Cheng Ji – Barcelona

January 9, 2014December 10, 2014Leave a comment

When M came to visit me in Barcelona, he craved Chinese food. Okay, well really, he just craves it anywhere he goes. Luckily, my friends on exchange knew where there were some decent Chinese food, so off we went. Cheng Ji is near the Arc de Triomf metro station. The workers there can all speak Mandarin and Spanish, which makes it a little more legit. I have to say, having this Chinese drink after a month on exchange, was quite satisfying. Anyways, I ordered the Gang Chao Niu He, or Dry Beef Chow Fun. Ordering this reminded me of how my mom would always order this at restaurants and I would always complain. Sadly, it was actually nice to have something so familiar to home. However, I have to say the dish was quite below average compared to the ones we have in Richmond. You can tell from the picture that the sauce is completely lacking. It wasn’t oily enough, although I normally complain about the oil. And hence, everything was just sticking together too much. They did, however, have a decent amount of beef to bring some flavour to the dish. The Seafood Fried Rice is something that might be worth ordering here, as it was one of the more decent dishes. Overall, not bad for what you get in Spain if you really crave some Chinese food. Prices are decent as well.

Rong Hua – Valencia

October 27, 2013Leave a comment

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Yes..who knew I would be eating Chinese food on my trip in Europe. Well, personally, I had tried to avoid it, but M here clearly cannot live without his Chinese food, and persuaded us to try it. We found Rong Hua while walking towards the old city area in Valencia and it was among some boutiques and shops in the La Xerea neighbourhood.

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Surprisingly, the restaurant was filled with Chinese diners, which is always a good sign. I hope they were locals though, because I could not really tell if they were just tourists desperate for Chinese food. The inside definitely reminds me of a traditional Chinese restaurant and the employees were Chinese as well. They also have Wi-Fi here which is always a plus for travellers with no data like us!

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Fried Rice

Of course M would get his beloved Fried Rice. It actually looked pretty decent and was an okay portion. I believe it was under 5 euros, which isn’t too bad I guess.

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Chicken Curry

S and I decided to share a Chicken Curry and we also ordered some White Rice to go with it. It was nice to finally have some white rice again, but the curry was just…unspeakable. It was basically watered-down curry – probably one where you put powder and water, but it wasn’t even thick. You really had to slather the chicken in the sauce to get some flavour, but even with that, it was really flavourless. It was worse than some of the one’s I’ve had at food courts…

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Caramel Pudding

Lastly, S and I decided to share a Caramel Pudding, which is essentially their flan. This was the best of our whole meal. Smooth and creamy, this totally satisfied me.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend Rong Hua based on what I had. I sense that the food is catered for the Spanish population, and isn’t traditional Chinese food. Oh, how I miss Chinese food in Vancouver so much!

Sun Sui Wah 新瑞華海鮮酒家

October 15, 2013Leave a comment

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Roasted Squab

Still catching up on my Vancouver posts! Anyways, the night before I left for Europe, my family took me to eat what would be my last legit Chinese dinner. It’s definitely true that I can’t find quality Chinese food over here. We went to Sun Sui Wah, where I had dim sum here recently, but I don’t remember when the last time I had dinner here was. It was very packed and we had to wait a little even though we had reservations. First up, we had the Roasted Squab, which was roasted till crispy and golden brown. It wasn’t too salty but still flavourful. Really enjoyed it.

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Fish Maw and Fresh Crab Meat Soup

Next, we were served the Fish Maw and Fresh Crab Meat Soup. I loved this and it had an abundance of seafood. The perfect way to start dinner off!

Lotus Root, Snow Peas and Black Fungus

For vegetables, my mom decided to order the Lotus Roots, Snow Peas and Black Fungus, but it was definitely disappointing. I found it bland and it was something you could make yourself at home. The lotus roots were also cut in really big pieces and it was difficult to eat.

Deep Fried Fish Fillet

For seafood, we had Deep Fried Fish Fillet and the batter was light and fluffy. The fillet was fresh and tender and the garlic chips and spices made the dish more feisty.

