Lunch at Jade Seafood Restaurant with my Community Kitchen Buddies

I met up with Emily, Marian and Lorna for dim sum at Jade Seafood Restaurant before the Christmas holiday. It’s been over a year since we our last meeting as everyone is busy with our lives.

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We came to Jade Seafood Restaurant with Lorna recommendation for it’s special lunch set of $9.99. However, when we asked our server about it, she told us that the offer is no longer available. So, we just ordered from their regular menu.

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Lorna picked a Taro Cake which is the steamed version for a healthier choice. It came in a block and not pre-cut into slices.  I still prefer the re-fried version for a more crispy version.

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Marian picked a Fish Congee. The congee was smooth and silky. (more…)

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Dim Sum at Tak Heng Hot Pot Restaurant

Ben and I went for dim sum brunch after our morning walk at Steveston Village. Ben said it’s almost two years that he did not have dim sum after he accepted his short term assignment in Beijing. Time flies.

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We went to Tak Heng Hot Pot Restaurant on Brown Gate. It serves hot pot at dinner and dim sum for breakfast and lunch; just like it’s predecessor HKYK Seafood Hot Pot Restaurant.

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Dim sum is served from 8:30am to 3:00pm. There is a 10% discount on weekdays except holiday when bill before 11:00am.

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All dim sum regardless of size is $3.75. The kitchen specialties range from $6.25 to $12.80 and available after 10:00am. You can click on the menu to have a larger view.

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We had the above even before we placed our order on the order sheet. They are pan-fried chive dumplings which a server brought around to promote. They are really good with crispy bottom; crunchy prawn and full of chives flavour although a bit oily. I will get this again if I return.

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The above Char Siew Baked Bun was another item brought around by the server. The bun was very soft while the filing was sweetish. (more…)

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Ladies Lunch at HML Seafood Restaurant, Richmond

Emily, Lorna, Marian and I met up for lunch at HML in summer. The original plan was to meet at Northern Chinese Cuisine but unfortunately it is closed on Wednesday which we were not aware of. So, we changed our meeting place to HML .

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HML was busy even on a weekday. Tea is free here and there is a 20% off for all dim sum items every day.

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Emily and Lorna had ordered a few items as me and Marian were running late. The first item was Steamed Rice with Chicken, Lily Flower and Fungus. This is $5.80.

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Lorna ordered a Fish Head and Tofu Hotpot. It is a herbal soup dish. This is $8.80.

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The next dish was Country Fried Vermicelli. It was a big serving with prawns and pork. This is $6.80. (more…)

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Kalok Seafood Restaurant in Union Square, Richmond

Polly and I met up for dim sum. Polly also invited her friend, Di to join us. Di is kind of on vacation here for a month to experience the winter in Vancouver.

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We went to Kalok Seafood Restaurant at Capstan Way, Richmond. I had blogged about this restaurant in the summer of 2010. The English name was Gala at that time. Then this restaurant had a change of hand and became Jubilee Chinese Restaurant which tried to make it a 24 hour restaurant. I guessed it did not last. The lady who served us seemed to be the owner of the original Gala restaurant and told us she had to give up Gala due to her serious illness. She is back now and Kalok is back in business for about 4 months. The English name is the direct Cantonese translation of the Chinese name.

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The restaurant is busy at noon even on a Monday. Parking is a bit of challenge here. Di and I went in to get a table first while Polly drove around to look for parking.

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Prices range from $3.80 to $7.45.  There is a 25% discount from 9:00am to 11:00am and 20% discount from 11:00am to 3:00pm. You can click on the menu above to have a larger view. The one on the right is their kitchen special.

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One good thing is tea is free here. Most dim sum restaurants charge $1 per person.

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We ordered 7 items to share. Some of our initial orders are not available yet as the server told us that those are new items and not ready yet.

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We started off with an order of Durian Pastry for $5.25. Polly and I love durian and we always order anything with durian. The pastry is kind of… (more…)

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Dragon View Chinese Cuisine in Continental Plaza, Richmond

Lorna invited me and Emily S for dim sum. Emily brought her hubby along as he has just arrived from China for a vacation with Emily to Bermuda.

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I suggested to go to Dragon View Chinese Cuisine in Continental Plaza since I have not blog about it before.

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Like most dim sum place, this is nicely decorated with a large center piece chandelier. We were there at 10:30 AM and it’s not too busy.

