All Entries in the "Richmond" Category
S&W Pepper House on No 3 Road and Granville, Richmond
OK, you guys don’t laugh, OK? But …
Oh man!
I was so honored to have been invited to a dinner with some of the most revered foodies in Vancouver last week. When FMED asked if I would like to join in a dinner with such distinguished names in the foodie world, I was kind of uncertain. You see, these guys and gals are heads and shoulders above the likes of me — a wannabe foodie … a food blogger. These guys knows food and speak authoritatively. These guys are judges for restaurant awards. Their opinions are revered and trusted. They are what I want to be when (if?) I grow up. LOL!
Since I did not have their permissions to mention their names and pseudonyms, the diners will remain anonymous. Let’s just say there were a group of six boys and girl.
The dinner was at the S&W Pepper House in Richmond. S&W Pepper House is located on No 3 Road, right across from the Richmond City Hall. There is another S&W Pepper House in the Crystal Mall in Burnaby. Both are popular restaurants serving some of the best Sichuan cuisine in Metro Vancouver.
Oh boy, I was so embarrassed that I arrived late. Not good to have these people wait. They had almost finished the ordering by the time I arrived.
I had been to both S&W Pepper House in Richmond and Burnaby before. As a matter of fact, I remembered that the visit to the Burnaby’s S&W was one of our earliest post — like 2/3 weeks after chowtimes got started. Reading back that 4 year old post brings back memories to those days when blogging is a simple affair. I still remember that meal where we had the “Guo Qiao” (Crossing the Bridge) Rice Noodle in Special Soup which has a story behind the name of the dish.
First thing that came across my mind was so less classy this S&W Pepper House is today compared to when I first ate here almost 3 years ago.
Richmond's S&W Pepper House in 2007
This place used to look brighter, has better paintings on the wall and it does seem more busier. Maybe it was because this time we had the dinner in mid week. Oh well … not that it matters really but I just happen to notice the stark contrast.
The guys and gals are cooler.
They don’t take pictures of the food before they eat it. They don’t even have to write down their observations. All they needed was the chopsticks.
But they understood. LOL! They respectfully allowed me to shoot pictures before they dove into the food. I know it is not cool but I got a job to do.
FMED stole the picture above. I was not aware of it but I thought I share one of the rare shots of me here. I think this is the ONLY picture of me “at work”.
I was kind of surprised how many appetizers were ordered.
The above is called Fried Peanuts with Cilantro and Chili. This is just $5 and was marvelous. I had never ordered this before. Almost everyone just ate it straight. For me, I just had to have it with rice because the spiciness and flavour is too overpowering for me.
The above is called the House Special Chicken. While this is considered an appetizer, the large serving belies the categorization. There is half a bird here and costs $11.
The Chinese name, I think, is “How Swee Gai” which literary means salivating chicken. Fancy name, huh?
Again with this, I just had to have this with rice.
I see the dish above very often when I go for lunch at the Crystal Mall. I never knew what it was but it certainly was popular that a lot of people ordered it. I assumed that this is a very Sichuan dish.
Guess what it is made of.
This is called Shredded Potato with Dried Chili ($5). I was kind of intrigued because as far as I know potatoes are not native to China. Potatoes originated from South America and I was curious how this ended up as a traditional dish in China.
I thought I was cool right? I just had to mention this … and guess what the response was from the experts.
Well … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
The Jade Restaurant on Alexandra Road, Richmond
Please allow me to do a comparison in this post.
Yesterday, I blogged about the tapas we had in Mis Trucos.
Today I am going to blog about Chinese Dim Sum in The Jade Restaurant. I think this is going to be a bit fair comparison because The Jade restaurant is not a cheapo dim sum joint.
The Jade Restaurant is located on Alexandra Road.
This is the kind of restaurant that you will see a fair number of Mercedes and BMWs in the parking lot.
We don’t normally go to Chinese restaurants that have high ceilings and chandeliers. Those kind of places are reserved for special occasions.
There are not just one … but several chandeliers.
And that explains why we had never been here before. We were put off by the chandeliers.
And the captains wear suits too. The tables have double table cloth. The banquet hall is bright and large. This type of restaurants are designed for banquet dinners. The smallest table is meant for four people. For morning dim sums on a weekend, it is usually a family affair. So seeing multi-generation families are not uncommon.
The only reason we were brave enough to step into here was because we read of the review from Wendy (Eat N About). It seems like the prices were not as bad as I feared.
