All Entries Tagged With: "Richmond"

Sakura Sushi in Brighouse Square, Richmond

I gotta listen better to chowtimes readers.

Like I said in the earlier post, we get the best recommendations for good food from our readers. This is another one.

You see, we received two strong recommendations on Sakura Sushi and did not take it seriously.

• From Kenrick who commented on 25-Jan-2010: “If you haven’t already, I would also suggest you try out Sakura Sushi across the strip next to Bob’s Submarine shop. It is owned and run by a small Japanese team and the chef there prepares fresh and delicious sushi (I believe his name is Yoshi). I go there for lunch often and they never fail to deliver. They have a crispy panko dynamite roll which I love and is quite unique. I will say their portions are not big, but they are filling, and focus on the simplicity and taste/texture rather than flash.”
• From Vina who sent us an email on 07-Aug-2010 saying: “just wanted to let you know about sakura sushi in the staples strip mall on no.3 road in richmond.  it’s probably my favorite sushi restaurant despite it’s small size and unpretentious interior because of its great service, good pricing and fresh sashimi.  i would personally recommend the seaweed salad and ‘what the hell’ roll that has unagi on top of a salmon and avacado roll.  all the salmon that it serves is only wild alaskan salmon which is great because it is much healthier than the usual farmed pink salmon.  give it a go one day!”

Two weeks ago, I was lazy to go out for dinner. As you probably know, Suanne NEVER cooks on the weekend. I have my day off work and so she said she MUST have her day off too. So we had to eat out. I decided that we should just go to one that is closest to home and have a quick dinner. Moreover, the boys would definitely say yes to sushi.

I had little expectations really. Firstly the name Sakura Sushi sounded so unimaginative. Secondly, for a Japanese restaurant located in Brighouse Square I had my doubts that it is Japanese owned. Thirdly, the store front let me think how small it was. Fourthly, the sign is in bright red and yellow which makes me really think it is Chinese owned.

The place is small and simple. It is so small that counting the number of seats is easy … 1, 2, 3 … 11, 12, 13. That’s it.

Sakura Sushi is most definitely Japanese owned. The waitress is Japanese who was very polite and friendly and spoke English with a very heavy Japanese accent. Even though we were the first one there the waitress informed us that they are very busy and will take some time for our order to come. It seems like its a small operation … there is only the chef and the waitress that we saw the whole time. I think they were busy because of take away orders. We were not in a rush or what, so it was not an issue for us.

Their special is pasted on the wall. I was quite drawn to the Unagi Tamago Roll which has an extra line that say “please try this without soy sauce because it’s tasty!” The words “without soy sauce” was underlined and printed in red — so it must be darn tasty.

Sold! That is what I had.

The Unagi Tamago Roll costs $4 for six pieces. Since we had a coupon printed from their website, it was $1 off. So, it is $3. Not bad.

No wonder it said no soy sauce. It is because they already have sauce (teriyaki?) on it. It was quite good but nothing outstanding if you ask me.

Oh yeah, the tamago in the picture looks like avocado doesn’t it? It is made of eggs. It is just that it is compact and cut so smoothly and the greenish outline seems to make it looks ike avocado. Suanne and I debated about this for a long time and was wondering if we forgot or what.

We love the Deep Fried Soft Shell Crab. Delightfully looking isn’t it? This is $7.75.

The meat is simply fantastic … soft. The shell is so soft too that you just … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Starry Night Restaurant in Richmond

*** THIS NEW RESTAURANT IS WORTH CHECKING OUT ***

I don’t normally call out a restaurant in RED BOLD letters but this one excites me and is worth noting.

It is common knowledge that Suanne and I get a lot of recommendations from our readers. These recommendations are the ones that we value a lot because these recommendations alert us to what’s new and what’s good. We know that if it excites someone well enough to write to us, they are definitely worth checking out.

It was just last weekend when Eliza commented (here) that we should check out what she calls the “Starry Night Restaurant Behind Costco”. I thought it was kind of weird but I was intrigued with that location. I clicked over to the link on dinehere.ca and was pretty stoked reading the rave reviews.What do you think when you see review headings that says:

• Finally, a high-end restaurant that will make me go back to. Excellent food!
• Recommendation to all foodies out there! It’s a must visit!
• Hidden Diamond! A must see for everyone, incredible! Best looking restaurant in Vancouver!

It just so happened that we were going shopping at Costco that day. We drove over and saw it … right in the middle of nowhere is just this one restaurant. We were curious and decided to come back.

So, yesterday Suanne and I went for lunch at Starry Night. Starry Night is located on Beckwith Road. Forget about the street address. There is nothing on the street let alone anyone know where Beckwith Road is.