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Dragon View Chinese Cuisine was called Wah Wing before the change of name. Even the napkin still bears the Wah Wing Restaurant Group name. Anyone has any idea for the name change?

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You may click on the menu to have a larger view. The dim sum here ranges from $3.25 for S to $8.80 for D. Other more expensive sharing dishes like noodles, congee and rice ranges from $7.80 to $16.80. Oh!, they charge $3 for XO sauce which we did not order.

For week day, if you settle the bill before 12PM, there is a 20% discount for the dim sum items.

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We ordered 7 items to share among the four of us. Emily and hubby let Lorna and me to do the ordering. They just want to relax and enjoy the meal. I want that too!

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The first item was Deep Fried Lotus Roots Cakes. The above medium size dim sum is $4.19. They were quite meaty and has a crunch to it.

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The above Deep Fried Fish Paste wrapped with Rice Rolls was Emily’s hubby’s favourite. It was categorized under P which priced at $4.99. It was a big serving. It is like ‘Jar Leong’ … (more…)

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Neptune Seafood Restaurant on No. 3 Road, Richmond

Emily S organized a meet up for dim sum at Neptune Seafood Restaurant on No. 3 Road. There were five of us. The group include Lorna, Jean, Peggy L and me. We were supposed to meet at 10:30AM in the restaurant. Emily S made the reservation. We were all there on time except Emily. Emily turned up only after 11:00 AM as she overslept. We were all wondering if we or she had mistaken the place.

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Neptune Seafood Restaurant was closed a while ago. I heard that the owner sold the place but the transaction did not fall through. It was reopened with the word “shakrfin” removed from the English name but the Chinese name remains the same. You can see the old frontage from the post here.

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The restaurant is very busy. At 10:30AM, it was already 70% full and this is a weekday. We placed the order before Emily arrived because there is a 20% discount on dim sum before 11:00AM.

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Prices here are on the high side. For dim sum, small is $3.68, medium is $4.38, large is $4.98. For specials, SK is $6.98, SLK is $7.98 and SKK is $8.98. I have no idea what the SK, SLK and SKK stands for. Anyone has any idea?

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You can click on the menu to view them larger.

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The cutlery is simple and nice. Even the teapot cover is labeled with the tea of your selection.

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Lorna ordered the above Abalone with Compoy Rice Wrap. This rice wrap is normally eaten during Dragon Boat festival. This item is categorized under SLK which is $7.98.

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The rice used for this rice wrap is glutinous rice. This is filled with abalone, dried scallop, pork, green beans and salted egg yolk. Look at the pork fat at the photo on the right. The rice wrap is boiled for few hours until the pork fat melts in your mouth.

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The above Dice Chicken, Squid & Mushroom Rice Casserole is from … (more…)

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Dim Sum at Good Eat Seafood Restaurant on Leslie Road, Richmond

Polly and I planned to go to Kim Ga Nae to try their $7.99 for 5 items lunch special. Unfortunately, when we arrived at 11:00 AM, Kim Ga Nae is not opened yet. So, I went down to go to the door to check their opening hours. What I found is a hand written note on the door that says “Temporary Closed”.  Later,I found out that they are closed for renovation.

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With plan A dashed, we had to quickly came up with a plan B. Since we were in the area, I suggested we go to Good Eat Seafood Restaurant for dim sum since I have not been to this restaurant before.

Good Eat Seafood Restaurant is tucked in a small mall area on Leslie Road. It is not a very visible location. Parking is quite limited for this restaurant. There is parking in front, on the side and at the back of the restaurant.

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When we arrived at around 11:00AM, the restaurant is not busy. It’s about 1/3 full. But by 12:00PM, this place started to fill up. We noticed most of the customers are Chinese seniors.

We saw a sign on the wall that says this restaurant allows customers to bring their own liquor with a corkage charge of $5.

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We like that this restaurant uses real table cloth instead of the plastic ones for quick clean up. The cutleries here showed their age. There is a dollar per person tea charge for the dim sum.

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The regular dim sum here ranges from $2.50 to $2.95 while the chef’s specials range from $4.95 to $6.95. Some chef specials items come in 2 sizes where the larger size ranges from $9.95 to $10.95.

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We selected 5 items to share. The first item is … (more…)

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Harbour Spirit Restaurant on No 3 Road, Richmond

Updated 9th Oct 2014; This restaurant is closed.

