All Entries in the "Richmond" Category
Guu in Aberdeen, Richmond
It’s getting tougher to look for a new cake place for cake meet with Polly. I got a couple of places to check out but only found out that they are open late in the afternoon which does not suit our timing. It was also a rainy day and we ended up in Aberdeen Center in Richmond. At least the car park is covered and there is plenty of parking spaces. That’s why we ended up our cake meet at Guu in Aberdeen.
Guu in Aberdeen opens for lunch at 11:30am. That is still ok with us. Since we were there at about 11:00 am, we had some time to do some groceries shopping before our lunch. Polly likes to do her groceries shopping on Friday as most groceries places are packed with people in the weekends. As for me, I like to do my groceries shopping at the beginning of the week as I seldom cook during weekends.
Guu is a Izakaya type of Japanese restaurant. All the servers will greet you the moment you enter and leave the restaurant. They are full of enthusiasm. I like their high spirit. The only other Asian restaurant that practice such greetings are Taiwanese restaurant. However, they are more subtle.
Polly likes Guu’s cup and condiment holders, especially the cup with the fish imprints. Chinese restaurants usually have toothpicks at the counter but in Guu, they actually have them on the table. What a nice touch.
We ordered two items to share. The first item was called the Guuu’d Box. It’s on the lunch special menu. This bento box costs More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Sunway Restaurant on No 3 Road, Richmond
No sooner had I lamented that Richmond does not have a worthy Taiwanese Beef Noodle restaurant, we found one right at the Empire Square. Winnie was the one who alerted us to the place. [Thanks Winnie!]
Just take a look at the above. In my usual style of getting overly excited over new discoveries, I am going to cut to the chase and say this — this is one Taiwanese restaurant that cannot be ignored. If you like Taiwanese food, you should check it out for yourself. We like it and we were impressed.
The Sunway restaurant is located at the Empire Square. This is the same strip mall where Hon’s and Shiang Garden is on No 3 Road.
They are situated at the same place where Richmond’s Legendary Noodles used to be. I personally felt this particular location is bad because it is on a blind spot to most people driving around this mall.
The Sunway restaurant is small but bright. The waitress was friendly and cheerful. She does look a lot like Bjork, no kidding except that she speaks Mandarin.
Since she was so helpful, we took the opportunity to ask her about the restaurant. She told us that they had been opened for over 3 months already. The chef was from Taiwan in a city outside of Taipei. She also told us that they take their cooking serious and uses the best of ingredients and that they do not use MSG, baking soda or tenderizer in their kitchen at all. We were quite impressed how excited she was with her sales pitch. Seriously, all this was said BEFORE we fished out our camera and notebook. So we know she did not put this up because we were going to write about them.
Our favourite is what they call Deep Fried Pop Chicken. This is like the good Salty Peppery Chicken that we tried just a few days before at Beefy Beef Noodles. The serving is larger than we expected because it was listed as $4.25. We thought it was just an appy size. When it was brought to our table, we could clearly smell the aroma. They don’t serve this with a dipping sauce.
From my memory, the Deep Fried Pop Chicken is crispier than … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
New Asia Deli on Cambie and Sexsmith in Richmond
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 on following page. Click here to continue reading
Pearl Castle in Richmond Centre
It was the weekend when we wanted to just go out and get a drink — bubble tea specifically. No food, we told ourselves, since we already had dinner that night. We were not hungry anyway.
We knew of just the place to go …
… the new Pearl Castle in the Richmond Centre. This restaurant is just across from the McDonalds in the western side of Richmond Center. Lots of parking, so no fear of that.
This is a branch of the successful Pearl Castle on Sexsmith (also in Richmond). It seems like Pearl Castle is on an expansion drive. They even have a small outlet at the food court in Parker Place. That food court outlet is kind of odd to me because I would have thought that location would somewhat affect their branding. It would have been much better if they open any food court outlet in the Aberdeen Centre.
They have a unique wall light thingy which changes colors (see the YouTube video above). With lightings like these, the crowd is young and is very much an Asian youngster hangout. So it was rather noisy and definitely very busy. We had to wait for a table but since this restaurant is also big, the wait was just 10 minutes.
Anyway, this outlet seems like it will be successful. The location is great and there are no real competition within walking distance.
Like the original Pearl Castle on Sexsmith, they have a separate menu just for drinks. The problem is they ran out of most of them. We ordered Iced Shaves and Grass Jelly Frappes but they came back a few minutes later saying that they are out of Frappes and Ice Shaves. Not good. Maybe it was because it was quite late in the night already.
The only things they had left was milk teas. So we ended up with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Cafe de Waraku in Richmond
It was one of the nights that Ben was craving for dessert and there being not many choices, we went to Excellence Tofu and Snacks at Hazelbridge. I wish there are more dessert places in Richmond which serves hot dessert soups. After dessert, we peeped into this new cafe beside the Excellence Tofu to look at the menu displayed outside the glass panels. I did not pay much attention as my first glance is that this place serves Japanese style pasta. But it was Nanzaro who pointed out to me that Cafe de Waraku also serves cheesecakes.
So, I brought Polly to Cafe de Waraku for our cake meet. We were there just past 12:00 noon and the place is still pretty quiet.
We were told that the cafe has opened for about 5 months only. It has simple decorations with a few colourful art pieces on the wall. It is clean and neat.
We like their menu which has colourful pictures. It makes selection much easier. The menu highlights that their items has no msg added and low in sodium. Good for those health conscious people.
