Richmond Archives - Page 11 of 11

In Event

Man Ri Sung with Chowtimes

March 13, 2011

I was super excited when I signed up to attend the Duck Feast at Man Ri Sung with Chowtimes and a bunch of other people. I brought along with me – M, Fragileboy, InsecureGirl, and MedicalGiraffe.

I have been to Man Ri Sung a few months ago before they closed down in Coquitlam. They serve up authentic Korean dishes and is most famous of their peaking duck feast.

We were all pretty gung ho about getting to the dinner and left Brentwood Mall a bit before 6pm so it would ensure us that we would arrive on time. Sometimes, things are not always according to plan. In this case, trying to navigate our way to Man Ri Sung was the most failed moment for me in a long time. Our anticipated 30 minute car ride became an hour car ride.

Brentwood Mall to below the airport

( Typed in wrong address into iphone…3211 instead of 8311)
We arrived right on time at the wrong plaza, but after roaming around we couldn’t find it anywhere. So, we looked it up and realized it was on the other side of Richmond. At this point I was like “OMG”, InsecureGirl was like “We should call Ben to tell him we will be late”. I replied saying “People usually don’t give their cell numbers to a stranger….Go tweet him! Tweet him now! Everyone must have 3G by now”.

Below Airport to Richmond Auto Mall

(Typed in 831 instead of 8311)
As we were making our way towards the other side of Richmond, I got a bit more confident that we would make it in 15 minutes late. Yet again the fates were seriously against me… every intersection there was a red light. I’m lying…it was most of the intersections but still it was annoying. Eventually, the phone led us towards the Auto Mall. In our heads, there is no way there would be a Korean Restaurant here.

Richmond Auto Mall to Man Ri Sang

Eventually finding the right address, I drove like a mad woman on the stretch of road back to the center of Richmond. This time, we knew we had the right location!

Long story short, we arrived and were welcomed by Ben and the other guests. They even saved us food! At this point, I was pretty exhausted from driving along Westminster Hwy, so I accidentally left my phone in the car and told MedicalGiraffe to take my camera and start taking pictures. She seemed excited, so I let her go at it.

There was a lot of other customers in the restaurant, so it was packed with other large groups also having the duck feast.

The duck feast is composed of several items, such as the korean side dishes (Banchan), Korean Pancake, Jap Chae, Soon Dae, duck wraps, duck congee, duck and Duck hot pot. All for $18 per head for our group.

The Banchan composed of 3 side dishes – Bean sprouts, sweet potato and kimchi.

They saved us some Korean Pancake, so the picture isn’t really representable of what it looked like when it arrived at the table. It was still warm when we began eating. The korean pancake was a bit less than 1 cm thick and contained green onion, red pepper, onions and some other items.

M enjoyed this dish because being Korean himself, he really missed the taste of traditional korean food. He also said it was comparable to the Korean Pancakes he would find back home.

Another item that came with the feast was jap chae. It is made out of korean cellophane noodles, stir fried with sesame oil with different vegetables such as onions, meat, scallions, and other items.

MedicalGiraffe commented saying she really loved it and wished she had more.

Another dish was Soon Dae (Blood sausage), it’s a traditional korean dish made out of intestines stuffed with cellophane noodles, barley and pork blood. This may sound disgusting but it does not taste bad at all. To add a bit of taste to it, you can dip the Soon Dae into a salt mixture. Just be sure to not smother the sausage in the salt.

The main feature of this feast is the duck wrap! You are presented with a dish of sliced duck, onions, green onions, sauce and tofu skins.

It’s a great dish because you can interact with your food and put it together. You first take the tofu skin and add the onions, sauce and a slice of duck .. wrap it up and begin eating. The duck did taste different this time around, it was not as moist as it was when I had it in Coquitlam. I also did not like the slightly charred bits of the duck skin.

Overall, the duck wrap was ok, but not as addictive as before. Perhaps since they were so busy that the quality suffered a bit.

They don’t waste any part of the duck, so they also give your the wings separately. They are super crispy! I have to admit, it was hard to eat but you can essentially eat the whole thing…even the bones! For me, when I got closer to the tip of the wing, it was really burnt and was super difficult to eat since it really felt like I was eating cancer. I know some people like eating the whole thing, so just a bit of personal opinion.

