Chinese in Vancouver 2002 - 2006

[eatrustic]

A mildly interesting Dining column by Tim Pawsy in today's Courier (July 12) about a sponsored trip to China and dinner he really enjoyed in large chain restaurant called Little Sheep.

Apparently there is a branch in San Fran (canucklehead do you know it?) and the possiblility of opening one here exists as well.

[canucklehead]

No - I have not heard of 'Little Sheep'. When I lived in SFO - I did not eat much Chinese/Japanese food as I would gorge myself whenever I got back to YVR.

[Ling]

I admittedly haven't checked the forum for comments on this restaurant, but how is the rest of the food at Empire?

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It's good. My parents seem to like it well enough. I do enjoy some of the dishes there, but it's not the best Chinese food I've eaten. I like this fried taro dish they have there that comes with Chinese mustard and a slice of scallop on top served at dimsum.

[bccoati]

A mildly interesting Dining column by Tim Pawsy in today's Courier (July 12) about a sponsored trip to China and dinner he really enjoyed in large chain restaurant called Little Sheep.

Apparently there is a branch in San Fran (canucklehead do you know it?) and the possiblility of opening one here exists as well.

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You can get the "Little Fat Lamb" hot pot soup bases at T & T.

[dimsumfan]

All this talk about Top Shanghai got me very curious - so of course I had to go check it out... Definitely worth checking for an evening meal. 

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Are the items you mentioned available at lunch? Or do they do dim sum at lunch?

Edited July 16, 2006 by dimsumfan (log)

[canucklehead]

It looked like a pretty full menu at lunch. Dim Sum may not be available during dinner time.

[Linda Griffith]

.  Perhaps grilled on the bbq or smothered in onions.

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Smothered in onions. What a way to go. Sounds divine.

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So, If I am going to have only one Dim Sum, alas, in Vancouver...in late August, where should I go? I am terribly Dim Sum Deprived!!! We live in Cleveland and normally get our "fix" in San Francisco, but it has been ages. This is our first visit to your city and it has been shortened because children/grandchildren are coming to visit.

[Keith Talent]

Are the items you mentioned available at lunch? Or do they do dim sum at lunch?

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We went last Thursday evening, and the dim sum menu was on the table along with the dinner menu. We ordered two things off the dim sum menu. Based on my empirical evidence sample size of two, yes the whole dimsum menu is available at night.

[Peter Rodgers]

Will be talking our annual extended holiday in Vancouver next month and am hopeful that the serious students of the Chinese restaurant scene on the board can share any and all recent discoveries. Especially keen to know if there are any new entries in the Richmond market that deserve a try or old ones that have shown inspiration of late.

[Peter Rodgers]

One more question. Stopped by the Gala Seafood Restaurant in Richmond during lunch yesterday -- it is in the location once occupied by the sorely missed Fook Yuen Palace. Looked to be doing a roaring dim sum business, and the dinner menu seemed interesting. Has anyone given it a try for dim sum or a major meal?

[PearL]

In today's Georgia Strait they blew the lid off our local secret: VIP's Kitchen, on Marine drive near 17th in my 'hood of West Vancouver. Super cheap, and if you avoid the dishes that are on the menu for the blue-rinse set (most of whom go to the terrible Ambleside Chinese on Belleville) you can get really off-beat and great stuff. Can attest to the egg and oyster pancake and the duck.

If only it were licensed...

My father is Chiu-Chow and as a kid I hated all the CC-style dishes forced on me (who wants to eat scrawny marinated duck wings dipped in vinegar when your friends are having big buckets of KFC with gravy?). But of course, now I constantly crave those very same dishes.

Last year, I tried VIP's for the first time and loved the duck, loved the veggies, and persuaded the chef to make some taro "mud" for me. Yu-m. The fix lasted all year and I made a return last week, only to leave very disappointed. Our quarter duck was dry, lean, and not very flavourful. Bitter melon soup tasted like generic msg-broth that sometimes comes when ordering family 4 or 6 course sets, a big letdown at $9.95 a bowl. Also, this part isn't a surprise, but the meal was further made "off" by the fact that we were served in this order: duck...long wait...oyster omelette...another long wait...pan-fried noodles with satay beef...yes, wait some more...then soup.

