One day I was passing by Hastings and I saw Broken Rice. It’s great that a good amount of new restaurants are popping up in the area, it makes me really excited because this area his my “hood”. Not in a gangster way or anything, but I love new restaurants when I see them.
Their dishes range from traditional items to more modern Vietnamese dishes featuring French influences.
The interior gives a bit of a semi-fancy vibe, which is reflected in their menu as well. It’s not as cheap as your usual Pho restaurants. You probably don’t want to come here and order the usual Vietnamese items.
Tea comes in a cool looking teapot and cups. I don’t know what tea it is, but it was good stuff!
Fresh Coconut ($5) is what M ordered. He loves fresh coconut and no bottle coconut water can even compare. It’s a really refreshing drink and they give you a spoon so you can eat the coconut meat inside.
Duck Sliders ($5) has duck confit, cilantro, onions, and pickled vegetables inside a steamed bun. The sliders were very average and the flavour of the duck didn’t stand out.
Lemongrass Chicken has lemongrass grilled chicken breast served with a salad of fresh watercress tossed in a house vinaigrette. Also, there is broken rice on the side with fish sauce. M thought the dish was a bit expensive for what you get since you can get something equivalent at Bao Chao for way less. Nonetheless, M did like the taste of the lemongrass chicken.
Vietnamese Crepe is a savory crepe with mushroom, jicama, sprouts, and tofu. It is also served with mixed herbs. The crepe was unlike the usual crepe texture, it was very crispy. There was so much herbs on the side, there was a lot! Every herb you can think of was probably on this dish. It was like eating a garden.
The way I was instructed to eat this dish was take a large lettuce leaf and put some herbs and pieces of the crepe, wrap it up and dunk it into the fish sauce. I did enjoy the herbs since they tasted good!
Vietnamese Co ffee Ice Cream ($5) came with a pistachio macaron and then an edible flower. The ice cream is made in-house and tasted great.
Overall, the experience was good. We tried different traditional and modern Vietnamese dishes and it wasn’t like another Pho restaurant. It was a bit nicer, but then again, you are paying higher prices for your meal.
We Rate Broken Rice: 
Address:
4088 Hastings St.
Burnaby, BC
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