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Honey Garlic Spareribs

Lastly, we had the Honey Garlic Spareribs, and this was also another favourite. I loved the sweetness to it and each sparerib had good amount of meat.

All in all, we enjoyed our meal and writing this post makes me miss Richmond and Vancouver food so much! Soon, you will hear about my Asian food stories here in Europe, and they are definitely not too great.

Empire Seafood Restaurant

August 18, 2013Leave a comment

A while back, Empire Seafood Restaurant took over the old Milestone’s located next to London Drugs in Richmond. I had literally just gone here to eat the week before, but had failed to get some pictures since I arrived late. Since I’m leaving for Europe soon, my parents decided that I would miss Chinese food so much, that they basically took me out to have dim sum every weekend. Since they enjoyed it so much last week, they said we should go again… Yea, they don’t get sick of eating at the same place every week…

Deep Fried Eggplant w/ Prawn Paste

First up were the Deep Fried Eggplants w/ Prawn Paste. I don’t like eggplants, so I just ate the Prawn Paste. It’s very good especially when you dip it in the spicy vinegar sauce.

Steamed Phoenix Claws

And here came my favourite Steamed Phoenix Claws. They were flavourful, but at the same time, not too salty.

Steamed Rice Roll w/ Crispy Pork Roll

I’m not sure why they call it the Steamed Rice Roll w/ Crispy Pork Roll, but it is basically the typical steamed rice roll with Chinese donut and pork fluff inside. These were decent, and the rice roll was smooth.

Taro Root & Duck Pastry

These are always oily and fatty no matter where you go. They had a lot of filling in it, and the outer pastry was extremely flaky.

Beef Congee w/ Preserved Egg

The Beef Congee w/ Preserved Eggs were one of their specials. I think it was around $4, and is definitely a steal for the amount you get. It’s a size of a small bowl, but probably enough to go around for 4 people.

Steamed Layer Egg Custard Cake

I liked how these were different from typical sponge cake, where in this case, you can actually see the different layers. Still has the texture of a sponge cake, but it wasn’t as dry.

Pan Fried Chive & Pork Buns in Stone Pot

We were surprised to see the Pan Fried Chive & Pork Buns actually come in a Stone Pot. It was sizzling when it arrived with chives layered at the bottom for added flavour. They were quite delicious with a decent amount of filling and I especially appreciated the fried bottoms so you get a bit of crunch.

Pan Fried Turnip Cake

Last but not least were the Pan Fried Turnip Cakes, which were one of my favourite dishes. This was a large dish and great to share with lots of people. They were cut into cubes and lightly pan fried, and they definitely had some heat to them! Not the typical XO sauce, but a spicier sauce. Really good though!

Like many other Dim Sum restaurants, they also offer early bird specials. If you place your order between 9:00 am and 11:00 am, you get 20% off your order. Great for those early risers!

Dinesty

August 1, 20132 Comments

Dinesty is next to Starbucks and Ebisu in Richmond, and I believe they recently opened one in Downtown on Robson. I’ve gone by this restaurant multiple times, but I don’t think I’ve actually ate here before. At last, J and I decided to grab an early dinner, and he suggested we go to Dinesty. It seems to be his favourite place to go.

I think we got there around 5 pm, so it was quite empty. However, shortly after sitting down, the place quickly became filled. Apparently, there are usually long waits during dinner time, and it’s almost impossible to get a seat without reservations. The food here seems to be a mix of Taiwanese and Shanghainese food. Decor is simple and clean, and I like the open kitchen they have. You can see the chefs preparing your food, just like Shanghai River. Sort of a similar concept in terms of their floor plan.

Steamed Pork Dumplings

I wanted some Steamed Pork Dumplings, or better known as Xiao Long Bao! An order came with 8 hot and steamy dumplings. The wrappers were thin, yet held the pork, and inside, it was juicy. The soup was very delicious!

