Emily, Lorna, Marian and I met up for dinner. Emily just got back to Vancouver after being away for more than 3 months.
We had dinner at C-Wok Restaurant and it was not busy just about 7:00PM.
We went for the set meal with four dishes.
The complementary daily soup of dried bok choy was served first.
The above is the restaurant’s signature dish; Hakka Steamed Salted Chicken. The meat were firm and the skin was gelatinous. (more…)
After visiting the Richmond World Festival at Minoru Park, Ben and I went for dinner.
We walked over to Westminster Hwy and decided to have dinner at C Wok. C Wok’s specialty is Hakka cuisine.
We had the 2 items set meal which comes with soup, rice and dessert.
We ordered a couple of typical Hakka dishes. The above is Hakka Pork Belly with Preserved Vegetable. (more…)
Ben suggested to go for a Hakka meal on a Saturday afternoon. Hakkasan has a new fall menu; Hakka Dinner for 4 at $88.88.
Although the menu is for dinner, you can pre-order it if you would like it for lunch.
The first course is soup and appetizer. The soup is a pork and papaya double boil soup. The soup is flavourful with a clean taste.
The appetizer is Crispy Fried Stuffed Tofu Puff. It is served with sweet chili sauce. As the name suggest, it has a crispy texture.
The rest of the dishes are meant for sharing. The above is Hakka braised Pork Belly. There is a recipe on this blog of a similar dish. (more…)
Updated: 7 June 2009 – this restaurant had been replaced with a new restaurant.
We met up with a Christina and Ed for the first time over lunch a few weeks ago. We got to know them because, like us, they are also food bloggers from Richmond. We decided to meet up and picked the new Famous Hakka Restaurant.
It turned out that Christina and Ed are real foodies and very knowledgeable about Chinese cuisine. Christina, in particular, takes food seriously. She told us that meal times were formal events in her home when she was young. The family meal is very important and must have at least a meat, a veggie and a soup. I thought it was quite funny when she told us that she had never had Chinese takeout until she was 12 — and how it was an event for her. Christina and Ed had a knack for properly describing the food … Suanne and I only describe food we eat with words like yummy, good, delicious … LOL!!
You guys should check out Christina and Ed’s food blog. It is called Doesn’t TaZte Like Chicken. Remember the word “taste” is spelt as “TaZte” — you ask them why. OK, back to food …
The Famous Hakka Restaurant is located along No 3 Road in the strip mall near the intersection with Cambie. It had just opened for just a couple of months or so. Actually, this is our first trip to a Hakka cuisine restaurant and looked forward to learn more about it.
It still being new, the entire place is neat and clean. With wrap around floor to ceiling windows, it is bright making it perfect for taking pictures.
I really know very little about Hakka cuisine even though I grew up with lots of Hakka friends. My impression is that Hakka food is simple, has little garnishing and emphasizes on the main ingredient. If it is chicken, all you see and taste is chicken … they normally don’t add stuff like cucumbers, leafy veggies and such. Is my perception correct?
We left the ordering to Christina and Ed. For tea, they ordered the Gook Far Char (Chrysanthemum Tea). Gosh … for all my life I did not know that Gook Far Char and Gook Bow Char are different. I thought they are the same. I learned something new today. I had been playing around the idea of doing some research on Chinese tea and making a series out of it. He he he … that will certainly make you all cry foul worse than my tedious travel series! But seriously, I think that would be great for the Google Search Engine and will bring even more traffic to this site.
So, since this is supposed to be a formal meal and according to Christina a formal meal MUST have soup, we ordered soup. We had the Pork Stomach with Salted Veggie and Peppercorn Soup. (more…)
Updated on 1st Oct 2008, this restaurant had been replaced by another new restaurant.
Once in a while, we chance on a nondescript restaurant … you know, ones that looked so unassuming from the outside that chances you will never give it a second glance? The other day, our boys wanted to go to e-Canteen for a HK-Style lunch. We got to the entrance to e-Canteen before we changed our mind. We decided that we don’t want another HK-Style meal (yeah, we’re really fickle-minded when it comes to food!).
We looked across the parking lot seeking for another place for lunch. This was in the strip mall right across the road from the Richmond Public Market.
For the outside, the Paterson Restaurant does look very much like a small and quaint place for a casual meal. We decided to check out the many hand written poster-menu on the window and peered inside. It was alright, the prices looked really cheap and they have a bit of a unique dishes that is not run-of-the-mill stuff we had come to expect from places that looked like this.
We were there early and were the only customer in the restaurant. This looked very much like a family run business as we see children seated at one corner of the restaurant having a meal and doing homework.
There are nothing much to the decor really — with low-maintenance and efficient glass top tables and wooden chairs. I have not seen such chairs for a long time — such designs were really common in coffee shops in South East Asia.
Despite this, what really surprised us was the food they serve. They have on their menu specials such as Congee with a choice of Chinese Donut or steamed rice roll or chowmein with soya sauce for only $3.99. I can’t think of anywhere we can find such a meal for under $4 nowadays.
They also have on their menu (which we gather is their specialty) 2.5 lb crab dishes for only $14.99. Since it was really early in the morning, we took a raincheck and told ourselves we will come back to Paterson to try their crab someday … soon.
See this one … it is called the Oyster Rice in Soup. (more…)