Since it’s already noon, we ordered one of their lunch special pasta to try. The pasta comes in three type of flavorings, i.e. Japanese stir fried in original flavour, in cream sauce and in tomato sauce. We picked one in original flavour with eel and egg. This costs $7.99. The noodle is simple and tasty. We totally enjoyed this pasta.
The lunch special comes with a free drink. So, I opted for a coffee, thinking that it will be just dripped coffee. To my surprise, the coffee is pretty good and it even has some crema on it. More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Shanghai JJ Restaurant on No 3 Road, Richmond
Do you reckon that location is the most important aspect when opening a new restaurant?
There is something about this particular restaurant location on the strip mall across the No 3 Road from the Richmond Center. Located in the middle of this strip mall is always a Shanghainese restaurant. Over the ten years since we moved to Richmond, the restaurant operations changed hands a number of times.
Ten years ago, this shop lot was the original location of the Chen’s Shanghai Restaurant. They were quite a small family operation back then. Today they are one of the better Shanghainese restaurants in Richmond having won a number of awards recently.
At one point, there was another restaurant called Shanghai Wind. From what I heard, that restaurant too became successful and had to move out to a bigger and better location. Shanghai Wind became Shanghai Wonderful, which is another successful Shanghainese Restaurant in Richmond.
Up until the early part of this year, it was Da Hong Yun Shanghai Restaurant that operated here. Their food was good but we found it pricey, However, they had closed. Does anyone know what happened to them?
In this place today is yet another Shanghainese Restaurant. This one is called the Shanghai JJ Restaurant. They told us that they had already been opened for business for 8 months now. So I guess they are doing OK.
The place looked the same except for a fresh coat of paint. It does look cleaner.
As soon as we got seated they handed us their menu. We did not even look at it. We set it aside and instead …
… we walked to the wall where they had posted delicious looking pictures of their dishes. This is definitely the best way to order food, don’t you think? As odd as it may feel to some of you, I made our order standing in front of the wall and pointing out what we wanted.
What I like is that many of their dishes are unique that you don’t normally find in other Chinese restaurants.
I can’t help but to compare them with the time when this place was Shanghai Wind (Shanghai Wonderful). Back then this small restaurant was absolutely packed and one had to wait a long time for a table. Shanghai JJ is quite full but they did not have people waiting for a table like when it was Shanghai Wind.
Their Xiao Long Bau is noticeably smaller than what we are used to. It is $4 for 6 pieces. The XLB is quite decent but it was disappointing that one of them was served broken. He he he … to us all pieces of the XLB must be served intact with the soup otherwise it is not good. That is like the litmus test for XLB.
BTW, I want to know what is the right Chinese word to describe ordering dishes. You know like ordering a few dishes communal style with a side of steamed rice? Suanne and I call it “chau choy” in Cantonese but I think there is a better word for it. What is it?
When we have four in the family out for dinner like this, we normally would order three different dishes to share. It would be made up of one soup, one meat and one veggie dish.
The Shanghai Style Soup with Assorted Food costs $13. It has … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Shanghai River on Westminster Highway, Richmond
This is so cool.
I don’t mean the restaurant only.
I used to start off our restaurant review with a image of the restaurant front like the one above. From now onwards, I don’t need to do that anymore. I can do better.
I could easily use Google Map’s Street View now. Like this one below:
Go ahead. Click all over the Street View. You can pan 360°. You can zoom in and out. The images are sharp. Cool, huh?
Alright … back to the restaurant. Shanghai River is one of the more popular Shanghainese restaurants in Richmond and they are successful for several good reasons too.
This restaurant is located on Westminster Highway, just west of No 3 Road. Parking is at a premium in the covered parkade just right of the restaurant. You have to be careful where you park because the stalls are marked.
Reservation is highly recommended at Shanghai River. We were there early at 11:15AM without a reservation and had to wait 30 minutes for a table. The restaurant is large and they turn the tables quite fast. Even then there is a long line. At about 11:30AM, they were already turning away walk-ins and even the calls for reservation for lunch that day. We were just by the waiting area and overheard the incoming phone calls. That tells us we are in the right place.
Bright lightings, tables with double layered table cloth and comfy chair … polite waitresses … efficient and courteous service. They even have a bar. see From these alone I would have thought that this will be a pricey place. I was quite wrong.
The dining area is bustling and very noticeably noisy. Do you think Chinese talks too loudly when dining? LOL! I think we do.
I love their menu. All menus should be like these … well laid out with pictures and English translations. I was thinking that Gweilos would be very comfortable with eating here. Just point to the pictures you fancy and you’re set.
I used the word Gweilo in an affectionate way OK? Maybe I should use the word Sai Yan to refer to Whites or Causasians but the term Gweilo sounds more personal.
Anyway, the surprising thing was that a lot of their Shanghai Style Dim Sum items are under $10 and even main dishes are at the range of $12.
Unlike many Chinese restaurants, Shanghai River’s service is exceptional. The staff were very polite and cheerful to us. I can’t help but notice how well-groomed, young and well-trained the staff are. Their uniform is well fitted. Really, it tells me that they are like the Cactus Club with an Asian twist. I just like them, especially because they were so busy and yet able to appear composed at the tables.
On the menu, they call themselves the Master of Dim Sum. Like any respectable Shanghainese restaurants, they have an open glass enclosed kitchen where they make Xiao Long Bau in plain view of the diners. They have stacks of bamboo baskets so I guess they are very popular here. BTW, for those of you who don’t know … Xiao Long Bao literally means mini dumplings in bamboo baskets in Mandarin.
We decided to get something special. Instead of the normal Xiao Long Bao, we had the Shanghai Dumpling with Crab Meat.
It is beauty. They make it very well. The skin is of the right thickness and is very … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
