It was one of those weekends that we had absolutely nothing to do. Normally, we had something planned for the weekend but for that one week we did not have anything planned at all. Since we had all the time in the world, we decided to drive a bit further from Richmond. So, we drove all the way to Vancouver … to Kingsway and Rupert.

The Chili Pepper House is an Indian-Chinese restaurant. I think the owner’s background is that they are Chinese who once lived in Indian. Since this is an Indian restaurant, we knew that their food would be spicy.

We immediately liked this place because the owners were so friendly and spent a lot of time chatting with us, even offering to tell us more about their restaurant. I believe it is because they saw my camera! Some restaurants (some, not many) had a disdain for cameras but not this one.

The Chili Pepper House is actually more Chinese than it is Indian. They call it “Fine Indian (Desi) Style Chinese Cuisine”. Their top dishes are all spicy. One thing though, they do not serve pork at all. I am curious why they don’t serve pork. I had always thought that you don’t get beef in Indian restaurants and no pork in Muslim or Jewish restaurants.

Anyway, we did notice that they have more East Indian customers.

Scouring their menu, we came across a dish that sounded really nice … Five Treasure with Chicken, Beef, Prawns, Scallops and Squid. What came was not exactly what we had in mind. It’s like sauce stir fried with the ingredients. It’s not that it’s not good … it was but the dish was underwhelming. It costs $14.95.

The Beef with Black Sauce does seem exactly the same as the Five Treasure! It seems like it’s almost the same type of sauce and stir fried with beef instead. I must say that the sauce is simply marvelous and goes very well with steamed rice. This one costs $8.50.

He he he … the Fried Tofu with Mushroom is quite similar with the earlier dishes. It seems like the same type of sauce but with mushrooms over deep fried tofu. The tofu is crispy and again, the sauce is great with steamed rice. $8.75 … not bad.

The total check came up to $43 including tips and taxes. Despite having four people, we could not finish it and had it packed to go. One thing we noticed that we don’t see much in other restaurants … pick-up is 15% off the menu price. That’s why we see quite a few people taking out.

If you like spicy food, you should check this out.