Restaurants
Shanghainese kitchen on Ackroyd Road that has been feeding Richmond since 2007. Xiao long bao, drunken chicken, braised pork belly and Shanghai-style cold dishes, served in a calmer sit-down setting than the mall restaurants nearby.
Soup dumplings reward speed. Order them first, eat them the moment they land, and the ten minutes they would otherwise spend waiting for the rest of the table never happens. That is the whole difference between a good xiao long bao and a sad one, and it is a fair reason to build a meal at Suhang around them. The rest of the menu runs to drunken chicken, braised pork belly and the cold dishes that traditionally open a Shanghai table.
Cold dishes are the part worth not skipping. Diners unfamiliar with Shanghainese cooking tend to bypass them entirely, and they are usually where a kitchen shows its hand. They also set the pace of the meal, which matters in a room built for sitting rather than for turning tables over.
That last point is not a small one. A great deal of Richmond's Chinese food happens inside Aberdeen, Yaohan, Parker Place and the plazas along Alexandra Road, where the rooms are bright, loud and designed for volume. Ackroyd Road runs east to west just north of Westminster Highway, a quieter street of offices and low-rise buildings within a short walk of Brighouse and Lansdowne. You can hear the person across the table. Anyone who has taken a visiting relative to a Golden Village restaurant and watched them wilt at the noise will understand why that counts for something.
Shanghainese kitchens have a smaller footprint in this city than Cantonese or Sichuan ones do, and the handful doing the cooking properly are worth knowing by name. This is one of them, on a street most people drive along without ever looking sideways.
In the City Centre neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other restaurants and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
Steakhouse on Ackroyd Road working with Prime, wagyu and in-house dry-aged cuts, paired with sake and cocktails as well as wine. A quieter, higher-end alternative to the chain steakhouses along the No. 3 Road corridor.
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A Korean noodle and dumpling shop on Westminster Highway that makes its own mandu and sells them frozen by the bag. Bibimbap, japchae and kimchi stew round out a short menu. Small, cheap and fast, with a steady weekday lunch crowd.
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A Hong Kong-style noodle shop in the strip mall across from Richmond Public Market. Wonton soup, beef brisket noodles and congee arrive fast and cost little. Plain room, quick turnover, and a long-standing local pick for a solo lunch.
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Japanese restaurant at Lansdowne doing sushi rolls, sashimi and cooked plates in a comfortable dining room. A useful sit-down option in a stretch of Richmond dominated by Chinese restaurants, and it stays open through the afternoon.
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Chiu Chow and Cantonese specialist on Westminster Highway, walkable from the Canada Line. Dim sum at lunch plus Chiu Chow classics such as cold marinated goose and oyster omelette that are genuinely hard to find elsewhere in Richmond.
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Long-running Cantonese banquet restaurant on the second floor of London Plaza. Big round tables, live seafood tanks and a dim sum service that starts early. Richmond families book it for weddings and birthdays as often as for a regular lunch.
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