Ma Po Tofu

J chose the Ma Po Tofu. It was a large serving, and definitely too much for two people to share. The tofu was soft and the sauce wasn’t too spicy. It would’ve been perfect with white rice, but we had ordered another rice. We ended up mixing it with our Shrimp Fried Rice, since it would be too spicy and salty to eat alone.

Shrimp Fried Rice

Lastly, I chose the Shrimp Fried Rice. It had a hint of shrimp paste flavour, and the rice was cooked so it wasn’t too moist and sticky. There were also an abundant of shrimps inside.

Overall, I enjoyed the dishes we had at Dinesty. I can see why people enjoy coming here for meals. You get a good amount of food, which is of decent quality, at a decent price. I hear that service isn’t as great once it gets really busy during peak times, so perhaps going early is the way to go here. I also like how all their menu items have pictures, so you get a sense of what you are ordering beforehand. Perfect for beginners of Chinese food!

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant 海港大酒樓

July 23, 2013Leave a comment

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant has been known for their quality in food. They used to be on No. 3 Road, but several months ago, they moved to a brand new location at River Rock Casino. The place is now extremely grand, like any other Chinese dim sum restaurant, and they even have a showcase of their wines upon entering. However, you definitely do not want to come here if you’re in a rush. Even though we made reservations, we waited 45 minutes to get a seat. It was pretty ridiculous, and I had to go to work in an hour. We had 5 people, so they kept giving up 4 table seats to other people, when we really could’ve gotten the seat. In the end, my mom got pushy and told them we wouldn’t mind taking a 4 table seat, and they finally gave us a seat. I guess you need to be a bit aggressive at these places… So once we got seated, we handed in our order list that we had pre-checked while waiting. Our food did come quite quickly, which was good. I ended up eating everything in a hurry and in less than 30 minutes, so I definitely didn’t taste everything carefully.

Flaky White Radish Pastry

These are one of their famous items. They were so flaky at the top and the mixture of white radish was savoury and seasoned so well. The pastry wasn’t oily at all and is a must order!

Special Honey Flavour Cake

This is supposed to be a dessert, but it actually came as our second item. I’ve had these before and they are an interesting texture. Looks like a honeycomb and there is a slight honey flavour to it. It’s not sweet at all, and the texture is very interesting. Not soft like a spongecake, but definitely has more of a bounce and chew to it!

Steamed Shrimp and Pea Sprouts Dumplings

I didn’t end up trying these, but they looked pretty good. The outer dumpling skin looks thin and the amount of filling is just right.

Pan Fried Radish Cake with XO Sauce

These pan fried rasdish cakes are great if you want some flavour to your dishes. They’re pan fried with xo sauce, so it gives it a bit of spice, although it is quite minimum. I love how they are fried ever so lightly so the sides and corners are a bit crisp, but definitely not burnt. Loved these ones!

Chicken Feet in Black Bean Sauce

I actually thought the colour of the chicken feet were a bit artificially red. It also tasted slightly off. It wasn’t exactly the black bean sauce or barbeque sauce that I normally taste at other restaurants. I didn’t think this was one of their good dishes.

Braised Ox Stomach with Tendons

The braised ox stomach with tendons also tasted sort of funny. It seems like their braised items have a marinade that isn’t too tasty. At least not one that I personally like. The ox stomach and tendons, however, were quite tender and soft and easy to chew on.

Crystal Shrimp Dumplings

I also didn’t try the Crystal Shrimp Dumplings, but they were plump and the skin was fairly thin.

Baked Barbeque Pork Bun

The pork buns are soft and the barbeque pork is full of flavour. The buns remind me of the ones you get at Chinese bakeries, and they were steaming hot when cut open.

Deep Fried Duck Meat and Taro Cake

The taro cakes are always one of my favourites. They have a nice taro cake paste inside with some duck meat filling and the outside is battered and lightly fried. Surprisingly, they didn’t feel too greasy.

