Cafés
A busy Hong Kong-style cafe off Hazelbridge Way known for late hours and an enormous menu of rice plates, congee, thick toast and milk tea. The kind of place Richmond families end up at after a movie or a long day of shopping.
An enormous menu is the first thing people notice here, and it confuses anyone who did not grow up with the cha chaan teng format. Rice plates, congee, thick toast and milk tea sit alongside a great deal else, and the sheer length reads as a warning sign to a diner used to short focused lists. That reading misses the point of the format entirely.
These rooms are built for speed, volume and a wide net. The measure of one is whether the standards hold steady: milk tea strong enough to stand up to the evaporated milk, congee cooked down rather than thickened, toast cut thick and properly buttered. Order accordingly and the size of the menu stops mattering. Lido is the kind of Hong Kong cafe Richmond families end up at after a movie or a long afternoon of shopping, which is the highest compliment the format accepts.
Hazelbridge Way runs between Aberdeen Centre and Yaohan, making it the densest pedestrian pocket in the city outside the summer night market. Foot traffic there is heavy through Saturday afternoon and much lighter on a weekday evening, which is the better window for a table without a wait. The surrounding blocks are malls and towers rather than street frontage, so the walk from one door to the next is short and mostly under cover, and that counts for a great deal in a Richmond November.
In the Golden Village neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other cafés and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
A small specialty bar in Empire Centre near Aberdeen Station that takes coffee and matcha equally seriously, with careful pour-overs in a tidy, minimal room. Free mall parking makes it an easy weekday stop for Golden Village office workers.
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A small scratch bakehouse tucked into President Plaza that bakes everything on site using French technique. Croissants are the draw, especially the double-baked salted egg yolk custard one, alongside cream puffs, cakes and matcha or black sesame pastries.
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Taiwanese cafe in Continental Centre that works as both a bubble tea stop and a full sit-down meal. Rice and noodle plates, hot pots and popcorn chicken alongside a long drinks list. Open late, which makes it a default after-movie spot.
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A Taiwanese cafe on Alexandra Road, family-run since 1987, serving tea and coffee alongside a full menu of rice and noodle plates. Old-school, unhurried and open late, it predates most of the Golden Village restaurant strip around it.
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A twenty-year Vancouver Hong Kong-style cafe that finally crossed the bridge to Alexandra Road, doing the full cha chaan teng repertoire of baked pork chop rice, macaroni soup and milk tea. Open past 11pm, which suits the Golden Village crowd.
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