The next dish was duck congee. I asked M if it has a special name in Korea and he said it was called “jook”. Same name in Cantonese! The rice that is in the congee is not pure white rice, they mix a bit of white rice and wild rice, to have a bit of a purple look to the congee. Inside they do use a bit of duck in it.

The last dish to come with this duck feast is Duck hotpot. Like some of the other dishes it has duck, green onion, hand cut noodles, and other stuff.

Like the other dishes, still pretty good but we wished we had another utensil to easily pick up the noodles and soup. I don’t think any of us wanted to put our chopstick into the pot.

In the back of the restaurant, there is this machine that serves hot ool moo cha (Job Tear’s Tea) for 25 cents. Ool Moo Cha is ground barley powder sugar drink. I found this to be creamy and slightly sweet. I really did enjoy it! Also, supposedly it helps create a soothing effect on the stomach. Very nice ending to a meal!

Photo Credits: Cory Roan, Globetrotting & Adventure Gourmet

I think everyone had a great time at the dinner! Everyone was about to share their thoughts on the food as well as talk about other random subjects.

Since it was a busy night, the service was quite poor. For a table of 11, they kept bringing us one pot of tea when it would be more effective to give us 2 pots. There seemed to be only 1 or 2 waitress(es) serving most of the tables and seemed scrambled most of the time.

Overall, I thought the supporting dishes of the duck feast were well executed. The quality of the duck did not compare to the last time I had the dish. Not as juicy and succulent as before. Also, a bit burnt when it came to the large wings of the duck. The price of the duck feast was a good price!

Words of Advice:

Reservations for large groups
2 hours advance notice for duck feast
Free parking in the parking lot

Address:

8211 Westminster Hwy
Richmond, BC

In Pub/Bar

SportsTown Taverna

February 5, 2011

Last week, I did a 3 hour lesson on Archery. Boy…was it ever fun. I’m not a Robin Hood yet, nor can i shoot an apple off your head…but I can ensure you that I can hit one of your organs. Be afraid..those arrows go fast!

Since the Archery Association has their facilities in SportsTown in Richmond, a bunch of us headed over to the taverna to get a quick bite.

I ordered the chicken strips ($10) and it came with a salad. There were 2 sauces..dijon mustard with the chicken strips and balsamic vinegar for the salad.

The chicken strips were pretty average. When it came down to having the salad, the balsamic vinegar sauce was fairly warm and tasted more like oil than balsamic. Some of their salad leaves seems a bit wilted and not too fresh.

The worst part was the service, I swear…there must have been one person working there. This woman was manning both the bar and the dinning area. It took her about 10 mins to acknowledge we were here…so we sat ourselves down. The menus took a while to get to our table too. Ordering was totally fine, but when we asked for the bill, she said she would bring it right away because we were in a rush….5 mins later we saw her at the bar chatting up with a customer.

You may think I am probably just crazy, but I am not. The dinning room had only one group of people seated…and this was us.

Words of Wisdom:

Tons of parking
Convenient when you are playing sports at SportsTown, many soccer teams eat here
Most items are $10 and under
Horrible service

We Rate SportsTown Tavern:

Address:

4991 #5 Rd
Richmond, BC

Website:
www.sportstownbc.com/tavern/

In Chinese

Red Star Seafood

January 19, 2011

The family went to Red Star Seafood Restaurant in Richmond. They are another large Chinese restaurant specializing in Dim Sum for Lunch and large dinners at night.

When we asked if Red Star was affiliated with the Red Star in Tsimshatsui, HK…they said they are not related at all. Apparently, lots of patrons come in asking the same question since the name is the same.

Red Star is located in Presidents Plaza, which is on top of T&T. They are not as elegant as Fortune House in Metrotown, but it’s normal. They have high ceilings, draped curtains and a chandelier in the middle.

We first ordered the watercress soup. This came delivered in a pot and made about 8 bowls. The waiter will soup it out into bowls for you.

They remove all the watercress, meat, dates, and other ingredients into a separate dish for you. They also give you sauce to dip the meat.

