Richmond restaurants offer authentic taste of Hong Kong
Michael Mccarthy
Vancouver Courier
CREDIT: Photo-Michael McCarthy
Chefs at the Shanghai River prepare handmade dumplings and noodles.
The last time I was in Hong Kong I made a valiant attempt to eat every type of Chinese food I could find. This was a ridiculous idea, of course; Hong Kong boasts everything from Cantonese stir fry to Hakka boat food to Shanghai noodles. I ran out of time long before I ran out of options. Until I went on a culinary tour of Richmond recently I thought that Hong Kong had the best variety of Chinese food in the world. After a week in Richmond I became convinced that Hong Kong was second-rate when it comes to endless options in delicious Asian cuisine.
Richmond, however, definitely places a sad second to Hong Kong with its architecture. Hong Kong, huddled around a fabulous harbour with a fantastic number of high rises climbing up to Victoria Peak with views to die for, is a tourist's delight.
Richmond, despite a few high rises in its growing town centre, is an architectural nightmare. "The Ditch" is still an endless array of shopping malls and parking lots indistinguishable from each other without a map and a guide. Thankfully I had both, where I learned that there are now almost 400 Asian restaurants in Richmond, and when you have all those options who cares about architecture?
Our first stop was Shanghai River, on the bottom floor of a high rise on Westminster Highway, in what passes for a city centre. This is a deluxe northern Chinese family-style restaurant, although in truth all Chinese restaurants cater to families. Hand made dumplings and noodles are the specialty; a dedicated team of noodle makers cooks up a storm behind a giant plate glass window open to the whole room.
POSH is still one of the hippest joints around, despite its location in an obscure mini-mall; manager Peter Leung told us that it's a favourite with the under 30s, a Japanese sukiyaki where you cook your own food at the table. For $9.98 at lunch, you have your choice of 35 items, from white radishes to lotus root, all harvested from local farms and delivered to your table within hours. Fresh is the key to flavour and popularity because the two-story hot pot house was packed. POSH will be opening several locations around Vancouver very soon.
Jade Seafood House, conveniently located in a mini-mall for your parking convenience, is a traditional Cantonese-style operation popular with businessmen on expense accounts. Seafood is the key here. If you want shark's fin soup, Jade is the place to go. Just to prove that mini-malls are ubiquitous in Richmond, we tried Vogue next, a very sleek Taiwanese restaurant boasting 12 chefs, 120 seats and a staggering 122 choices on the menu. Should you so choose, the pig's intestines with pig blood jelly is an authentic Taiwanese concoction, which is why I went for the Mongolian beef. The Dou Su Cod is apparently a big seller too.
Just for variety we went to a local bubble teahouse the next day, thoughtfully located in a mini-mall, where the traditional bubble tea concept has been raised to an entirely new level. Tapioca Express sports 150 different types of tea drinks, both hot and cold. We finished the expedition with a side trip to the well-known Thai House, also located in a mini-mall.
Downtown Richmond also offers an excellent introduction to Asian-style shopping in--where else?--several shopping malls. At Aberdeen Mall in the Golden Village, an eight-block area in the city centre, you can buy a Maserati on the ground floor or check out the funkiest everything-for-a-dollar store I've ever seen. There's an entire store given over to the display of new age toilets, a true taste of Hong Kong-style living. In Golden Village malls like Parker Place and Yaohan Centre you can buy any of an endless number of miniature appliances for use in your miniature apartment or splurge on sea cucumbers for dinner.
The top floor of Aberdeen Mall has the coolest food court on the West Coast, without a cheeseburger in sight. Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and other foods vie for your taste buds. The best part is that it's not located in a mini-mall.
With airfares rising as fast as the economy is sinking, there's no need to spend a bundle to fly across the Pacific for a taste of the Orient. A day in "The Ditch" is a day in another world.
Whatever you do, however, make sure you remember where you parked your car. No matter that the variety of Asian food and endless shopping, every mini-mall looks exactly the same from the outside.
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