Northern Delicacy in Aberdeen Centre

Updated: 12th Jan 2015; This restaurant is closed.

We hardly go to the Aberdeen Centre, not sure why even though we know there are quite a few nice bloggable restaurants there. Suanne and I had an afternoon by ourselves and decided to go to the Aberdeen Centre to check out the restaurants there.

The Aberdeen Centre s actually named after the Aberdeen Harbour in Hongkong. This centre is actually a new reincarnation of the old Aberdeen Center which was demolished and rebuilt again to compete with the other new Asian Mall around Richmond.

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The Aberdeen Centre caters primarily for Asian-Canadian shoppers — mainly Chinese, Hongkong Chinese. The primary tenant is Daiso where everything is sold for two dollars. Unlike other Asian Malls around the Vancouver area, this one is very clean, spacious, bright and uncluttered.

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Someone recommended the Northern Delicacy restaurant to us sometime back. I can’t be absolutely sure but I think it was Daniel and Clarina. The restaurant has a very wide entrance, untypical of chinese restaurants and you can’t miss the two Terracotta warriors by it’s entrance.

I know very little about Chinese cuisines, especially the little subtleties of cuisines around the various regions. So, I got a question for you readers … what exactly is termed as Northern Cuisine? My impression is that it consists of things like steamed buns (especially xiao lung bao) and noodles in soup. Somehow, I felt that Northern food are more “steamy” because of the cold weather in the northern region. Any expert who can enlighten us?

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Suanne told me that the Chinese name for this restaurant does not translate to Northern Delicacy but instead it should translate to something like “Full House Restaurant”.

Whatever it is called, the Northern Delicacy place a lot of attention to details. The waitresses are dressed in silky and embroidered traditional Chinese costumes. The tableware too are printed with their logos. We like details like this.

Their menu is very easy to read and is sectionalized clearly with color pictures. This makes selection much easier especially for people who are not familiar with Chinese food. The menu is also very extensive and includes the following:

  • Cold dishes and appetizers
  • Steamed buns and dumplings
  • Pan fried and deep fried buns
  • Noodles in soup
  • Seafood
  • Meat

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The “Dan Dan” Handmade Noodles in Black Sesame Soup appears popular here. As we passed by the tables we see quite a few customers having this. It is also unique to us and so we promptly ordered this. This costs $6.50.

The soup is very thick unlike the normal chinese noodle soup which is served in broth. It is very peanuty and had a strong hint of spiciness with thinly sliced cucumber. We like this.

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This one is called the “Shanghainese Style Fried Rice Cake with Shredded Pork and Snow Cabbage” on the menu. I think it’s shortened to “Nien Kao” in Chinese. I had never had this type of rice cake before. The rice cake is sliced like the way you sliced sausages into oval shapes. It is particularly chewy and does take a lot of jaw work to eat through the entire dish.

The rice cake is practically tasteless but the mushroom, spinach, sliced pork, sliced bamboo shoot, snow cabbage gives excellent flavour to the entire dish. We love this but would have been perfect if this is a bit easier on the jaw! Price is $9.50.

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Service was rather slow though. It was a Friday afternoon and understandably many people from the nearby offices would go eat out. What we liked about this place is that the price were actually cheap for such a restaurant and the dished were unique. We’ll be back soon to try out their other dishes. Highly recommended … you should check it out when you are in Richmond.

Northern Delicacy on UrbanspoonBusiness Hour

7 days a week
11:00 am to 10:00 pm

This Post Has 0 Comments

  1. ccoa

    Do you have the address to this place?

  2. Suanne

    Hi Cocoa, the address for Northern Delicacy is:
    2788 – 4151 Hazelbridge Way, Richmond

  3. cocoa

    Thanks! Need to note i

  4. John

    Great site! Though you should go with the far less intrusive Google ads than the “footer ads”.

  5. Chubbypanda

    Northern Chinese cuisine typically focuses more on noodles, bread, dumplings, and other wheat products, since rice doesn’t grow well in that climate. From the looks of it, that restaurant specializes in Sichuan, Hunan, and Shanghai style dishes.

  6. Kwan

    We visit Richmond (we are in N. Van) for our Chinese food fix and would try several restaurants in one day-long visit. Apart from Mak, we also like the won ton noodle in Neptune’s won ton restaurant next to the main place on No. 3. Cash only. This is more of the well run HK place. We tried the more pricey Shanghai River. Good food, fair service but excellent ambiance. We went to the Goldern Szechuan after we found out the one at Kitsalano that we liked closed. We were soundly disappointed, with poor quality food (even for the Ma Po tofu0 and service. We felt distinctly that they wished we did not come in at 1:30 since they close at 2. We had some dim sum but had not found a great one in Richmond except at Sun Siu Wah for quality. Suggestions please.
    We are looking for places that serves Northern Dishes we have not tried in Malaysia and Singapore but tried with gusto in China a year ago.
    Love this blog. Keep it up Ben.

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