Steamed Preserved Salty Egg Yolk Bun

I wasn’t able to try this during lunch time as I had to leave for work, but my family packed one of them up for me. They told me it was extremely good because the preserved salty egg yolk would literally just ooze and drip out and they warned me to be careful of dripping the yolk every where. However, after heating it back up, my bun did not ooze the yolk out. I guess you just have to eat this at the restaurant when it’s freshly made. My yolk ended up being quite gooey and solidified, but it was still pretty good. This is also one of their must-orders, so definitely give it a try if you like some running salty yolk in your bun.

Silky Chicken and Taro Wrapped with Bean Curd Sheet

I didn’t really try this one, since I’m not a big fan of chicken with black skin. I’m sure it tastes the same, but I’m just a picky eater I guess.

Deep Fried Assorted Seafood Dumplings

The Chinese name of this dish also includes the words pumpkin in it, so it’s basically a pumpkin batter dumpling with some seafood in it. I think it was mostly scallops. The batter is chewy and a little mochi-like. Then it’s lightly fried on the outside. Not bad.

Chinese Donut Rolled with Steamed Rice Rolls

Last but not least, my favourite Chinese donut rolled with steamed rice rolls! These ones were really different from other Chinese donut rice rolls. Inside the Chinese donut, they are stuffed with a fish filling. It’s a chewy, bouncy gluten fish filling that is often found stuffed in tofu puffs too. This gave it another level of texture and were extremely good!

All in all, Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant definitely meets the standards and I would say it is one of the best Dim Sum Restaurants in Richmond. However, it is quite pricey, and the place is always packed. If you’re not up for waiting long times even with reservations, then this might not be the place for you. Other than that, I think you should give it a try!

Ningbo Seafood Restaurant 寧波海鮮酒家

May 27, 2013May 27, 2013Leave a comment

For Mother’s Day, my mom of course wanted Chinese food. She suggested we try Ningbo Seafood Restaurant since it is fairly new and we haven’t had Ning Bo cuisine before. The restaurant is located at Parker Place and you can enter from inside the mall or outside.

Even though we made reservations, we still needed to wait a while. We arrived at the restaurant and there wasn’t a hostess to greet us for more than 5 minutes. Service definitely lacks at the restaurant and they seemed to be understaffed on this busy day.

Chinese Mushroom with Bean Curd Roll

First we got the Chinese Mushroom with Bean Curd Roll. This was decent, but also quite typical. Nothing too special. The bean curd was cooked tender and the mushrooms inside gave it a good chew and flavour.

Dried Bamboo Shoot with Mushrooms

My mom wanted to try the Dried Bamboo Shoot with Mushrooms. Although the flavour was good, the texture of the mushrooms was way too tough to chew on. Only the dried bamboo shoots were chewable, but the mushrooms which were long and stringy were way over cooked.

Deep Fried Fish Sticks

We wanted to get a dish of fish, so my sister suggested the Deep Fried Fish Sticks. These are made of a batter made with seaweed, hence the slight green colour. The fish inside was extremely tender and was really delicious! We all agreed that the dish should have some sort of sauce to dip with, but it didn’t come with it. Or they just forgot. Overall, this was one of my favourite dishes.

House Special Chicken

We also saw on the menu the House Special Chicken and my mom immediately wanted to get it. However, it said that you must reserve the chicken in advance as they only have limited quantities each day. We asked the server and after a while, she said that she had snatched us an order! Apparently another table said they didn’t want it anymore, so she quickly reserved it for us.It came sizzling in a large pot.

Then our server cut up the chicken for us. The meat flaked off easily. The chicken was marinated in a soy based sauce and was actually quite sweet instead of salty. The skin was cooked so it was a little crispy as well. Not bad to go with rice!

Pan Fried Braised Pork with Veggies

The Pan Fried Braised Pork with Veggies is a famous Ning Bo dish. It is basically pork belly that is braised in a very flavourful sauce. I found that the pork was a bit too tough, probably because it was overcooked. There was lots of fat attached to it, but because the meat was tough, the texture overall wasn’t that good. I’ve had much better at other restaurants before. Plus, the dish actually didn’t’ have any veggies in it when it’s stated on the menu. The sauce is great to eat with rice though.

