The blog
The archive
The newest guide sits at the top. I go back and rewrite the older ones when something changes on the ground.
The Richmond Maritime Festival takes over Britannia Shipyards on the BC Day long weekend, and Steveston fills right up. What the festival actually is, why you should not try to park at the site, and how I would spend the other two days of the three.
A third of Richmond BC is still farmland and the food shows it. Where to buy at the farm gate, why the Steveston market is not every Sunday, how to buy spot prawns off the boats at the wharf, when the cranberry bogs flood, and the everyday greengrocers I actually shop at.
Fall is the best season in Richmond and I will argue about it. The dyke in low light, snow geese off Sturgeon Bank, pumpkin fields on the east side, bog trails nobody uses, and a proper indoor plan for the weeks when it rains for nine days straight.
Six years of walking the same Richmond routes with a rescue mutt named Biscuit: the off-leash parks worth the drive, why the dykes are the real dog infrastructure, the two-towel system for delta mud, and the questions I ask before booking any pet service.
Minoru is not the prettiest park in Richmond BC, but it is the most useful. A library, a free art gallery, a media lab, a pool, a track, the chapel and the ponds, all a short walk from the end of the Canada Line. Here is how a Broadmoor kid actually uses it.
Lunar New Year in Richmond BC is not a parade you go and watch. It is two weeks of flower markets, a brutal grocery run, temple visits on No. 5 Road and a lot of booked-out restaurants. Here is how the season actually runs, and how to plan around the crowds instead of into them.
London Heritage Farm sits out on Dyke Road with its back to the south arm of the Fraser, and it is the quietest of Steveston's heritage sites. Here is how I would string it together with Britannia, the cannery and the tram on Moncton Street, plus where to eat between stops.
Iona is out at the end of Ferguson Road on Sea Island, past the treatment plant, and the long jetty out into the Strait is the strangest walk in Richmond BC. Here is how to get there, when the birds make it worth the drive, what the planes do overhead, and why the park stays empty.
I was doing homework in the Parker Place food court before I could see over the counter. A working guide to Richmond BC's Golden Village: Aberdeen, Yaohan, Parker Place, Lansdowne and Alexandra Road, where to leave the car, and what I actually order at each of them.
Garry Point is the best sunset in Richmond BC and one of the worst places in the city to be underdressed. A Steveston local's guide to arriving before the lot fills, the Kuno Garden, the fishermen's memorial, the wind, and which season is actually the good one.
Eating out with kids is not a question about kitchens. It is a question about noise floors, table shape and how fast food arrives. Here is where family meals actually work in Richmond BC, from Aberdeen dim sum to the Steveston wharf, and the pub rule that catches people.
Every October the fields east of Highway 99 flood and turn red. How the cranberry harvest actually works, where Richmond's bogs are, what the farm event involves, and how to go and look at all of it without annoying a working grower.
Tips and corrections
Somewhere I missed, or something I got wrong?
I read everything that comes in. If a place has closed, changed hands, or is simply better than I gave it credit for, tell me and I'll go back and eat there again.