You know what sucks here? The service. It was not that it was bad all round but a lot of the waiters/waitresses “tai yan” — that means that they have extra good service to the richer tai-tai’s (from the way they dressed and speak in Cantonese) while for us English speaking customers, we are left with the whatever they wished to dish to us.
That is the problem with such successful Chinese restaurants. They are so popular and have so many customers than they can handle, they can afford to select their customers. For some customers, we see that the waiters were always milling around waiting to fill the tea cups for them. For us, when we ask for anything, we were told to “mmm goi tang-tang” (please wait) and they don’t come back. When we ask them again, they give that annoyed look.
So when dining in such places, you got to deal with this or you are better off not going at all. IF … if you can look beyond this, dining in The Jade is good in every sense.
The Jade Restaurant opens at 9AM. So we were there early because their dim sum is really cheap in the first hour from 9AM – 11AM.
My tip to you is to go at 10′ish and order the first round of cheap dim sums and then follow-up with the better (more expensive) dim-sums at 11AM when the sifu (master chef) arrives in the kitchen.
When we arrived, the place was pretty empty. By 11AM, the whole place was buzzing with activity and there was already a number of people waiting for a table.
We ordered the ‘Bo Lei’ tea. It was a very dark tea … much darker than coffee but the flavour was not overly strong. This is one of the more unusual Chinese tea. You might want to try it if you had never before.
The menu does indicate the availability according to time. Click on the menu above to display it larger. If you don’t know what to order, just go for the ones that is marked with a red star. Those are their specialties.
But anyway, the prices of the dim sums between 9-11AM is $4 – $5 but have a limited selection.
After 11AM the prices ranges from $7 – $10 with more varieties like congee, noodles, and some special price items.
We thought it was not too expensive for a classy-looking place like this.
Arkensen and Nanzaro wanted cheong fun. Suanne and I decided to get one that you don’t normally find in other dim sum restaurants. This one has mushrooms and scallops. The boys protested saying that they don’t want this because it has vegetables (mushrooms!) in it. We tried to reason that this has scallops and they will like it. Well, rather than prolonging the debate, I just over-ruled their protest. Guess what … they love it. LOL! They just don’t want to listen to their mum and dad anymore.
They use fine inoki mushrooms. The scallop was most unique and has a very exquisite taste.
This is $5.28. For the non-Chinese, did you know why the price is so oddly ends with twenty eight cents? The number 8 is an auspicious number to the Chinese because the word sounded like “wealth”. The number 2 is a word that sounds like “easy”. So in combination, 28 is “easy wealth”. That is why you find that the Chinese will pay to get car license plate with the number “8″ in it.
In some Chinese cities, people pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for not just car license numbers but for things like phone numbers, the floor of an office building, etc. Even the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony kicked off on 08/08/08 at 8:08 PM.
If the number 8 is auspicious, the number 4 is to be avoided by the Chinese … because it meant “death”. LOL!
Chinese!
Despite protests across the table, we went ahead and ordered the Steamed Mushroom Dumpling ($4.98). The Jade restaurant makes their dumpling very well. The wrap is so thin and translucent that you could virtually see what is inside. This one has shitake mushroom and has a unique flavour.
It was so good that you don’t really need chili sauce or sweet soy sauce to dip. I think pure Cantonese dim sums does not provide the dipping sauces unless you ask for them specifically. Is that right?
Our waiter recommended this. The Steamed Eggplant with Black Bean Sauce ($4.48) was kind of oversteamed because the eggplant is too soft and mushy. We like the version we had at Royal Dinner and Dance better.
For some reason, they gave us this one above when we ordered the Supreme Dumpling in Soup. Their Supreme Dumpling in soup is their specialty.
We thought that it would be good to try dumpling with lamb meat for a change. The Pan Fried Lamb Dumpling is $4.48.
They serve this with sweet soy sauce mixed with chili, cilantro and garlic which was really good with the gamey tasting lamb dumpling.
So many dumplings right? This one is called Steamed Chiu Chau Dumpling ($4.48).
The skin is so thin that we got to be careful picking it up. The crunchy texture of the fillings inside was great. It consists of turnip/jicama, chives, dried prawns, pork and peanuts. Loaded! It crumbles when you bite into it and so you want to eat it placed on a spoon.