The sign outside the restaurant says “Starry Night – Restaurant – Reflexology”. I’ll tell you more about that Reflexology part later on.

It is easy to find. Just drive to the road behind Costco. You will not miss it. Like I said, there is nothing else on this street. There are lots of parking along the street but you really want to drive into the restaurant where they have parking at the back of the restaurant.

You know why? If you go at night, you want to walk in from the parking lots and see the nice lighting that they had put up. We were there in the afternoon and so we did not get to see it but the owner told us you gotta do it at night. He was raving to us about it.

You will probably laugh that on the right side of the restaurant is a rundown house with overgrowth as high as the roof. On the left side of the restaurant is an empty industrial lot.

They had just been opened for three weeks only. So it is very new.

The moment we stepped in, it is like a different world altogether. We were quite impressed with the setup.

During the later part of our lunch, the chef and the owner came by to chat with us because they noticed that we were taking notes and pictures. There were hardly any customer for lunch. There was only four tables taken the whole time we were there … and so yeah, we stuck out like a sore thumb.

The owner told us that he is from Taiwan and he owns the biggest live-band restaurant in Taipei. He told me the name in Chinese but I can’t remember it. He told us this restaurant is his lifelong dream to make his one perfect restaurant.

The entire restaurant was designed from the ground up and no expenses was spared. It is broken down into three different settings and he said that depending on where you are seated it is a different experience, view and lighting. The owner told us that if we come at night, the patio will be lighted with laser blue lights that looks like stars at night. We were seated in the more casual “Japanese Gazebo” section with natural sunlight permeating the entire area.

The walls were real granite and the wood panelings were walnut wood imported from Taiwan. The tables were tiled with tiles from Spain and the fabric for the seats were imported from Italy. That was what the owner told us but looking at it, they were all plush and of high quality.

The back section presents a more sophisticated look with high ceiling and dimmer setting. There is very little you will not like about the place alone. The music too was soothing with accompanying images showing on the TVs mounted in several area.

Service was eager and attentive but I must say that it was not really good. The waitress does not seem to know some of the questions we had and she responded with pretty general answers. But I do cut her some slack here with the understanding that they were still new. I could see that she is trying her utmost best.

I think this is one department they need to polish on if they aspire for perfection like they say they are.

I read that their coffee is very good and they recommended that too. As appealing it is, we did not get it because we cannot sleep if we take coffee at this time. Coffee is only for morning for us.

Instead, I thought we try the White Tea because it was unique. This is called Pai Mu Tan Guava Berry. It came steeped already with some at the side if we wanted more. The tea was good. We could smell the fragrance of the berry each time we took a sip from the cup. This is $7.

We started off with a soup. We decided to get the Chef’s Daily Creation ($7) which is Chicken and Ginseng double-boiled soup. The bowl is small but is very well done. The soup had a deep flavour, and is smooth and clear. and the chicken meat was like they selected the best parts to serve — it was perfect.

The appetizer above is amazing, but expensive. This is called Chilled Dungeness Crab Cake and costs $16.

There are three distinct layers with a seaweed salad at the bottom. The middle part is the crab and is topped with freshly cut mango salsa. Sprinkled around the plate are crunchy delicious tobiko’s.

The best way to eat it is not by the layer but with a cross section with everything at the same time. Heavenly. It was cold and refreshing. I think you can just imagine what this tastes like. Each ingredient is good enough for me but the balance of all these are simply amazing. I think you will like it. We did … a lot.

The waitress recommended the Schnitzel. I was kind of not sure … Schnitzel … how can Schnitzel be anything exciting, right? Wrong.

Firstly, the $17 Berkshire Pork Loin Schnitzel came with all the platings that practically took up the entire table.

First area of focus is the bowl of sesame seeds. We got to … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Shoryumen and Fumisen and Bakudanyaki Food Trucks in Richmond

Alright.

Some of you might remember that I blogged about Richmond’s answer to Vancouver’s Japadog last summer. That post generated quite an active discussion not only on chowtimes.com but a picture from that post also made it into a discussion thread on chowhound.

The unflattering picture of a half-eaten bakudanyaki became the focus of the Most Frightening Food You Have Seen Lately discussion thread. When I took that picture above, the only thing I was thinking of was how delicious it was. But on hindsight, I guess the Bakudanyaki does look rather frightening.

That one and only street food stall in Richmond has since grown …

It is now THREE food trucks. I had wanted to earlier name this post “Vancouver 1 – Richmond 3″ but decided otherwise because it will inflame the Vancouver area food bloggers.

But seriously, I think Richmond is going to blaze the way in terms of promoting street food. Richmond is going to show Vancouver that it is alright to sell street food other than hotdogs.

