’s among the Hong Konger crowd. There are a number of photos hanging on the wall of some old Hong Kong movie stars in the restaurant who emigrated to Vancouver prior to the 1997 handover to China.

As in all Vietnamese restaurants, they always serve first the complementary bean sprout. Thai Son serves the bean sprouts blanched and warm.

Suanne ordered the Rice Noodle in Special Vietnamese Stew. The stew was not thick and the beef chunks were tender. Nanzaro shared this with his mum.

Arkensen ordered a large Beef Ball noodles. He finished the entire large bowl. We are glad to see him eat the whole bowl because he normally does not eat much and is underweight for his height. Arkensen likes to add lots of teriyaki sauce to his noodle.

I ordered the Rice Noodle in Spicy Soup. It was quiet spicy and with the hot soup, I worked out quite a bit of sweat … just right for a cold and rainy night.