The best part of the meal has got to be this simple dish. This item is only available after … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Ebisu Japanese Restaurant on No 3 Rd and Ackroyd Rd, Richmond
Polly and I went to the Ebisu Japanese Restaurant for lunch during the Olympic weeks as we do not want to go to Vancouver with all the restricted parking. It’s kind of hard to find new dessert places too. Recommendations are most welcome. The only requirement is that it must open for breakfast or lunch at least.
The Ebisu Japanese Restaurant in Richmond is located in the Ackroyd Mall. There are two other Ebisu in Vancouver, Ebisu on Robson and another at West Broadway.
What brought me to Ebisu in Richmond is the above advertisement. I wanted to try their Izakaya items. But, unfortunately, the above are only available at dinner time. What a bummer.
Luckily, they have the lunch special going during our visits. It’s $2.88 per item, minimum order of 3 per person. Polly and I opted for the lunch special since they are light tapas.
Ebisu has clean lines and spacious setting. We were there at 11:30 am when they just open for lunch and I managed to take a photo without the crowd. It was quite full during lunch time. Most of them look like office workers. Service is prompt but not rush.
We ordered the miso soup for 50cents extra. The miso soup has generous amount of tofu and green onions. Just right for the rainy winter day when we were there.
We started off with Sesame Seaweed for appetizer. Love the crunchiness of the seaweed and the mild sesame flavour.
Next, we had the Chikuwa Cheese which is fish cake filled with cheese and deep fried. The melting cheese adds richness to the lightly crunchy fish cake. You have to eat this immediately when served.
The Prawn and Vegetable Tempura came with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Pho Lan on No 3 Road and Granville, Richmond
Pho Lan is one of those rare places that we had been to many times before but had never written about it before. Weird as it may seem, I had always thought that I had written about Pho Lan and did not quite believe Suanne when she said I had not. So last week I checked Pho Lan on this site … and guess what, she’s right.
Pho Lan is located just across the street from the Richmond City Hall on No 3 Road. This is the restaurant known to have hosted the weekly Dot Com Pho sometime ago. I don’t know what happened but for sometime already, they have not had the weekly event in Pho Lan anymore.
It must have been good publicity for Pho Lan when the Dot Com Pho were held there. All bloggers would have known John Chow of johnchow.com (totally no relation to chowtimes.com obviously). If I am correct, his site must have the website with the biggest readership running out of Vancouver … and he makes tons of money blogging. He claims he makes $40-$50K a month but am not sure if it’s a big exaggeration but nevertheless I am sure he make serious money.
Sigh … if only I could make 10% of what he said he does.
Pho Lan is always busy at anytime of the day. Service is very fast and friendly. We had never had problems getting what we needed. They are almost always in a rush and hands with something whether they are going to the kitchen or coming out of it. I had this thing about observing how the waitresses work that tells me how efficiently run they are.
The insides of Pho Lan is really nothing fancy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they even care about decor at all. At least it is tidy and organized.
The man who took our orders obviously knows how to handle food bloggers. It must have been from the days of the Dot Com Pho. As he was taking our orders, he observed that Suanne was writing our order onto the notebook. He excused himself mid-way and reappeared with a take-out menu. He told Suanne that the takeout menu is the same and that she can use the menu. Smart chap. All restaurants should learn from this guy to be blogger-friendly and not be suspicious of bloggers taking notes or pictures of the menu!
The menu in Pho Lan is nothing fancy. It is just like all pho places with the Beef Noodle Soup taking center-stage.
While most Pho places offer pho in two size, Pho Lan is one of the rare places which has pho in three sizes. The options are $5.50, $6.50 and $7.50.
The good thing about Pho Lan is that you can also order a good day as a side. And it’s cheap too $1.50 plus tax.
Arkensen is the one who will always order the “#1″ in Pho restaurants. We don’t even have to ask him and we already know. He is the least adventurous when it comes to food. So, we don’t count on him taking over chowtimes.com some day. LOL!
He got the large one ($7.50) which was really really large. It was so large that Arkensen said he felt like throwing up after the meal. He and Nanzaro are both like a gold fish when it comes to food they like. You know gold fish right? They will eat as much as you feed them until their belly turns over. They just don’t know when enough is enough. Like goldfish, my boys will eat and eat and eat until they get sick.
The pho is great and has a nice cloudy soup. Don’t you find that pinkish rare beef slices awesome? All pho places should learn to serve it this way.
