Street food is a big thing in British Columbia. It’s one of its claims to fame. Writers Yvette Cardozo and Bill Hirsch though, found there’s a lot more to the foodie scene, discovering where to eat in Richmond, British Columbia. Yvette also scored a great recipe for RealFoodTraveler.com readers to try.

Jet comes in for landing at Vancouver International Airport, passing over the Richmond Night Market. Richmond, BC, Ca.

RICHMOND FOOD + MORE

If you’ve been to British Columbia, Canada, you probably know about the town just south of Vancouver and its Asian food scene. We’re talking about Richmond, with 200-plus Asian restaurants, cafes, mall shops and whatnot along a single three block stretch of Alexandra Road.

The Chinese, Japanese, Malay, and Korean cuisine is so authentic that the joke is folks come here FROM Asia to get good food.

Well, there IS more to Richmond than just what locals call “Food Street.”

There’s of course the Vancouver International Airport and the airport hotel’s gourmet restaurant. Another hotel in town boasts a view of the weekend Night Market with its enthusiastic chef who, when he’s not creating edible art, runs a mini cooking school for budding young chefs on his staff.

Richmond is also home to the Olympic Oval with its Olympic museum and a lineup of interactive wanna-be-Olympic-athlete rides in addition to one couple’s nook in an industrial warehouse where they bring science (and ultimate deliciousness) to chocolate.

Richmond, BC’s Night Market, which runs through October 8. Photo by Albert Normandin.

Add Steveston, with perhaps Canada’s most expensive pizza (how does $850 sound to you), a killer museum showcasing early immigrant/worker life and, of course, the waterfront, and you understand that yes, there’s more to the town than just “Food Street.”

Richmond is 74 percent Asian descent, mostly from China’s Hong Kong and Taiwan. Their immigration dates back to 1997 when the Handover/Return marked the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from the United Kingdom to China. Citizens who disagreed with the transfer made their way to Canada to resume their status as members of the British Commonwealth.

Today, locals call it a trip to Asia without the jet lag.

Let’s dive a bit more in to the food scene.

Rather than concentrating on “Food Street” as so many people do, we went farther out, revisiting one of our favorite unsung spots and sampling a couple of places from the area’s “Dumpling Trail,” diving into Korean shave ice, before exploring the weekend night market.

Our first stop… HK BBQ Master. To visit, you duck into the covered parking garage beneath Richmond’s Superstore (Canada’s answer to Costco). The expected roast ducks, chickens, and ribs hang in the window. If you are serious about coming, you MUST be here before the place opens at 11am. We arrived at 11:10 and already, there were no seats. Good news — the place is planning an expansion, adding at least a handful more tables.

The best BBQ in British Columbia, Canada … in Richmond, BC., HK BBQ Master in the capable hands of Anson Leung. Located under the local Superstore.

What’s good here? BBQ pork is everyone’s favorite, followed closely by their version of cracklings and soya chicken.

That chicken is a story by itself. They make their own soy sauce using a chicken broth base… with sugar, salt, sesame oil, rock sugar, and 10 “mystery” spices. It comes warm to the table.

“For the chicken, we get the soy sauce boiling, then turn off the heat and push the chicken down, add spices, a bit of white wine and let it sit maybe 50 minutes,” said Anson Leung, the owner’s son who often runs the place.

“How and when to put in the chicken makes all the difference in how it comes out.”

The result is fork tender, a touch sweet though a bit salty, and downright delicious.

At Samsoonie Noodle & Rice, we devoured art in the form of Korean food.

The different types of kimchi came as an assortment arranged on a wood palette. It is salted, fermented veggies: pungent, sharp, and highly seasoned to perfection.  Nevertheless, the table fav was pork belly in a graceful circle of slices on a granite palette. Pork belly, with its melt-in-your-mouth meat topped by a crispy rind, is one of those things that plays to the most basic of human cravings: fat and salt. Like potato chips, you can NOT stop at one.

Korean food as art, arranged with beautiful flair at Samsoonie, Korean restaurant in Richmond, BC, Canada. Here are a variety of kimchee dishes, fermented vegetables.

Samsoonie is also part of Richmond’s Dumpling Trail, the 20 restaurants on a “trail” that traverse the city. The trail pamphlet says it best: “The crispy, chewy, pot-sticking, pan fried, deep fried, stuffed with soup, stuffed with meats kind of dumplings. And on this trail, no hiking is required — just an empty stomach.”

We finished our mini tour at Snowy Village Café, another of those easy to miss storefronts in an easy to miss strip mall. Their specialty is bingsoo, Korean shaved ice.

Mango shave ice also called bingsoo at Korean shaved ice shop in Richmond, BC, Canada. Sweet condensed milk is added to shaved ice and topped with fruit and whipped cream.

The ice is shaved so fine, it’s weightless fluff, to which is added sweetened condensed milk and fruit. And in our case, LOTS of mango. So much mango, so much icy spun silk, so much creamy sweetness that it took four of us (one of whom is 6-foot-5) to finish it.

But Richmond isn’t all Asian food.

Steveston, where, incidentally, the TV series Once Upon a Time and The Crossing have filmed, is home to the boats returning with their fresh catches.

Fresh side stripe prawns for sale at Fisherman’s Wharf in Steveston, BC, Canada.

On weekends especially, you can wander the dock and select fish that were alive just a few hours earlier. Dungeness crab, urchin, prawns, black cod, lingcod, salmon, and tuna. The list goes on and on. And yes, you can bring it back into the U.S.

“There’s two things you absolutely have to get in Steveston,” a local friend told us.

Fish and chips, and ice cream. On a hot day, don’t miss Screamers Soft Serve’s root beer float.

Fresh bread to take home, made by Nick Cohen at his Romanian Bakery, is also a must have. Yes, the signature loaves are $30. But, there’s a smaller version, just as tasty, for $10.

Fresh bread made by Nick Cohen at his Romanian Bakery. Yes, the signature loaves are $30. But, there’s a smaller version.

Oh, and let’s not forget Canada’s most expensive pizza, courtesy of Steveston Pizza Company. Yep, for just $850 it comes with, as the menu points out, a “medley of tiger prawns, lobster ratatouille, smoked steelhead, Russian Osetra caviar, snowed with Italian white truffles.”

Okay, who does that?

Well, apparently that one Seattle family that popped for the $52 version, laden with shrimp, crab legs, tiger prawns and smoked salmon does that. They were happily smacking their lips as we watched.

$52 pizza made by Steveston Pizza Company, The “Mermaid” pizza, topped with shrimp, crab legs, tiger prawns and smoked salmon.

The main surprise of the trip were the two gourmet restaurants in hotels, one actually in the Vancouver International Airport and the other not far away.

Chef Robert Uy runs The Apron restaurant in the Westin Wall Centre, practically walking distance from the airport and overlooking the weekend night market. The restaurant is ground floor, unassuming, and decidedly breakfast nook in feel.

That is, until dinner arrives.

We loved the blow torched tuna Aburi appetizer but our taste buds nearly proposed to the Haida Gwaii halibut. The fish came seated gently in a coconut green curry broth, dusted with tamarind and lime powder. The combination of tangy citrus with a hint of coconut and just enough curry complemented rather than overpowered what is a delicate fish. Our mouths are watering as we write this.

Haida Gwaii halibut dusted with lime and tamarind in coconut green curry broth.

Uy’s real joy is creating new chefs. He told us about a 19-year-old who was so eager to learn, he went from raw to accomplished cook in two weeks. Uy loves nothing more than running what amounts to a small-scale chef school for those eager to learn.

Then, there was Globe@YVR, the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel’s gourmet restaurant. There is a very special package for those with a comfortable travel budget ($1,099 Cdn for two) that includes a Signature room, private tour of nearby Steveston, and cooking clinic by Executive Chef Colin Burslem.

Executive Chef Colin Burslem cooks breaded halibut cheeks at Globe@YVR restaurant in the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel in Richmond, BC, Canada.

