Restaurants
Taiwanese street-snack restaurant on Leslie Road from the same family as Memory Corner, done up in retro Taiwan decor. Expect braised pork rice, oyster omelette, popcorn chicken and shaved ice alongside milk tea and other drinks.
Come in the gap between lunch and dinner, when you are hungry but not committing to a meal. Taiwanese snack food is built for exactly that hour: small plates, sweet things and a long drinks list, ordered a few at a time and shared across the table. Two or three people works better than one, because the point is breadth rather than a plate each.
Leslie Road sits in West Cambie, one block off the Alexandra Road restaurant strip and inside the densest cluster of eating options anywhere in the city. That density is the context you need. Within a few minutes on foot there are dozens of kitchens, most of them small, many of them regional in a way that rewards knowing what you want before you sit down. Eating on Leslie rather than on Alexandra also means slightly less circling for a spot on the street, which on a Friday night is not nothing.
West Cambie runs later than visitors expect. The blocks around Alexandra, Leslie and Hazelbridge stay awake well past the point where most of Metro Vancouver has gone quiet, and the crowd shifts as the evening goes on, from families early to students and shift workers much later. Anyone used to suburbs that close at nine will find the rhythm unfamiliar. It is one of the few parts of the region where a late craving has real options inside a five minute walk.
In the West Cambie neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other restaurants and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
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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Upscale Cantonese seafood house inside Empire Centre on No. 3 Road. Known for elaborate, modern-looking dim sum, live tank seafood and Peking duck. One of the standard Richmond picks for banquets and big weekend family lunches.
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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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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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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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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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