Oh. Mine is good. Between Suanne and I, I am better at picking food. Ask her if you don’t believe me. She had long conceded that I pick great dishes and she often picks dishes that she ended up regretting … and then eye’ing mine.
The $7.50 Fried Tender Beef on Rice Vermicelli is a dry noodle dish. This one is very very … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Royal Dinner and Dance on Garden City and Blundell, Richmond
Shhh … don’t tell anyone about this place.
I am just kidding. I just wanted to catch your attention and read on.
It had been a while since we had dim sum as a family. The beauty of having a blog is that you can easily figure exactly when the last time it was. Everything is so well documented. For us, the last time was in October last year. We are not much of a dim sum people.
Last weekend, we decided to just go to a restaurant closest to home. Suanne reminded me that there is a place that serves dim sum with an odd name … the Royal Dinner and Dance. This is located on the strip mall on Garden City and Blundell in Richmond.
The moment we walked through the door, we had a good feeling that this is going to be good. All these years, we did not even realize this place would be like this.
The restaurant is located upstairs. You walk up a very wide staircase which has pictures of dancers. I think this place doubles as a dance club too because there is a stage and half of the restaurant is on the dance floor.
The restaurant is bigger than we imagine from the outside. What caught us by surprised is how many customers they have despite its size. The place was filled with customers. This is the kind of place where entire/extended families come for dim sum. A lot of the tables taken were parties of four and above.
The table already were prepared with the order form and a pencil. It took us a while, as usual, to make our selection. The prices are cheap too.
Service is hurried as one can expect from a place this this. They came by twice asking if we are ready with the order. They were cool when we said we needed more time. For people who are not used to this type of places, you would take it personally when they abruptly turn away and go to the next table. We don’t consider this rude but understand that some people not used to this will feel slighted.
We were glad to see the varieties they have on the menu. So, we try to pick one or two items from each section … and in the process over-rule some of Arkensen and Nanzaro’s choices. If we leave the choices to them, they will pick TWO orders each of siu mai, har gow and sticky rice. So unexciting. LOL!
I was surprised when both Arkensen and Nanzaro said that they wanted the Rice Rolls with Chinese Donut ($3.75). We never thought they will want such traditional and to us, bland dish.
The Chinese donut here was not crispy but a tad soft. A sign that it is not made fresh. The flavour comes mainly from the soya sauce. They also gave us hoisin sauce and sesame sauce too which we thought it was kind of weird. I actually asked our waitress if it is meant to go with the rice roll and she said “yes”. *shrug*
It was quite nice too dipping the rice roll on the two sauces.
The Pan fried stuffed eggplant with shrimp is kind of skinny. Other than that it is cooked just nice. It is not overcooked that it is all mushy and loses the whiteness inside and yet also not undercooked that it’s raw and fibrous. The flesh inside was still white. We thought they did this perfectly and like the sauciness of the dish too. The sauce was great with the rice roll. Only $2.50.
Well, Arkensen also ask for this … the Steamed Crystal Prawn Dumpling (also $2.50). The size is respectable and the texture was firmly springy.Very good.
We were looking for that tell tale sign of freezer burn and all to see if they are just simply steamed direct from big batches of pre-made ones. They looked good enough for us.
They also have several congee options. We got the Lai Wan Boat Congee ($3.95) because we do not know what it is. We still do not know why this is called Lai Wan or what the words Lai Wan means.
The congee bowl is quite big for a $4 portion and has in it squid, prawn, pork rind, peanut, and Chinese donut. The congee itself does not carry a lot of flavour but a dash of soy sauce and ground pepper does the trick.
Next up is called the Fried Sticky Rice with Preserved Meat ($3.95). It came in a glass bowl and is supposed take a form of the bowl when they cup it upside down on the plate. Well … it fell apart and the waitress had to scrap the rice into the plate, losing the form.
You see it was not sticky enough for that. And I was thinking that this is FRIED sticky rice and so it is not supposed to be that sticky.
Anyway, the sticky rice has lots of … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine Opened — Want To Join Suanne and I for Dinner?
In December last year, we came across a shop lot in Steveston that with sign saying that Zen will be re-opening. Well, Sam Lau’s Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine restaurant had re-opened last week.
Suanne and I had just booked for dinner on Friday, February 26th. We were wondering if an chowtimes readers would like to join us in checking out Sam Lau’s re-incarnation of his famed “Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World”.
