Here is continuing on the series of Asian food courts in Richmond.

If you remember this post when I said I was beginning to look at Richmond’s Food Courts in a different light, I listed eight food courts and so far done five of them. I had written at some point Aberdeen Center and the Richmond Public Market but to this series it doesn’t count as our visit was so long ago. So three more to go!

• Parker Place (link and link)
• Empire Center (link)
• Yaohan Center (link)
• President Plaza (link)
• Pacific Plaza (link)
• Admiralty Center
• Aberdeen Center
• Richmond Public Market

I guess a lot of people does not know this small little business center tucked in McKim Way, let alone know that this building is called the Admiralty Center. Not many people know too that this building has a respectable food court in it too.

Parking is available by the right side of the building. It is not apparent to many people but there is a small entrance that leads to a double storey car park. We just discovered this car park. We had always either park at Top Gun’s car park (which we now think we should not have!) or park on the street.

The Admiralty Center must have been named after the famous business district in Hong Kong. This is one of those buildings that sprung up during the days when immigration from Hong Kong was at its peak.

One would have thought that this is a dead business center but it is fully tenanted. We thought the businesses here looks overwhelmingly Cantonese.

The food court is located at the second floor of the building.

The food stalls too are overwhelmingly Cantonese too. You don’t get that “cosmopolitan” air you get like in the Richmond Public Market or Burnaby’s Crystal Mall food court. Why even the Parker Place food court has Taiwanese and Shanghainese food. Here it is entirely Cantonesey.

It is not a big food court. Just eight stalls — eight very good stalls. We were quite surprised that there were a lot of customers. We arrived there before noon on a Saturday and it was already half-filled but past noon, the place was bustling. I see a lot of them came in families coming for lunch after Saturday classes for their kids. When Arkensen and Nanzaro was younger, their Saturday mornings are filled with some activities or other (like Chinese classes, music, sports) and then we would go out for lunch in the afternoon. Yes, I can see many of the customers on that Saturday are like that.

I am on a single minded track for the Chicken Rice. I cannot remember who now but someone told me in an earlier post that the Hainanese Chicken Rice in Admiralty Center rocks.

There is only one stall that sells Chicken Rice, so it was no mistaking which stall it is. It is called the M&W Food Kitchen.

I like the service. The lady who manned that counter was helpful and chatty. I was standing in front of the stall for a while unable to decide what I wanted because there were so many to choose from. Without me even asking, she said “take your time. we have … ” and went on to describe their dishes. Most of which went swoosh over my head because she was explaining in Cantonese.  She said that the stall has been here for one year only.

This is what made me so indecisive (click picture above to show it in larger image). You see they not only have Hainanese Chicken. Apparently they are chicken specialist.

As you can see, there is Gwai-Fei (empress) chicken, Gong-nan chicken, Salt-baked chicken, Hand-pulled chicken, Hainan Chicken. They have other beef items too but I was told their chicken is what matters.

So there I was unable to decide which chicken dish I wanted.

If I must say so myself, I think I am gifted at charming food court ladies. So I charmed the lady at the counter and said I can’t decide and I wanted every of the four (five?) chicken dishes but I don’t want to order five dishes. I stood back and thought some more before I stepped forward and asked her if she could give me two types of chicken on the rice. She was a bit hesitant and said wait a minute while she see if Sifu (definition here) agrees or not. She came back smiling saying it’s just for me.

So I walked away with a plate of … (more…)

A long long time ago, we used to go to Yaohan … a lot. Those were the days when we did not have a job and when we decide to dine out, it is to this food court. It was the cheapest and the mostest food that we could get. Yeah, those were the days way before chowtimes when food was not central in our lives — getting our money go a longer way was.

At some point we stopped going to Yaohan. The reason was parking. It is always full, especially around meal times. Getting a spot is close to impossible because there are a few cars idling on each parking lane waiting for someone to vacate a spot. It was THAT bad … and it still is.

So we often just go a couple of rounds around the car park and if we don’t find a spot, we give up. Sometimes I will drive over to President Plaza next door and park in the multi-level parking. But whatever you do, do NOT try to park in the parking lots in front of Rainflower or Canadian Tire. They are very efficient in towing away cars. Be warned!

The name Yaohan was very famous around Asia. It was one of the biggest if not the biggest supermarket chain in Asia. But over time it fell on bad times and went out of business. It was quite a shock when it happened but I guess retail and supermarket chains comes and go every now and then.

The Yaohan Center, located north of Cambie on the No 3 Road, still retains the logo and the name. It no longer has anything to do with the long gone Yaohan. The anchor tenant today is another supermarket called Osaka. Osaka is actually owned by T&T who in turn has recently bought over by Loblaw. Yes, the Osaka Supermarket is the culprit that causes that perpetual traffic jam at the Yaohan Center.