This soup was refreshing, but it’s something you can make at home yourself. When the meat came out of the pot, it started drying up really quickly.

The next dish we got was geoduck. At The geoduck was cooked and slices into very thin slices. When the dish arrived, we thought the whole dish was geoduck, but turns out it was bean sprouts in the bottom and that the geoduck was laying on top. This dish also came with a special soy sauce for dipping the geoduck in. It was a pretty good dish. My grandfather said it was good how it was cut so thinly.

Next, we had 2 lobsters. I think we had the lobster sauteed. I’m not exactly sure because I was not paying attention. They prepare the lobster well, so you don’t need to use your hands to crack it open. Tasted good.

For $5 more, you can add noodles to the dish. As you can tell from the picture, there is a layer of noodles under it.

We also ordered 3 bowls of rice.

We also ordered steamed broccoli with crab and egg sauce. We didn’t know what type of vegetable to have with this dish, so the waiter suggested this and it was really really good.

We ordered half a crispy BBQ duck. The duck was really crispy and most on the inside. This is probably one of the best ducks I have had so far. The duck also came with prawn crackers. They also give you soy sauce and salt to add more taste to the duck.

What I love about chinese restaurants is that you get complementary dessert to go with your meal. =)

The Red bean soup had barley and red beans. This was alright, not my favorite dessert since I am not into beans…or anything starchy tasting.

They also give you sesame balls and cookies. These were good, so I ate most of it.

Words of Wisdom:

Park in the parkade instead of near T&T. You will get towed at T&T after the time limit…the parkade is not as strict
Servers are really friendly and can offer advice on what to order

We rate Red Star Seafood:

Address:

#2200 – 8181 Cambie Road
Richmond, BC

In Cafe

Leisure Tea & Coffee (Visit #2)

January 14, 2011

Last time I visited here for just tea. This time I went with InsecureGirl and KoreanGirl to revist this place to check out more of what they had to offer.

We got one of the Oriental Style Combo for 2 ( $21.95). We got to choose from 1 coffee, 1 tea, 2 desserts, and a fry combo. We weren’t in a coffee mood, so we paid an additional $1 for another tea.

For our first tea, we got Jasmine Green Tea.

We got their Leisure Fruit Tea. It was really sour for our first cup. All 3 of us were not use to fruity teas since we only have the usual chinese teas at home. If you like fruity teas, you will probably like it because it has real fruits inside – kiwis, pineapples, apples, etc.

What we did after the tea was done, was eat the fruit!

We got the fruit crepe. It had canned peaches,whipped cream and maple syrup. all this was wrapped up in a nice thin crepe.

The crepe was pretty good but one thing we all didn’t like about it was the additional maple syrup. This made it really sweet and didn’t really mesh well with the whipped cream.

The fry combo we got had tofu, fish cake, and chicken. THere is also some spicy sauce on the side to dip. This was an average dish.

Lastly, we had the blueberry pie. This was a very disappointing dessert. It was in a little pie tart with cooked and sugared blueberries and a bit of whipped cream. I use to bake a lot and I can tell this tart shell was from the store frozen. If you look carefully, the tart is even burned.

Overall, this was a bad dessert, everything pre-made and slapped together. It looked nothing like the image on the menu.

Words of Wisdom:

Lots of variety of teas
Dessert are a hit or a miss
Parking in the back

We rate Leisure Tea & Coffee:

Address:

1110-8391 Alexandra Rd
Richmond, BC

In Cafe

Leisure Tea & Coffee

January 14, 2011

After eating massive amounts with FinanceGirl and SFUPretender, we decided we needed a break from all the food to have some tea. The first place in mind to just chill and have tea was Leisure Cafe on Alexandra Road.

The interior is very awkward. The walls are covered in old photographs of European landmarks.

They mainly sell drinks, snacks and desserts.

SFUPretender ordered the Jasmine Tea.

I ordered Oolong Tea.

FinanceGirl ordered the Earl Grey Tea.

The teas taste like normal teas, so there not much to explain. Each drink was about $4 or $5. I can’t remember exactly. You could probably get it for way cheaper if you were just at home.

Another review will be put up soon about their desserts.