The opening of the Harbour Spirit Restaurant was perhaps one of the most anticipated on over the last few months. One of the reasons is that they were taking an old location vacated by Sammy J Peppers which is a large space and highly visible along the No 3 Road.

They are so big that we were told by the restaurant that they will “specialize” on Cantonese AND Sichuan AND Northern AND Hot Pot when we went there (did not eat) on their opening day (see here). I can’t find that comment now but I distinctly remember someone saying that with trying be everything to everyone, they will either succeed big time or they will fail big time.

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The initial reports from this place were mostly unfavourable. I was not surprised because with such a big operations there are a lot more kinks to sort out. As much as Suanne and I would like to go check them out, we decided that against it. We sort of knew what the experience would be like — no different from all the early reports.

We finally went after they were opened for 1.5 months. That should be enough time to have things to settle down and well past the dry run periods.

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It does seems like the Harbour Spirit have deep pockets. They want to open up with a bang to awe people. On the surface they did quite a good job. The chandeliers and the heavy set chairs were highly visible. But on a second glance, they are still very rough around the edges. It is in the details that they fell short.

OK things like this bother me especially when they try to be classy but ignore the details. The white table cloth above, I find them distractingly nonuniform. That was not just it. The materials are cheap and too light that it shifts when you move the plates or teapot around.  And they are wrinkled.

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They must have spend some … (more…)

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Golden Harvest Seafood Restaurant on Main and 32nd Ave, Vancouver: Spot Prawns for Da Lang

It’s Spot Prawn season.

All the excitement on Spot Prawns had been going on for the past few years and each time the season comes around this time of the year, I had never quite bothered with what the deal is. Maybe it was because I was quite put off with all the publicity generated by the media and all.

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But this year, I’ll try to learn a bit more.

Here is what little I learned over the last few days about Spot Prawns:

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Shun Feng Village Seafood Restaurant on No 3 Road, Richmond

As I was sitting here writing this post, I was just thinking that whatever happened to Grayelf, TS and JS. I always see these ladies everywhere there is a mention of food. It had been one whole week already since I saw their comments. I wonder what is up with them.

Anyway. It was a Saturday a few weeks ago. I woke up at 8:00 AM and was just lazing around. We decided not to go anywhere for breakfast but instead chooses to stay in and catch up with reading. And then out of the blue I got an email from Grayelf saying that they are on the way to Shun Feng and asked if we want to join them in 45 minutes.

Of course we would! Especially when the restaurant is in Richmond … and no bridges too. So it was a mad scramble for Suanne and I to get ready. We are Asian. Asians need to take a bath and change our home clothes and put on street clothes and all that before we go out, you see.

He he he … I did not respond to Grayelf but instead chooses to just turn up and surprise them. I actually wanted to feign ignorance, pretend to bump into them and telling them what a coincidence to meet them there. I guess I need more acting lessons because as much as I tried they did not catch on to my act.

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Suanne and I had never been to Shun Feng before. Yeah, this is one of the restaurants that intimidates us. They have a five foot tall shark fin at the entrance of the restaurant. A small bowl of sharkfin soup costs $68.00 each. So you can imagine that the big sharkfin (if it is real) would have cost a few grand.

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I thought I took a picture of the inside of the restaurant but I cant find it. Oh well, you just have imagine how it looked like based on my description.

It was busy. Getting the attention of the waitress was a challenge. They are like one of those who are so busy that they had perfected the art of avoiding eye contact with you. Somehow they can sense you are going to ask something from them without even looking at you. You know what I mean? They have this uncanny ability to sense you are asking for the bill … in which case you ALWAYS get their attention the first time.

When we got there at 10:00AM, the place was already half-full. By the time we left the place was packed. It is amazing how dim sum restaurants are always full of customers on weekends. If ever there is dim sum restaurant which is half full, their food must be awful and to be avoided. Can you think of any that fails to draw full house every weekend? I can’t think of any but am sure there are.

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The restaurant was big. From the entrance it looked really fancy but when I got inside it was pretty much a normal dim sum restaurant. The decor is simple. There is no chandelier. Classy restaurants must have chandelier. So I was kind of surprised they don’t have it.

Alright, no chandelier is OK because they have logo chopsticks. Now, that is … (more…)

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