Restaurants
Taiwanese restaurant on Garden City Road run by the Wu family, whose cooking traces back to Gangshan in southern Taiwan. Braised pork rice, beef noodle soup and small plates, in a room dressed up like an old Taiwanese street.
The dining room is dressed to look like an old Taiwanese street, which signals straight away that the kitchen is not aiming at a quick lunch crowd. Memory Corner cooks the southern end of the Taiwanese repertoire, with a lineage that traces back to Gangshan, and that regional detail deserves attention. Taiwanese food in Metro Vancouver often arrives flattened into a single national menu when the actual cooking is regional and specific.
Braised pork rice and beef noodle soup anchor the list, with small plates around them. Braised pork rice is the dish to measure a kitchen by, because it sounds simple and is not. The fat has to render properly and the rice underneath has to hold up rather than collapse into the sauce. Richmond has a good number of Taiwanese kitchens and they split into two camps, the fast bright shops built around one dish and the family operations doing a longer menu of home cooking. This is the second kind.
Garden City Road does not get written about the way Alexandra Road does, and that is part of its appeal. It runs north to south a block east of No. 3, through strip plazas, townhouses and school catchments, and the restaurants along it tend to be ones locals drive to rather than ones that show up on a weekend list. The rooms are smaller and the pace is slower. Traffic through the middle of the day crawls around the school zones, which is the one thing to plan around before setting off.
In the Golden Village neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Shunde-style Cantonese restaurant on Garden City Road, focused on the delicate southern cooking that region is known for: steamed fish, double-boiled soups, stir-fried milk and fresh fish congee. Food-first, not a banquet hall.
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Hunan restaurant just off the Alexandra Road strip serving genuinely spicy provincial cooking: chopped chilli fish head, smoked pork, and stir-fries heavy on fresh and pickled peppers. Also known for an oversized youtiao shared around the table.
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Cantonese restaurant tucked into an Alexandra Road strip, quieter than the big banquet halls nearby. Dim sum is the draw at lunch: steamed dumplings, rice rolls and taro puffs made to order, with plenty of seafood on the dinner menu.
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A wonton noodle and congee house on the Alexandra Road restaurant strip. Shrimp wontons in clear broth, beef brisket noodles and slow-cooked congee are the staples. Fast, inexpensive, and a reliable stop when you want something light and hot.
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Jiangsu and Zhejiang cooking on Alexandra Road, a regional style far less common in Richmond than Cantonese. Xiao long bao and sheng jian bao are the signatures, alongside the braised, slightly sweeter dishes of eastern China.
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A tiny Cantonese barbecue counter in the Superstore plaza on No. 3 Road, long regarded as one of the best in the region. Char siu, crackling-skin roast pork and soy chicken are chopped to order over rice. Small space, quick queue, and it sells out early.
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From the blog
Longer reads from the editor, with the places worth a detour linked inside them.
Nothing on Alexandra Road is a secret. It is just in a strip mall with bad signage and no patio, which is why visitors never find it. Here is how I actually use Richmond's plazas and food courts, which specialists are worth the drive, and when not to bother.
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The Night Market's final season is the loud story. The quieter one: free admission at the Cannery ends Monday, Britannia keeps summer hours through Sunday, and Steveston does sunsets better than anyone.
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The West Dyke Trail is about five and a half kilometres of flat gravel between Terra Nova Rural Park and Garry Point, and I ride it most mornings. Here is what is actually at the north end, which way to walk so the wind is on your side, and why winter is the better season for it.
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