Words of Wisdom:

Free Parking in back (usually full)
Large variety of sweet and chinese tea

We rate Leisure Cafe:

Address:

1110-8391 Alexandra Rd
Richmond, BC

In Chinese

Bubble Fruity

January 12, 2011

Bubble Fruity is an authentic HK dessert shop in Richmond. I have always been craving for good Mango sago cream, but I could never find it in BC… until now.

They are quite popular. We asked the owners if they would ever consider opening a shop in Burnaby or in Vancouver, they said they were way too busy. Bubble Fruity is a mom and pop store, so only the owners run this place.

They serve snack and are most famous for their authentic Sago cream desserts.

PinappleBun ordered the Durian Sago Cream ($4). This had basil seeds and sago. The black bacteria looking things are te basil seeds, they may seem scary, but it’s delicious.

PinappleBun said it has a very fresh durian taste and smell. She loved it!

If you are not a durian fan, I suggest you stay away from this. If you ARE a durian fan, you MUST get this.

VWboy and I both had the Mango Flavour Sago Cream ($4). It has a really strong favour of mango, which is <3 ! It is also served with sago and basil seed.

When I visited Hong Kong a few years ago, I would love to go out to have dessert just like this. It’s amazing that a place in Richmond can have such authentic HK Desserts!

Of course this was SO good that we had to bring it back home for our parents to try.

We ordered:

Green Bean Soup
Sago Cream with coconut milk
Black Sesame Paste
Red Bean Soup
Durian Sago Cream
Mango Sago Cream
Papaya almond soup

Glutinous Purple Rice Soup

Mango Sago Cream

Papaya Almond Soup

Green Bean Soup

When we took out the items, they were not as good as having it in the store. You get much less and the temperature changes as well. We live in Burnaby and the restaurant is in Richmond. So, we basically left it in the car for about 45 mins.

Overall, the desserts were amazing and very cheap!

Words of Wisdom:

Mango Sago Cream and Durian Sago Cream are highly popular
Limited free street parking, mostly pay parking
Cheap

We Rate Bubble Fruity:

Address:

180-8188 Saba Road
Richmond, BC

In Dessert

salle de the Tea Room @ 113

January 4, 2011

salle de thé Tea Room is a tea, dessert, and wine place in Richmond.

Insecuregirl and I bought 4 coupons from IndulgeLiving to go to salle de thé Tea Room. We were really glad we got the coupons because our bill turned out to be quite steep. The coupons were $6 for $12 worth of food. We took CanuckGirl, FragileBoy and M with us to a little adventure down to Richmond.

InsecureGirl, FragileBoy and I ordered 3 pots of teas. They were $7 each. Their teas are quite unique and they do have a large selection. If you do have a particular taste you like for teas, you can ask them questions and they can show you which teas are good. $7 can be quite expensive for a small pot of tea, but you also get refills.

They also give you a small cup of honey if you like honey in your tea.

M ordered this blueberry and lychee type of drink. I forgot what the name was, but it was quite good and had nice balance of flavour between the blueberries and lychee.

We all shared the match cheesecake. This was really delicious! The green tea taste was amazing and it was not too bitter. Just perfect !

We ordered 2 chocolate fondues and I think they were about $15 each.

The fondue did take sometime to arrive at our table. I really couldn’t figure out why since it can’t be so hard to prepare. One of my friends commented by saying they saw one of the workers go out to buy ingredients. I can not confirm if this was true or not, but if this is so, it’s quite sad.

The items that they give you to dunk are:

marshmallows
pretzels
dried apricots
strawberries
banana
apple

The chocolate sauce for the fondue was done quite poorly. It was really sweet and did not taste like real chocolate at all. It reminded us of chocolate syrup instead and it was not warm. We also looked at the consistency of the chocolate and it did not seem like it was made out of real chocolate since it should eventually harden up.

If you want good fondue, try out Capstone Tea House because it’s cheaper and its all you can eat.

The bill turned out to be $79 and after using the 4 coupons, it ended up to be around $30.

