Please note that the Golden Award Cafe had already been closed. In it’s place is now the Silver Tower Cafe.

There are dozens of Asian restaurants along Alexandra Road in Richmond. We had barely tried 10% of them. For sure, we hated the uncertainty of going into restaurants that had chandeliers on high ceilings or rows of Mercedes and Audis parked outside. Then there are those that had not a single English word visible from the outside — you see, we are illiterate.

But we found one that is more like our kind of restaurant. Well, to us it’s a HK-Style restaurant, well, because of the ubiquitous iced milk tea … but with a slight twist. The Golden Award Cafe and Restaurant is located in the Connaught Plaza on Alexandra and Kwatlen.

Although they have the HK style menu where you pay a price for an entree which comes together with a drink, we like their “combo” menu. For a fixed price, you get to select a number of dishes (for the Cantonese, it’s like “chow choy” style … know what I mean?). We ordered the 2 dish combo which comes with two selection, soup and rice (no drinks included here). The kicker is that it costs only $13.99!! That is enough to feed the three of us.

The soup was not great but is flavourful. Well, what can one expect from free soup.

The first dish we selected was the Pork Chop in Honey and Rock Salt. This one is awesome — the sweet sticky gravy is a bit spicy. I don’t know why they name this “rock salt” because it is not even a bit salty at all. The dish is large and we had a tough time finishing this off between the three of us. You should try this one, you will like it I’m sure.

We ordered a hotpot dish as wanted lots of “charp” (cantonese for gravy) on rice. So, we opted for the Prawns with Vermicelli Hotpot. It came all steamy and bubbly hot. It’s a simple dish with the primary ingredients of vermicelli, prawns, green onions and onions.

There were lots of large sized prawns. You know, I was thinking … most Chinese will have EITHER rice OR noodles for their meal but rarely both together. I kind of like the idea of having both together. Hmmm … I am actually thinking of asking Suanne to research rice/noodle combination dishes … but then I guess not!

Bottom line … if you want to bring your family out for a “chow choy” meal and don’t want to spend a lot of money, this is the place to go. Great value for money and the food is pretty good too. Try it and let us know what you think. BTW, this meal costs $18 including tips and is more then enough for the three of us.

Oh … they take cash only.