Sesame Dumplings and Osmanthus with Rice Gluten in Wine

Lastly, for dessert, we got the Sesame Dumplings and Osmanthus with Rice Gluten in Wine. This is one of my favourite desserts because it has tons of little mochi balls! They actually don’t have sesame dumplings in this dessert, so I’m not quite sure why it’s stated in the name. The alcohol isn’t very strong in it, so it’s definitely much more sweet with the osmanthus. A large bowl, which is plenty to share with 5 people!

Overall, we all agreed that Ningbo Seafood Restaurant was just average. Service was lacking and the food wasn’t superb.

New Spicy Chili Restaurant 小四川

May 15, 2013Leave a comment

J’s home is in Sze Chuan and we always see her eating food that is drenched in red soup or chilies. I still don’t understand how she takes the heat but we finally decided to go try it out with her. She told us that New Spicy Chili Restaurant is a restaurant that serves dishes which are less spicy. Okay… sure… we’ll see about that…

The restaurant was around half empty when we arrived on a weekday afternoon, although there was a large table of diners who looked like they worked at the same office. Office lunch I suppose? Soon after, the place began to fill up though. Definitely do not expect any service whatsoever here. It is extremely hard to get the attention of the lady, and I saw her talking to the phone while speaking with another customer too… Some of us might think it’s rude, but I guess she gets her job done?

Chicken with Spicy Sauce

We started off with the Chicken with Spicy Sauce. In Chinese, the dish directly translates to Saliva Chicken. Sounds a bit gross eh, but it tasted really just like any other chicken, or perhaps it was free range chicken. However, it was drenched in a red liquid. It scared me at first, but guess what…this was probably one of the least spicy dishes we ordered. The chicken still had skin on the top, and it was topped with the spicy sauce which also consisted of the seeds inside the chilies. I didn’t dare try the chicken that was soaked at the bottom. I only grabbed the top pieces to be safe.

Sliced Beef with Special Spicy Sauce

Next up, we got the Sliced Beef with Special Spicy Sauce. This was definitely the next level of spicy! The beef was sliced thinly and was tender, and even though there didn’t seem to be as much sauce as the chicken, it was spicy! I’m guessing it was marinated in the sauce or something…

Spicy Bean Sprout

We wanted some veggies as well, so we chose the Spicy Bean Sprout, which was again topped with chilies… Funny enough, I actually began to be able to eat the food though. Either I was getting used to the spice, or my tongue was just plain numb, because I could barely taste anything by now. And so I just kept stuffing myself with food now. The Bean Sprouts are one of my favourite veggies as they are tender and easy to chew. I ended up eating a lot of this, as it was also one of the less spicy dishes.

Spicy Fish Hot Pot

The Spicy Fish Hot Pot had to be the spiciest dishes we ordered. It came in a sizzling hot pot and was literally a pot of red liquid… Inside were fish filets and potato or glass noodles. Yea, I definitely did not dare try the noodles since noodles always absorb the liquid, and there was no way I would be alive after eating that… I did try the fish, and I’m not even sure if it was hot in temperature or just spicy. Yea, I pretty much had no feelings on my taste buds by now… Fish was tender though!

Sizzling Fish

I’m not exactly why they call it the Sizzling Fish (actually the menu said suzzling fish, but I’m not sure if that’s even a word), because this should simply be called grilled squid. That’s basically what it was! What the heck is sizzling fish…? Anyways, this came hot and sizzling in a pan and the squid were placed on tin foil. It smelled and reminded me of night market squid! Yum! The squid was cooked tender and the spice level was medium. A more acceptable spice, or maybe I was just getting used to all this spicy food.

Oh and a tip if you can’t take spice is to never place your food that is soaked in the red sauce on your rice. Your rice ends up being so spicy, that you can’t use it to cool you down. I also wonder how people eat here during the summer… I swear I was sweating by the end of this lunch. But for all you spicy lovers, this is the place to go! Most of these dishes are also popular Sze Chuan dishes and are also chef recommended on the menu!