Geoff and Joy and our family took a drive to Langley to visit Whitney and Ken on a Saturday. We wanted to introduce our new friends who had just landed in Vancouver from NZ recently. It was a long drive but was glad to find that they had finally completed the upgrade to Route 10 which makes the drive much more faster and easier.

For dinner, Whitney recommended that we go to a Chinese restaurant. The way she put it is as if there are hardly any good Chinese restaurant in Langley and Dragon Garden is about the best it could get.

Dragon Garden is more of a Chop Suey, Sweet and Sour Pork and Fortune Cookies type of Chinese restaurant, if you know what I mean. Even the name tells you as much. You see most of these Chinese restaurant are not quite creative in naming the restaurant and uses a combination of words like Golden, Dragon, Inn, Garden, Gate, Imperial, Phoenix, Silver, Fortune, Lucky, etc.

It was a Saturday evening and for the whole time we were about the only customer there. If not for us taking up a table for 11 people, they would probably have almost no business for the day.

Let’s talk about table arrangements. In Chinese restaurants, larger tables are ALWAYS round and NEVER long. Most large tables will fit about 10 people. I find this arrangement more practical as one gets to interact with one another all round this way. Moreover, food are normally shared (i.e. formal dinners are not served individually) and it makes the sharing of dishes easier.

Dishes are not normally passed around but one unique thing is the “lazy susan” (see above). Tell me … are the Chinese the only cuisine that uses “lazy susans” on the dining table? I think they are.

Whitney did all the ordering. Because of so many kids around, she ordered dishes that kids likes. (more…)