Words of Wisdom:

Parking in plaza
Do not get the fondue
Cakes are good
large selection of teas
Expensive

We rate salle de thé Tea Room:

Wesbite: www.salledethetearoom113.com

Address:

8571 Alexandra Rd
Richmond, BC

In Dessert

Frappe Bliss and Qoola in Aberdeen Mall

December 23, 2010

Frappe Bliss serves up flavoured shaved ice at Aberdeen Mall. The flavours can range from Mango to Peanut. This little kiosk is actually owned by Fairchild. Isn’t that interesting? It’s like they practically own most of everything in the mall. Frappe Bliss has moved around in many locations in the food court, but they currently reside between the Mambo Cafe and the Anime store.

Frappe Bliss was actually my first job that I ever had. I was so glad the job didn’t last long because as an Chinese person who can’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin, it was a HARD job! It was like trying to guess what people were trying to order. It makes you think, why they even hired me in the first place.

If you are an indecisive person, you can choose from the items on the left or you can customize your own by choosing the flavour of ice and toppings.

They first take a block of flavoured ice and put it in the ice shredding machine to turn the block of ice into the shaved ice you know and perhaps love! If you compact all the shaved ice that you get….it comes out to be less than a cup of liquid. 🙁

I ordered the Peanut Iceburg ($3.60). It has peanut ice, chocolate sauce, and peanuts. This was pretty gross. The chocolate sauce was too sweet, and the peanut ice didn’t taste very peanut like. Three years ago, they had this amazing peanut sauce which you could have added, but I guess they stopped making it. I wasn’t satisfied with it. After eating this I wanted some frozen yogurt.

Words of Wisdom:

Popular ice flavours – Strawberry, Mango, yogurt
Best to order fruit toppings
Discounts found on their Facebook account (Usually 10%)
10% using membership card

We rate Frappe Bliss:

Website: www.frappebliss.com

They are located at:

4151 Hazelbridge Way
Richmond, BC

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Since FinanceGirl didn’t want Frappe Bliss, the went downstairs to Qoola to get some dessert.

She got the chocolate frozen yogurt and SFUPretender and I thought it had a very sour taste for chocolate but we assumed it was the yogurt taste.

I guess she was in a very chocolaty mood since she added chocolate chips and chocolate sprinkles all over her chocolate frozen yogurt. If you are a traditionalist, stuck with the regular one or the green tea flavour. You can’t go wrong with those.

Website: www.qoola.com

They are located at:

4151 Hazelbridge Way
Richmond, BC

In Chinese

Excellent Tofu & Snack Ltd

December 19, 2010

Excellent Tofu and Snack LTD. looks pretty sketchy from the outside but they make some amazing tofu dessert. Perfect for a snack or after dinner dessert….or if you are a tofu fanatic…you would just come here anytime.

The inside looks like a typically crappy asian place. Plain decor, but if you can put that all aside, you should have an amazing tofu experience.

Their menu has pictures so you know what you are going to get.

They also have another menu with english and chinese, but I avoided it because I was afraid I would order the wrong thing. Sometimes I wish I could read Chinese.

SFUPretender and FinanceGirl both got the Soy Pudding with pearls ($3.50). It was basically tofu pudding topped with a good amount of pearls. You can sweeten up with their syrups – liquid sugar or liquid ginger sugar. If you are unsure which one you prefer, try it before you pour it all over your tofu dessert.

The syrups can be found in these tubes around the restaurant.

I ordered the tofu pudding with mixed fruit with light milk ($4). The fruits are the typical fruit that come from cans and are preserved in syrup.

I love this place because they make all their tofu from scratch and it smells heavenly! When I was walking to the washroom, you can really smell the soy beans.

Words of Wisdom:

Parking in the parking lot, but it’s usually full during peak hours. Alternative parking at Aberdeen Mall or Parker Place.
Tofu dessert is a must!
Really inexpensive, should cost you less than $5
They also sell a variety of soy drinks and soy desserts to go.

We rate Excellent Tofu & Snack LTD. :

They are located at:

160-4231 Hazelbridge Way
Richmond, BC

In Four Beakers

Shoryumen, Fumisen and Bakudanyaki Foodcarts

December 12, 2010

SFUPretender highly recommended we visit the 3 foodcarts in Richmond near River Rock Casino, so we decided to take a trip! I’ve heard people talk about the foodcarts, but never really had an urge to go until now.

The famous 3 foodcarts – Shoryumen, Fumisen and Bakudanyaki sell sushi cones, ramen, and giant takoyaki.

We drove and there was tons of parking! If you don’t have a car, they are located right across the street from the Canada Line.

Bakudanyaki sells giant Takoyaki the size of baseballs. Their filling the the takoyaki does vary once in a while, but today they had the Seafood Bakudan for $5.

You can choose what type of mayo you would like your bakudanyaki.

For my Bakudanyaki, I chose the wasabi mayo.

When you begin eating the bakudanyaki, you are greeted with the various ingredients – egg, shrimp, calamari, corn, onion, carrot and potatoes. You might be wondering when you have so many ingredients packed inside, but if the ball was just made like a normal takoyaki, it would be fragile and fall apart easily.

The bakudanyaki was well made and it really did taste like a big takoyaki.

Clearly a great idea and I would get this again.

We rate Tenku Bakudanyaki:

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Shoryumen is the ramen food cart. You can choose from ramen noodles or udon noodles. you can choose miso, curry or shoyu (Soy sause) soup stock. You can add extra toppings for 50 cents.

For my ramen, I got the curry ramen with corn and garlic chips ($7.75). The egg was cooked perfectly and was not over or under cooked. The garlic chips were not a crunchy as I would have liked. They ended up just sticking to my teeth.

FinanceGirl got the Miso Udon ($6.75).

SFUPretender got the Shoyu Udon ($6.75).

In the end we finished it right up. Instead of just disposing the bowl with soup in the trash, you can give it back to them to properly dispose of the soup.

We rate Shoryumen:

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Fumisen sells sushi cones in 3 sizes – small ($3.75), medium ($5) and JUMBO ($8.50).

There are 4 steps into making your sushi cone:

pick a type of rice
pick a protein filling
pick 2 vegetable fillings
pick a sauce

I got a medium cone with salmon rice, scallop chop chop, salmon sashimi, avacado, tobiko, and wasabi mayo. I wanted to try both the scallop chop chop and salmon sashimi, so they were nice enough to give me both! What I LOVE about the cones was how fresh the seafood is.

If you don’t know what toppings to add into your cone, you can always ask the staff because they are the experts.

Apparently, they buy their sashimi and seafood in small batches to ensure quality and freshness.

FinanceGirl got the Medium cone with salmon sashimi, lettuce, tobiko and mayo.

SFUPretender got a small cone with chicken teriyaki, mango…and I am not 100% what else was in there. It looks good and it tasted good so I guess whats what matters!

We rate Fumisen:

All the carts are located at:

8740 Charles St
Richmond, BC

In Cafe

Yavis Cafe

August 11, 2010

My favorite place in Richmond for tea and dessert is Yavis Café. Since Medical Giraffe made a frozen cheesecake the other day, I wanted to show her a place that served Glacier Cheesecake.

When you first enter the café, you will enjoy the look of their interior design, which will connect to their menu. The menu starts off with a story about the concept of their café and how they came up with the famous glacier cheesecake.

I ordered their best selling cheesecake – White Romance; it is a normal cheesecake with fruit compote on the side. It was really nice and the fruit compote was a nice addition. I really wished there was more of the compote and not just used on the design of the plate. I also got a Japan Genmacha tea to go with it. It came in a really cool looking cup. It is overpriced tea but it does come with refills so keep on drinking until you get your money’s worth.

Medical Giraffe ordered the Lavender Cheesecake, which really tasted like lavender. If you do not like spices, this may not be the cake for you. The waiter said this was a very popular choice from customers. But, personally, the taste of lavender was not to my liking.

Medical Giraffe’s cousin ordered the Green Tea Glacier Cheesecake. It is like a normal cheesecake, but frozen. The texture is similar to ice cream. Don’t spend too much time ogling and look of the cake because it will melt.

This place stays open pretty late till 1am but make sure you don’t go on a Monday because its closed the whole day.

If you are ever in Richmond and are craving for a late night dessert, head over to Yavis Café and try out their unique cheesecakes.

We rate Yavis Cafe: