Restaurants
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.
Sometimes the table cannot agree, and that is a real category of dining decision in this part of Richmond. The No. 3 Road corridor is dominated by Chinese restaurants, which is a compliment and a fact, and there are evenings when somebody wants tempura instead. Toku is a Japanese kitchen inside Lansdowne Centre, which puts it exactly where that argument tends to break out.
Lansdowne is the older and lower-key of the two big malls on this corridor, and the difference from Aberdeen on a Saturday registers the moment you walk in. Crowds are thinner. The tenant mix leans practical rather than destination. Eating in a mall carries an obvious cost in atmosphere, and the compensation is that the meal folds into a trip you were making anyway rather than becoming its own expedition.
Getting here without a car is straightforward, since Lansdowne station sits on the Canada Line directly beside the complex. That is worth more in this city than it sounds. Richmond's restaurant density is concentrated in a handful of blocks that are awkward to reach and worse to leave, and a mall on a train line removes most of that friction in one move. Mid-afternoon in the Golden Village is also a genuine dead zone for eating, because plenty of kitchens close between lunch and dinner service, and anybody who has finished shopping at an odd hour has done the circuit of locked doors. A mall address at least gives you somewhere to wait it out.
In the City Centre neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other restaurants and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
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.
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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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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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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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