In addition to the Tenku Bakudanyaki food truck, they have expanded to selling ramen and sushi cones too. They are still at the same location — at the intersection of Gilbert Road and Elmbridge Way.

The Richmond food trucks are easier to locate now. It is just next to that Inukshuk which is fashioned out of containers. Someone apparently thought it is a great idea to put that up in support of the Olympics. Good thing they did not paint it in the colors of the Vancouver 2010 logo or else VANOC will be going after them.

These food trucks are making news. Even the CBC were there doing an interview with the man behind all these food trucks when we were there.

*gasps* We are getting identified. While waiting for the interview to finish, the assistant of the CBC interviewer turned to me and asked “Are you chowtimes?” LOL!

I was kind of surprised, right? So my first reaction is “Yes, but how did you guess?”. Apparently she recognizes Suanne, Arkensen and Nanzaro. :-)

The man behind the three food trucks is Kan. He came across to me as energetic and brimming with ideas. While he was making the ramen for us, I asked him some question. He was excited  and wanted to tell the world the plans he had in mind and yet he held back being specific about them. He said three times how little time he has to implement his plans.

From my conversation with Kan, I can clearly see that this young man is not going to stop expanding anytime soon.

We decided to try two bowls of Ramen. These are simple ramens.

Ordering is simple. You just choose one of the soup base you want. Kan said that he only have the Kuro, Aka and En ramen for now. The more expensive Ton ramen is not available until February 9th. That Ton is interesting because he said he is limiting that to only 20 bowls a day because of space and time constraints.

Each of the ramen comes with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Excelsior Restaurant on No 3 Road, Richmond

Excelsior had always been there for as long as I remember. Or at least I think it had always been there for a long time. I don’t really know.

For some reason we had not gone to the Brighouse Square strip mall for anything other than the rare trip to Staples or pickup some pastries from the New Town Bakery.

I could be wrong but I assumed that Excelsior is a long timer in Richmond. It opened in the days when there were more HK immigrants.

What I find strange is that there is only ONE review on Excelsior (by Yum-O-Rama) and nothing on Dinehere.ca, Urbanspoon or Yelp. And yet when we stand in front of the door, we see impressive age-faded newspaper reviews showing high-end food. Those must have came from their glory days.

The place was absolutely full. It was so unexpected. The first thing they asked is if we had a reservation. When we said no, they hesitated for a moment and then showed us to the crappiest three-seater table by the corridor which connects two separate dining areas.

We were not unhappy about it really. Just glad that they gave us a table. Boy, was this restaurant popular!

A lot of their customers are families. Many of them are multi-generation families out for a family dinner.

Excelsior is decidedly Cantonese. I just can’t classify them properly. The decor, tables, chairs and even the bowls shows their age and had seen better days. At a glance, they are like any HK Style Cafe. But they don’t serve the normal HK Style Cafe fare.

Their menu was exciting. At least to us it was. There were so many new things that we had a hard time deciding. Looking at the variety on menu, Suanne said that it looks like we are going to come here several more times. The prices are on the higher side compared but quite affordable.

We discarded the main menu and focused on the two that says “Chef Recommendations” and “Special Stylish Dishes”. That is their more popular dishes. We took an awfully long time to decide what we wanted. We shortlisted EIGHT dishes but forced to narrow it down to three since it was just three of us at this dinner.

Service was OK. It was fast … rushed and somewhat impatient. After all, it is a HK restaurant. What do you expect. At least they were not rude. They are not really good with English for sure. We ordered with the English names and they had to cross check it with the Chinese name at the back of the menu.

They came by with free soup. I am not sure how it works and if everyone gets this regardless of what is ordered. I see every table getting this.

It was a nice touch. Not many restaurants does this anymore. The soup was flavourful. It even had boney pork pieces in it.

Most tables ordered this. We figured this must be their specialty.

This is called Steamed Chicken with Soy Sauce. We had the smaller portioned half-chicken ($13). The whole chicken is $24.

It was simply the best we had ever tried. Bar none. Such simplicity … such simplicity that they don’t even care to … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Where Can We Find Shaobing in Vancouver?

This is a continuation quest for a reader, Michelle who wrote to me to find restaurants which serve Shaobing. I contacted a few of my Taiwanese friends and two of them recommended me to this place which sells traditional Taiwanese Shaobing. So, I made it a point to check out this place during my ladies meet day with Polly.

My Taiwanese friend, Emily told me that Shaobing stuffed with Chinese donut is a very typical breakfast item.

The place that my friends recommended is located on the second floor of President Plaza in Richmond, next to T&T Supermarket and across Aberdeen Center.

It is a stall at a small foodcourt. The stall name is Yung Ho Soy Drink. Apparently, this name is quite famous in Taiwan.