Zen became famous overnight in 2008 when Jennifer8 Lee of the New York Times wrote a book called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles in which she traveled around the world checking out Chinese restaurants. In her book, she heralded Sam Lau’s Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine as “the world’s greatest Chinese restaurant outside China”.
Whether Zen is really the world’s greatest Chinese restaurant outside of China is open to debate, I know. There is a question too as to why Sam had to close Zen even after getting a second wind from Jennifer 8’s review in her book.
Anyway, we wrote about the publicity Zen had from Jennifer8 Lee’s review and our tasting at Zen shortly after. Recently, we wrote to Hakkasan about Zen and we had a very in-depth response from Hakkasan which we will share on a later blog post.
Suanne and I was thinking that perhaps if we could get like 2 to 4 couples to join us, it would be great. We have a reservation for 5:30PM. For hockey fan, please note that the 2nd Semi-final of the Men’s Hockey game is on at 6:30PM.
Please send me an email at ben@chowtimes.com if you are interested in joining Suanne and I.
The menu are as follows … we are looking at trying the Menu B.
Menu A – $33
Salad ~ Micro Mix, Mango Ravioli, Salted Plum Oil Crumble, Seasonal Fruit, Rice Vinegar Foam
Baked Whelk ~ Stuff Diced Seafood, Chicken, Vegetables With Coconut Curry
Double Boiled Soup
Tofu Duo ~ Crispy Egg Tofu, Steamed Silky Tofu with Mushroom
Pork Belly ~ Braised In Chinese Spice, Serve With Glutinous Risotto
Dessert Of The Day
Menu B – $55
Terrine ~ House Smoked Salmon Wrapped With Souffle
Baked Whelk ~ Stuff Diced Seafood, Chicken, Vegetables With Coconut Curry
Foamy Seafood Cappuccino ~ Layered With Egg Tofu
Lobster ~ Stir Fried With Black Bean Sauce/Steamed Garlic Sauce
Deep Fried Crispy Chicken ~ Serve With Five Spice Infused Salt
Lotus Leaf Rice ~ Stuff with Dried Scallop, Mushroom, bbq Duck,Diced Chicken, Crab Meat, Bamboo
Dessert Of The Day
Menu C – $120
Seafood Duo ~ Curry Stuffed Whelk, Sliced Geoduck Fondue
Chinese Seafood Soup ~ With Fresh Crab Meat and Fish Maw
Braised Abalone ~ Slow Braised In Oyster Sauce (3 Heads)
Steamed Lobster ~ Steamed With Mince Garlic
Rice ~ Lobster Claw Stir Egg White, Fried Rice
Dessert Of The Day
Here are some of the pictures of Sam Lau’s previous creations (credit to Zen’s website … http://zencuisine.ca)
There are more …
Dim Sum at HKYK Seafood Hotpot Restaurant in Richmond
The Richmond Community Kitchen gathered for a Chinese New Year celebration at HKYK Seafood Hotpot Restaurant which serves dim sum in the morning.
One of the reason we picked HKYK is it’s wheel chair. There is a parking lot adjacent to this building and there are lots allocated for HKYK but you must register your license plate number in a register book at the reception.
There were fourteen members (old and new) from various kitchens who attended this event.
Another reason we picked HKYK is their prices are really cheap; $1.99 for most of the regular dim sum items. Click on the order sheets above for the enlarge view. HKYK uses a computerized order sheet where you shade the required quantity. It reminds of the multiple choices test in schools.
HKYK has been in Richmond for a long time. I remembered we had dim sum here way back in 2002. It is a big restaurant with many seating. I’ve seen reviews that service is not that good here but for the price that you pay, you cant expect much. We are quite ok with the slow service as that gives us more time to chit chat and catch up with one another.
We ordered a total of 21 different items to try. The Steamed Glutinous Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf was the only Special item we ordered. This huge dumpling costs $5.50. It came with sugar and soy sauce for dipping.
Other than the above special, we ordered pretty regular dim sum items for those who are not familiar with this Cantonese cuisine to be on the safe side. Moreover, we do have one member who is gluten intolerant.
Pork Dumplings, Shrimp Dumplings, Steamed Dumpling Chiu Chou Style and Steamed BBQ Buns are very common items in dim sum place.
Wonton in Chili Oil and Peanut Sauce, Steamed Pork Ribs in Black Bean Sauce, Steamed Beef Ribs in Black Pepper Sauce and Steamed Pork Liver Rice Rolls with Ginger are more for the … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
