Old Szechuan Restaurant
10703 – 103 Street
Edmonton, AB
During my initial post of my BC Day/Heritage Day long weekend in Edmonton, I made a remark about The Lingnan, whose claim to include being part of a show called The Family Restaurant: The Quons. In that post, I wrote “I know, I know, this isn’t authentic Chinese…” Now, here is a key detail, based on ingredient availability and taste, it is almost a guarantee dishes will change (in fact, I am looking forward for a book to be published later this year on this topic. Check details about it here). So, on my last night in Edmonton, after a visit to the Devonian Botanical Gardens, a friend of Trinh (whom I am going to refer as “K”) called, which, in turn, checked with me. While initially I didn’t have any expectations as to what to eat or where to eat, this time, I made a selfish request: Can we try a Chinese restaurant? Given K’s background, it seems like a good idea: to find something Chinese but not Chinese Canadian. (Sorry, Trinh, I knew you wanted to try something “Western”!).
Read more…!
Tagged as:
Chinese,
Edmonton,
Pork
City Temple of Shanghai
3755 Main Street
Vancouver, BC
“Anybody interested in some XLB?” That was what Sherman wrote in an email. I am not sure but, there are times where I wonder if that question should be asked anymore… Well, actually, this was, as I was in “maybe” mode. Why? Me, don’t want to tag along for food? Well, it just happens the day Sherman suggested we went for xiao long bao was the day I went with TNG to Squamish! In the end, we chose to come back to Vancouver and, for TNG to meet fellow food bloggers in action, in this case, in addition to Sherman, there were also Elaine, Matt and Degan. The place for XLB? A small mom-n-pop, hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Main Street called City Temple of Shanghai.
Read more…!
Tagged as:
Chinese,
Dumplings,
Vancouver
In the last couple of weeks, I have been visiting places that sell Chinese BBQ pork – for the most part, in the form of a meal served with rice. It is simple, it is satisfying, it is Chinese… For a twist, I decided this time to go for lechón, the Spanish variant of this dish; however, since I am not aware of any Spanish restaurant in Vancouver that does this, I went then for the next best alternative: the Filipino version. After all, there is a Filipino community here and there is that catering to their own community, right? That place was Joyce BBQ/Manila Lechon, located near Joyce Skytrain Station.
Read more…!
Tagged as:
Burnaby,
Chinese,
Food Court,
Pork,
Vancouver
Great Two Supermarket
2760 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC
So far, except with minor exceptions, all my posts have been restaurants related. However, when readers suggest a place, I am more than willing to give that place a try, even if that place is NOT a restaurant. This is what happened a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about Delicious BBQ in Crystal Mall’s food court. Holly, whom I have met personally, suggested I give Great Two Supermarket a try, a suggestion partially supported by LotusRapper, another reader. Now, it is not that the place is great; rather, it is an alternative to going all the way down to HK BBQ Master in Richmond. OK, that is enough convincing for me to give this place a try!
Not necessarily the fanciest of places…
Read more…!
Tagged as:
Chinese,
Pork,
Vancouver
Delicious BBQ
4500 Kingsway
Crystal Mall
Burnaby, BC
The truth is that this week could have been Kingsway (Burnaby side) week. That’s because, originally, all posts would have been in this area and, two of them of similar cuisine, namely, Vietnamese. To avoid that burning sense, I added Akira Sushi and, to further shuffle sense, tomorrow’s post will be Nimby Burger. However, I still needed a post for today. While I have some materials in the queue, I still had to go through the post-processing process, etc. etc. So, in the end, I decided to use of of those originally scheduled posts… ^_^;;;
On Tuesday’s post, I mentioned I visited Crystal Mall and, again, in a pseudo back-to-back type visit, I went to another stand. This time, rather than noodles or burgers, I went for some straight Chinese goodness: siu mei or roasted/BBQ meats. In this case, Delicious BBQ. Considering they have some interesting competition in the form of Top King (in the market level) and another stand in the other side of the food court (which name escapes me right now), I thought it would be an interesting experience. Furthermore, there is still places in (gasp!) Richmond like HK BBQ Master! But, I was in Burnaby so Delicious BBQ it was!
Read more…!
Tagged as:
BBQ,
Burnaby,
Chinese,
Duck,
Pork
Favor Eat 
Beijing Restaurant 
4500 Kingsway
Crystal Mall
Burnaby, BC
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my visit Huaxi Noodle in Crystal Mall. Being such a good eats place (or at least above average), I decided to visit yet another couple of stall in the same food court. Hey, not all food court are bad/below average! (Specially our concept of western food court).
Read more…!
Tagged as:
Burgers,
Burnaby,
Chinese,
Noodles
ChongQing on Robson
1260 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
Here is a random, obvious note: My user name, KimHo, is a shortened version of my full name, with “Kim” being my “generation” name. If you are not familiar with traditional Chinese names, that means that any siblings I have would also be called Kim (and, yes, my sister can also call herself “Kim Ho”; however, she never uses it so they are no arguments about it, not to mention, me being the eldest, I have first picks!). The actual given name part is the part I have “dropped” from my user name for the sake of most people: For most Western languages, the transcription of my Cantonese name is constructed in a weird grammatical way which results in > 90% not being able pronounce it correctly, to the point that most attempts to say it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard… (Sorry, English does not sound as sexy as Romance languages, though German at times sounds even worst than English!)
So, what that has to do with this post? Well, a lot of restaurants seem to have a really fancy/strange name in (a) attempt to promote its ethnic identity, which at times can backfire as it seem to distance the rest of the population (at times, that seems to happen to me with Korean restaurants), or (b) try to be too cute which can also backfire in odd ways (like some Pho places…). I mean, there is nothing wrong with odd names but please be mindful of the general market. And that brings the name of today’s restaurant, which, for a long time, I swore it was spelled Chongoing until I looked really closely and then realized it ChongQing. (You have to look really close to notice there is a red stroke on the letter that seems to be the O; the fact that trailing stroke is red on a dark background doesn’t really help).
Read more…!
Tagged as:
Chinese,
Downtown,
Lunch,
Vancouver