Yung Ho Soy Drink serves various types of shaobing, sweet and savory. Click on the images above to have a clearer view.

Without a doubt, I wanted to try … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Waves Coffee in Steveston, Richmond

Polly and I resumed our ladies meet on Friday after a long winter break. It’s great to have some time off with a girl friend for girl talks.

Arkensen was not feeling too well that morning but he insisted to go to school. I told him if he is not getting better, he should come home and call me to let me know. So, I told Polly that we should go to somewhere in Richmond in case Arkensen comes home and I can get home quickly.

We ended up going to Waves Coffee in Steveston Village. This franchise coffee house began in 2005 at the corner of West Hasting St. and Richards in downtown Vancouver. The Richmond location is located at 12231 1st Ave, Richmond. There are 2 other major coffee chains in the near vicinity like Starbucks and Blenz Coffee. Canadians sure love coffee a lot.

Surprisingly, this place is very big. It has various types of seatings like sofas, counter seatings facing the glass wall and normal table seatings. They even have a kid table with kid chairs. No wonder, there are lots of toddlers here. We also saw some seniors, workers and people having a meeting here at the comfortable sofas. They offer baked goods, sandwiches, hot and cold beverages.

Polly got herself a Belgian Hot Chocolate. You have a choice of dark, milk or white chocolate. Polly opted for the dark chocolate. A small cup costs $3.89. I got something from the African Rooibos Tea section. The small cup of  Red Tea Latte costs $3.29. My homemade Red Espresso seemed to have stronger flavour than this.

We had three baked goods to share. The first item is a Cinnamon Twist. It is very flaky and … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Ho Yuen Restaurant on Hazelbridge Way and Capstan Way, Richmond

Let me share with you an invaluable a tip.

This is particularly for those of you who are not conversant in Cantonese.

I remember a discussion on chowtimes on why non-Chinese customers felt that they do not get equal treatment in Chinese restaurants, particularly HK Style Cafes. I think it is more because of the waitresses inability to communicate effectively in English as the root cause more than anything else.

Here is the tip. You just need to learn two simple phrases. The two phrases are “Lang Jai” and “Lang Looi”. If you need anything, just say “Lang Jai” and pause for a second before you ask. This is only valid if the waiter is a he. To a waitress, just say “Lang Looi”.

It works all the time. Trust me. It even works in any settings — you can even use it on your Cantonese colleagues and they will do anything you ask of them.

Try it the next time you go to a HK Style Cafe and I am very sure you will be very pleased with the response. Just remember you learn this on chowtimes.com.

Let me repeat … “Lang Jai” for the he-server and “Lang Looi” for the she-server.

Last weekend Suanne suggested we go check out that restaurant in the Union Square on Capstan Way. She can’t remember the name of the restaurant but just that one that has the big portraits of the owners on the window.

I don’t know if there is a story behind the portraits or if they are famous or something. We can’t help but feel that doing this will just open themselves to ridicule. But then on the flip side, this makes the restaurant easy to remember. When Suanne said the restaurant with the husband and wife portrait, I immediately know which one she is saying.

The restaurant is called Ho Yuen. I think they had just changed ownership or something. The name remained the same.

The restaurant is large and takes up two shop lots. There is a sign that this place can take a maximum of 96 customers.

The interior is very typical HK Style Cafe with no frills decor. To lend to that Hongkong’ish feel, they have black and white photos of the famous urban areas in HK.

It appears Ho Yuen is popular. It was already half full of customers even though we were there before peak dinner time.

Service was very fast. They set us up with drinks and menu instantly. We did not have to use the “Lang Jai” / “Lang Looi” technique.

Like in all HK Style Cafes, they have a large selection which came in several menus — with a variety of combinations. Everyone in our family like this because there is always something that each of us will like.

Like in all HK Style Cafe, there is the Iced Milk Tea which normally comes along free with the combo. Ho Yuen uses exactly the same type of mug that Kingspark uses (we hate Kingspark because they not only have bad service, it is also rude!).

You know, I find that more and more HKSC is charging these beverages. It used to be free but they now charge $1 if you want it with ice. That part I don’t understand because it is not like you get more tea/coffee if you just add ice cubes in it.

I ordered from their Make Your Own Favourite Combo. With this you could pick two main items for $8.75 or three items for a dollar more. The three items is the better deal and so I got that.

My three choices were the steak, short ribs and deep fried chicken wings. I went with spaghetti over the other choices of rice or fries.

The meat were really greasy but I must say that they are not bad. That is sort of saying it is not great but certainly more than edible.

The short rib tasted good but I find it a bit too tough. I am not complaining because after all this is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading