I am currently in Vancouver for my annual Family Summer Trip. We come to Vncouver often since it is quite close to home and almost like mini HK. This year is perhaps my 8th or 9th time here, but I never get bored of this awesome city because of its vast variety of food options and fun shopping here.
Day 0- Car Ride
Okay, so Day 0 I spent most of the day car traveling, besides seeing a ton of mountains and trees and munching on junk food, reading my novel I Heart London by Lindsey Kelk, nothing much happened.
Day 1- Richmond shopping and munching
Since I am staying at Burnaby and not Richmond this year, we decided as a family we will be going back and forth to Richmond for a few days to satisfy our shopping crave. Okay, so Day 1, first thing we did was head off to the Chinese Community chrch CMCC in Richmond. I was pretty excited for the Cantonese mass since I knew the cantonese choir there sings really nice songs for their masses. I remembere back in 2009, I met with a few of the people from this parish during the WCCCLC camp, so being able to hear their voices again brought back a lot of memories f the awesome camp. After mass, we headed out for lunch.... I was having this Wonton noodle crave for about a week back at home, so when we decided to go to Mcnoodle house for Wonton noodles I was really happy. ^__________^ Mcnoodle House in Richmond is best known for their quality wonton noodles, definitely should try it if any of you are planning to head towards Vancouver this summer!
After filling our bellies, the Shopping mission began. First, we headed off to Aberdeen center where the well known store Daiso is located. To be honest, I love shopping at Daiso, I always manage to find some useful and kawaii things such as stationery, stamps, cups, etc. Best of all Japanese style utensils and other things. It's funny how shopping doesn't only slim down the money, it also makes you feel super tired-- just like you have just finished a mission impossible adventure XD. My parents are both born and raised in HK, so they have this tradition of heading towards an HK style cafe for tea time. We went to go recharge our energy at Lido Restaurant having fresh pineapple buns and a cold lemon honey drink.
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| "Dong Buo Rou" and Drunken Chicken |
I have never really had Shanghai Cuisine before, so going to Top Shanghai Restaurant (or whatever it is called) was really adventurous of us. I may have heard about some of the famous dishes such as "Lions head" (Big huge meatballs) but not so much the other things like creamy fish cilantro soup. Unlike Korean cuisine, the "boldness" of Shanghai delicacy is different. It is not so much spicy and colourful. Rather it is more oily and salty. We ordered "Dong Buo Rou" (basically fatty pork with bak choy in a clear glossy/brown sauce), Fish and cilantro creamy soup, veggies, steamed pork dumplings and drunken chicken. "Dong Buo rou" is known for its "melt in the mouth sensation" fatty pork, one thing that really surprised me was that is wasn't too oily to taste and it didn't make you feel like you wanted to spit it out as if you were eating spoons of fat. Though I am not a fan of fatty meat, I guess this dish was okay. My favorite dishes of our meal is perhaps the druknen cold chicken and Fish soup, definitely something lighter and different for my adventurous taste buds.
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| Steamed pork dumplings |
Shanghai is perhaps best known for its "Shao Long Bao" or steamed pork dumplings. It is said that the best pork dumplings are those that keep the meat juices inside and not over cooking the dumplings. There is kind of a "technique" to eating these dumplings, you try to pick it up with your chopsticks without puncturing the delicate dumpling skin, preserving the awesome meat juices inside. Usually the dumplings are served with a vinegar dip with ginger strips.Some shops may not make quality dumplings and end up serving up dry dumplings. However, this restaurant served up some pretty good tasting and juicy dumplings!
Summer Night Market
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| First time having this "Fish-shaped Red Ben waffle" |
What can be more fun than shopping for cheap things and eating street food? I love the Richmond night markets. We went to the smaller one in Vulcan way this year, there wasn't too many people this time since we went near closing time. But a lot of things were on the "last call sale". 2 years ago when I came, the kpop wave was just beginning to influence the vendors there, this year, Kpop stuff definitely became the majority. There were many korean food stalls selling ddukbokgi and the fish waffle. Most of the vendors were owned by Koreans too. The Hallyu wave is definitely still strongly influencing Canada. Besides eating the fish shaped red bean waffle, we also ordered Takoyaki. Awesome night time snacks!
Stay tuned for more Vancouver adventures!
Little Stars