That said, I'll still go back, since it's cheaper than flying to Hong Kong for Grandma's cooking!

[canucklehead]

I went to for my weekly lunch with my Aunt - and she took a few of us out to Gingeri for a set meal.. We had Braised Shark Fin Soup, Stir Fried Dungeness over Ginger Rice, Scallops and Mixed Mushrooms, Braised 'Bamboo' Mushrooms (these were particularly excellent), and Poached Free Range Chicken. Everything was very very good - bright clean flavors, impeccably fresh ingredients, smart table side service. But the show stealer was the dessert that my Aunt somehow got comp'ed.

Baked Tapioca Pudding with Taro Root.

Rich, creamy, eggy but without any heaviness. The taro bits were meltingly soft... adding another soft mouthfeel note. Really excellent dish - tight and balanced. We also got a small plate of almond cookies and sesame crips - amazingly crunchy and light - not a hint of greasiness. Whoever handles their sweets is a real pro - consistently some of the best desserts for a Richmond cantonese restaurant.

[canucklehead]

Well - the mid Autumn festival approaches and mooncakes are piling ever higher in Chinese Bakeries. The are supposed to commemorate:

1. Some beautiful girl escaping to the moon
   
2. The old man in the moon and his pet rabbit (I don't make this shit up)
   
3. Secret note passing using the mooncakes as the delivery vehicle and smashing the rule of foreigners
   

Or some combination thereof - but really its just an excuse to hang with family and friends and stare at the big ole moon. Nice sentiment really.

Mooncake time!

Let's not kid ourselves - these are acquired tastes. Lard is very evident and lots of sugar. Still some are much better than others....

I went down to a number of bakeries to check out their offerings. First off Anna's - who have high quality HK style cakes and pastries. I had high hopes for these guys. They only have two offerings - totally old skool and traditional - Red Date Paste with Salted Egg Yolk, Lotus Seed Paste

Tremendous top quality ingredients and preparation. Smooth cutting - high quality egg yolk - the Lotus Seed version is like a muted nut butter - smooth and sweet. The Red Date actually illicited an involuntary "mmmmm" out of me. I liked it! I could probably could eat this one whole.

Next stop was Pine House Bakery - which has a much wider selection of traditional fillings. However - I despise their baking - their bread is dry and cottony and their cocktail buns uses margerine or golden crisco instead of real butter - replusive. Still - I had no choice in the matter - I had to sample their wares.

Sweetened Mixed Nuts, Sweeted Mixed Nuts w/ Ham. These are my mother's favorites. I think them terrible - like someone took all the worse parts of a Christmas cake and stuffed in lardy pastry. Perhaps their sophistication is beyond me - orange peel undertones with mixed chopped nuts that seem just this side of bitter. The addition of ham does not add some sort of proscuitto goodness - think more in terms of cured pork belly. Sounds delish eh? Still good examples of what they are. They also had Shark's Fin mooncakes - but I did not get any. Too weird.

Now on to TNT's offerings. Have you had their baking? Let just say they are a desparate last choice for me... okay let's not prejudice the tasting here.

Dates with Walnuts and Salted Egg Yolk, Longan and Salted Egg Yolk. The date concoction is terrible - kinda like a date candy that the old man down the street who smells of brill cream and dirty fedora carries around - he reaches into his pocket to offer you some never before seen type of date treat - you can't say no, so you accept it and it feels warm in your hand from being in his pocket all day. Medicinal, sickly sweet and mothbally - bad bad bad. And they are cheap with the crappy salted egg yolk. Disaster.

The longan is much better - you can taste the dried longan (kind like a concentrated lychee) and the egg is actually pretty good. However - it also highlights how crappy the pastry is - stale oil tast prevails. A nasty suprise.

Now its on to the newer style offerings. Even Chinese kids will refuse to eat crappy pastry no matter how traditional its supposed to be. Continuing with the TNT offerings....

Tawainese Pineapple Filling, Taro in Iced Pastry, Green Bean in Iced Pastry.

When they call it "Tawainese" I am not sure if it is to assign credit or blame. The Tawainese have produced some real food homeruns - their soup dumplings are a fucking dream... but they also chomp on betelnuts like there's no tommorrow - so can you trust them? The Pineapple filling smells very fruity - and tastes like a light fruit jelly - unfortunately it also agains highlights how terrible the pastry is... in fact the pastry's rancid taste overwhelms the delicate filling. Very sad.

The iced pastry is really a mochi skin - so it really does not have any taste. I like taro sweets - when they are good - there is a musky fruitiness - when it is bad - it literally tastes like woolly socks. These unfortunately are vintage Hudson's Bay socks - blech. The green bean filling tastes so shockingly of lentils, I am taken aback. No pretense of fruit flavors - its a bean - get used to it. I decide not to.

So what did I learn today? As with all foodstuffs - buy quality - go to a good source that is picky about what they sell. Anna's were very good - and worth trying at $3 a pop for the mini-cakes if you are curious about traditional mooncakes. I wonder if Michelle's makes mooncakes - I suspect that the would be top notch also.

Now I have to unload the dozen or so mini moon cakes taking up room in my refrigderator.

Edited September 22, 2006 by canucklehead (log)

[makanmakan]

^^ You are my hero!! I love this time of year as it evokes fond childhood memories. My taste in mooncakes is simple and traditional. I love the lotus paste ones with salted egg yolks...the more the merrier!

I think that a visit to Anna's this weekend is on the top of my list now. The red date one sounds great too! Thanks for doing the research

Edited September 22, 2006 by makanmakan (log)

[Ling]

Ahhh...thanks for doing the comparison. Our family has bought (and received) many different brands over the years, and my childhood favourite is (and probably always will be) the mooncakes from Keefer Bakery. The pastry is good and the filling is not the least bit dry...in fact, it is quite a bit oilier than mooncakes from other bakeries. Sometimes the salted egg yolks are better than other years...but generally, this brand is my favourite.

So far this year I've had some from the tea shop in T&T (boxed set of 6 mooncakes, none of them good. They were "modern" filling combinations like kaboucha squash, or green tea, or the Taiwanese 'iced' pastry with glutinous rice inside). One of my students gave me one of the nut ones from Pine House--pastry was thick, uneven and dry, the filling as canucklehead described. Bleah.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Ling (log)

[sanrensho]

Canucklehead-Thanks for taking one for the team. Looks like I need make a trip out to Anna's.

Ling-Is Keefer Baker located on Commercial?

I love mooncakes. Sometimes a big hunk of bean paste wrapped in pastry just hits the spot. I assume there are imported mooncakes available from Hong Kong? Would the quality be better or just (somewhat) stale?

Edited September 22, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[canucklehead]

Canucklehead-Thanks for taking one for the team. Looks like I need make a trip out to Anna's.

Ling-Is Keefer Baker located on Commercial?

I love mooncakes. Sometimes a big hunk of bean paste wrapped in pastry just hits the spot. I assume there are imported mooncakes available from Hong Kong? Would the quality be better or just (somewhat) stale?

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Gosh - no need to thank anyone - just my gastro-curiousity getting the better of me.

Is Keefer Bakery still located on Keefer St in Chinatown? That a good call from Ling - classic old school Chinese-Canadian bakery. Them and Maxim's just up the street are alot of fun to visit. I may just check out their product just to compare.

I wonder if Maxim's is owned by the Maxim's group in HK - I don't think they used to be - but their signage and packaging is so similiar - it makes me think that there has been a change.

When I lived in California - I got the one's sent over by Wing Wah - but I think the local product in Vancouver really stands up to the HK versions. As for going stale - they seemed to be made to last forever. There should be scientific studies conducted to see which ones last longer - Mooncakes or Christmas Fruit Cakes.