The other culprit for all the cars is the food court. This is a nice food court. It is bright and clean, unlike many other Asian food courts in Richmond. Other than the much newer Aberdeen Center, this is perhaps the best Asian food court there is.

I can see that it food court is well managed. The stalls are diverse enough with a lot of major Asian cuisines represented … and most of them are pretty good.

We used to come here for the rice/noodle combo meals. It was the cheapest rice/noodle combo meals we knew of and I think to this day it is still the cheapest.

The reason is because of these three stalls side by side. These three stalls serves pretty much the same thing and they compete neck to neck with one another. The three stalls are Chun Hing Cuisine, Golden Rice Bowl and Pak Tak. Everyone who comes here regularly has their own favourite, I guess. For us, it is the one on the furthest left, Chun Hing.

We like Chun Hing simply because their food looks the most delicious. I like the way they pile up their food very high in a mound. They have about 25 varieties to choose from, just like the other stalls.

The prices in all three stalls are the same actually. You can choose three items ($5.99) or two items ($5.50) together with steam rice, fried rice or fried noodles. Yeah, we always go with the 3 items. I wonder how many would want to go with the two items combo when it is just 50 cents for an additional choice.

But here is a tip … you want a great deal, you must go just before 6PM. Yeah, we deliberately went at 5:45PM that day just to stake out the stall for you all. LOL! Also, we had to get a strategic table so that we can provide you visual proof of the synchronized maneuver by each of the three stalls.

You see … everyday at 6:00PM sharp, this happens at the same time … (more…)

I had been thinking about my limited forays into food courts … and how I had been missing out on some of the best food there are.

I was trying to count the number of Asian food courts that I know. I was surprised that we have eight Asian food courts in Metro Vancouver. Seven of them, understandably, are in Richmond. The lone one outside of Richmond is the Crystal Mall food court in Burnaby.

Here are the ones I know of:

• Aberdeen Center
• Parker Place
• Empire Center (*)
• Yaohan Center
• President Plaza
• Pacific Plaza
• Admiralty Center
• Richmond Public Market (*)
• Crystal Mall in Burnaby (*)

And of these, about the only ones I regularly go to is the ones that are marked (*).

[googlemaps https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107891947395980363953.00048fdee4b13f4a3a405&ll=49.179571,-123.138628&spn=0.022443,0.051498&z=14&output=embed&w=600&h=400]
I go to the Crystal Mall FC just because it is close to my place of work and they have cheap and fast food. We go to the Richmond Public Market mainly because of the shaved ice.

The only place that we like going back again and again is … might be surprising to you … is the one in the Empire Center. Some people don’t even know where Empire Center is, but they do know where Hon’s used to be and where Shiang Garden is. I bet a lot of people does not even know there is a food court there.

So we asked ourselves … what is it that we like about the Empire Center’s FC? It has to be that it is very quiet and relatively unknown. We like the slow pace and the quietness. We go there also because we enjoy the food in three of the stalls and we blogged about it here and here.

Then I was thinking … if these three stalls (James Snacks Claypot Rice, Choi House Specialty Chicken and Lai Leung Kee Meat Organs) are what practically makes us comes back again and again, what about the others food courts? What are their so-called anchor tenants? What are the stalls that fills the food court everyday … and that everyone talks about?

I thought that is an interesting topic … and I thought that it will be something that you would be interested to read about … and to discuss about too. I find that food courts are interesting because people seems to know the people behind the stalls … and also stories.

So, I am going to start with Parker Place today. The reason I am starting here is because Crispy Lechon told me in this post about Tri-Pot that there is a stall in Parker Place that has about the same type of food but cheaper.

We go to Parker Place … a lot. It had always been because we wanted to buy roast pork which we like a lot (see write-up here). However, we had never eaten in the food court, neither do we have a desire to check them out. Until now.

It was an eye opener the day we decided to eat there. The place was absolutely packed. It is almost impossible to get a table. We had to stand behind a table who is finishing up just to get a table. Everyone seems to be doing that … get a table first, have someone sit and secure the table while other go get the food. If you are not used to this chaos, you better stay away.

We counted about 15-20 food stalls and they are widely represented with very few repetition. There are Shanghainese, Vegetarian, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, bubble tea, snacks … you name it. Now that we had a closer look at each of the stalls and the menus, we were very impressed and thought that this is a place we would love to come back several times just to check out the more interesting stalls.

Crispy said that the stall that sells the meat organ dishes is called Connie’s. We went two rounds and couldn’t find any stall with the name Connie’s. We had to check the comment again on chowtimes. Apparently, he said Connie’s Curry Kitchen. Seems like he knows “Connie”. He must be a regular that he is on a first name basis with Connie.

It was a good deal like Crispy said. It is just $4 for two types of meat of your choice … and for $5.50, I get to choose … (more…)

The Food Court in the Empire Center is a place that I like a lot.

I know this is strange especially when you consider that the Empire Center is an almost dead mall in comparison with the other indoor Asian malls in Richmond (for example, Aberdeen, Yaohan, Parker Place and the Richmond Public Market).

The quietness of the mall is what I appreciate especially when I just wanted a slow, quiet meal. There are no ambiance to speak of at all. No service to talk about too. The only thing that matters here is the top-of-the-class food.

Although there are just about 10 food stalls in the food court, some of my favourite dishes are found here. I blogged about the Claypot Ostrich Rice and Steamed Rice with Lotus Leaf from James Snacks (see post here) last month. The Claypot Ostrich Rice is the very dish that won Gold in the Food Court category in the 2010 edition of the CRA.

Today, I am going to share with you two other stalls which serves excellent food that is worth checking out.

The Choi House Special Chicken is our recent find. This stall is oddly sandwiched between a hair salon and a wedding boutique. It is just a counter with no food in sight. At a fleeting glance, you might not even know it is food stall.

The Chinese name of this stall translates to the words “Salt Baked Chicken”.

The menu mesmerized me. It is all about meat with combination of words like chicken, duck, beef, pork, squid and ox mixed with words like tongue, tendon, legs, balls, ribs, kidney, feet, and wings. You may click on the pictures above to read the menu.

Normally, I would expect that duck dishes are more expensive than chicken dishes. But here, the duck dishes are cheaper. I am not sure why but it could be that they serve only free range chicken.

For a meatatarian, this is the type of food I like. I need some of you to help me categorize this food.

This is definitely Cantonese style food. The Cantonese are famous for its Siu Mei which includes the roast pork, BBQ pork, sausages etc. The meat stuff in Choi House is not siu mei. They don’t roast or BBQ it. It is lighter. I was about to categorize this as Lou Mei but what do I know, right? Is this considered as Lou Mei?

Look at it!

The above is half a chicken which costs $12. They call t his the House Special Spicy Chicken (Boneless). I don’t know why they even call this “spicy” when it is not spicy at all. Maybe it is because they are saying that they use spices to make this? *shrug*

This chicken is served cold. We were instructed to keep it … (more…)

The Chinese Restaurant Award list does not only list dishes that are from restaurants. It goes the extra mile to even include dishes from humbler places like food courts. So you see on the list dishes that will cost over $100 (eg. Alaskan King Crab) and simpler dishes like a $4 Xiao Long Baus from a food court.

There are a number of Asian food courts in Metro Vancouver. For us the best is the one in the Aberdeen Food Court. There is also the food court in Crystal Mall (Burnaby), the Richmond Public Market and Parker Place (Richmond) — all of which are always packed during meal times.

With so many great food courts, there is one that flew under the radar. It is the one located in the same strip mall on No 3 Road where Hon’s used to be. It is called the Empire Center.

I have a feeling not many people even know there is a food court in there. We were there three years ago when we tried the Snake Soup and Stewed Beef organ Noodles (see blog here). Since then we had never stepped into that food court.

Amidst some Chinese Herbal and Ginseng stores, this food court has that laid back feel to it. In some sense, it is quite dead for an Asian mall. Here, everything moves in a very slow pace — a world of difference from the other Asian food courts. So you can see customers enjoying their food while watching Chinese serials on the TVs hung from the ceiling.

Right in the middle of the food court, is a stall called James Snacks. I am not sure why this is called snacks when what they really serve are full meals.

Click on the image above to show larger view if you can’t read it.

Festooned all over the stalls are signs of their dishes. We were there for their Claypot Ostrich Rice. They call the claypot, sand pot which I think is a direct translation from the word “sar bow”.

Their claypot rice ranges from $6 to $9 and includes versions of:

• preserved sausage
• minced meat with dried squid
• diced chicken with dried octopus
• beef with preserved vegetable
• minced meat with salted mustard
• spareribs with black bean sauce
• free range chicken with mushroom
• frog with ginger sauce
• ostrich with BBQ sauce

Be prepared to wait! We were told that the claypot rice will require a wait time of 30 minutes. This is because they start cooking the rice in the claypot when you order, i.e. from scratch. The wait wasn’t that long for us but still it took 20-25 minutes for ours to be ready.

They will take down your name and call you when the claypot rice is ready.

It was super hot when served. The soy sauce is given on the side. The whole pot sizzles and steams when we pour the soy sauce into it.

The ostrich meat tastes like … (more…)