[sanrensho]

There should be scientific studies conducted to see which ones last longer - Mooncakes or Christmas Fruit Cakes.

If they made mooncakes with alcohol, the mooncakes would trump fruit cakes by a wide margin. Seriously though, I think the non-fresh ones are helped by preservatives so, yeah, staleness wouldn't be a problem.

[flowbee]

i had no idea mooncakes were made with lard!

/me scratches off mooncakes from diet list

[Ling]

Is Keefer Bakery still located on Keefer St in Chinatown?  That a good call from Ling - classic old school Chinese-Canadian bakery.  Them and Maxim's just up the street are alot of fun to visit.  I may just check out their product just to compare.

I wonder if Maxim's is owned by the Maxim's group in HK - I don't think they used to be - but their signage and packaging is so similiar - it makes me think that there has been a change.

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sanrensho--Keefer is on Keefer St. in Chinatown. I don't know if they have another location on Commercial.

The baked goods at Keefer Bakery were my favourite as a kid. I thought the quality there was the best. Plus, they had 'dao sa yoong'--a deep fried bun filled with black bean paste, rolled in sugar. Unfortunately, the bakery looks very empty these days...we haven't gotten our mooncakes from there this year yet, so I hope it's as good as it always is.

canucklehead--I believe Maxim in HK and Maxim over here are two different companies, according to one of my students.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Ling (log)

[adelaide]

I used to go to school with the girl whose family owns (or Used to own? didn't keep in touch after high school) the Maxim's here. Don't think it's the same as the one in HK (plus I think the Maxim's in HK is much better...)

Red date is also one of my favourite moon cakes too! I don't know too many ppl who like the red date one personally, so I'm surprised to see so many ppl who like it here! Another one of my favourite moon cake is bean paste.

[lannie]

Canucklehead - In previous posts, you've raved about the food at Sea Harbour. I had a chance to go on my last trip out to the west coast, and had a very memorable meal there.

The other day, while strolling through an Asian supermarket in Calgary, I stumbled upon boxes upon boxes of mooncakes - made by Sea Harbour. Just wondering if anyone had tried them, and whether or not they were up to par with the rest of their offerings.

[sanrensho]

sanrensho--Keefer is on Keefer St. in Chinatown. I don't know if they have another location on Commercial.

The baked goods at Keefer Bakery were my favourite as a kid. I thought the quality there was the best. Plus, they had 'dao sa yoong'--a deep fried bun filled with black bean paste, rolled in sugar. 

Thanks Ling. I'll make a point of checking it out next time I've been there. It's quite possible I've been in the place but don't remember the name/storefront.

Dao sa yoong are definitely a treat, although I'm more familiary with the Japanese version (they call them "an donuts").

Edited September 25, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[canucklehead]

Canucklehead - In previous posts, you've raved about the food at Sea Harbour.  I had a chance to go on my last trip out to the west coast, and had a very memorable meal there.

The other day, while strolling through an Asian supermarket in Calgary, I stumbled upon boxes upon boxes of mooncakes - made by Sea Harbour.  Just wondering if anyone had tried them, and whether or not they were up to par with the rest of their offerings.

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I have not tried them - and now you've got me all curious. In HK - alot of restaurants sell mooncakes as they usually have a pastry chef on staff. Now that you bring it up - I think that I saw Gingeri in Vancouver also have mooncakes on sale. I think that they are definitely worth a try - let us know if they are good.

I may do some recon here myself...

[chocomoo]

Adding to the Maxim's discussion, I agree with Adelaide - I don't think Maxim's Vancouver & Maxim's HK are owned by the same people. I do know that Mr. Lai's (or "Lai bak bak", as I used to call him) son has taken over the business, and his son-in-law has taken over the Boss bakery.

Like Ling's family, we always get our mooncakes from Keefer Bakery. Apparently, the crappy egg yolk in some mooncakes is basically a ball of salted egg-yolk-flavoured flour. Gross. I love real salted duck egg yolk though