We learned how to cook the perfect crispy, fried halibut cheeks. Yes, they were melt in your mouth delish, served with homemade tartar sauce and a tangy rouille.

We also learned about how many things a chef can do with a single fish.

“We use it all,” Burslem said.

The skin becomes chicharron (fried into chips), the filets become dinner, the cheeks become their own special thing, the rest of the meat becomes ceviche, and the bones go into stock for broth.

Forgot to ask about the eyeballs. They surely go into… something.

We drove home the next day with leftovers. LOTS AND LOTS of leftovers.

We were still nibbling on BBQ and chocolates days later.

If only we could have preserved the shaved ice.   — Article and photos, unless otherwise noted, by Yvette Cardozo & Bill Hirsch

For more information on Richmond, British Columbia, visit their website, here.

Take a look at Yvette’s photo diary of her trip, here. 

TUNA POKE, recipe courtesy Executive Chef Colin Burslem, Globe@YVR restaurant in the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel

INGREDIENTS

340g raw sashimi-grade tuna, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 scallion, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon white or black sesame seeds, or a mix toasted

4 teaspoons soy sauce, more or less to taste

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil, more or less to taste

1 teaspoon honey, more or less to taste

1 Thai red chili finely chopped

DIRECTIONS

In a medium bowl place tuna, scallion, sesame seeds, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, and Thai chili to bowl. Season with a small pinch of kosher salt and gently fold to combine. Taste and adjust with more soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, or crushed red pepper as desired. Let sit 5 minutes at room temperature, then serve on its own or on top of steamed rice.

BONUS INFO: 

Richmond is south of Vancouver in lower mainland British Columbia. It’s a half hour by car or the Canada Line Skytrain from downtown.

Beyond the wealth of Asian eating there are:

* Steveston with not only the whole fish-laden dock scene but also Britannia Shipyards National Historic Site … eight acres of buildings dating back to 1885 and stories of early life. How you lived and worked depended on where you came from. Europeans were managers and lived in relative comfort. First Nations (Indian) women lived with their children in longhouses, families separated by blankets. Chinese men lived sometimes 100 crammed into a building hardly 100 feet long and 50 feet wide while earning maybe half what the Europeans made. You can wander all these buildings, furnished much as they were back then.

* The Richmond Night Market, running Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holiday Mondays. It’s the largest night market in North America. With 400 booths, half food, half trinkets ranging from Lego kittens and kitschy socks to psychic readings. Heavy on Asian food, there’s just about anything you might want from seared pork belly and Rotato (chips on a stick) to shrimp stuffed crab claws to the ubiquitous spun dragon beard’s candy (think Chinese cotton candy) to cinnamon laced French fries. A tip: Sunday and holiday Mondays have lighter crowds. This year it runs May 11 to Oct. 8, starting 7pm.

* The Richmond Olympic Oval. Yes, someone actually repurposed an Olympic site and it’s thriving. This place is part gym, complete with climbing wall and beachfront with well-muscled guys doing burpees, and part museum. The newly opened Olympic Experience is an interactive museum featuring, among other things, all the medals and torches, including the first torch from 1936. But most fun is the interactive “sport simulators.” Try the ski jump, the kayak and the race car while screens bring you down the racecourse. The bobsled lets you control your turns and gives you your run time. And the race car has you try to balance between speed and survival.

* Wild Sweets –  Unexpectedly located in a warehouse complex, this place is for the chocoholic in you. For $45 Cdn in the Meet the Makers session, you get owner Dominique Duby’s expansive history of chocolate and a step by step tour of how he goes from beans through roasting (an intensively delicate process), refining, something called conching (to mix sugar into the chocolate “liquor”), aging, packaging and so much more (14 steps in all). Duby explains that many chocolatiers don’t hassle with the “finding and processing the beans” part), but he and his wife do.

And through all this, you slurp (tea made from coco plant husks that smells of chocolate but tastes more like green tea), hot chocolate and more chocolate nibbles than any sane person can swallow in a sitting. Among the more fascinating parts … pairing specific chocolate with not only wine (more difficult than you think since both red wine and chocolate are heavy in tannin) but, yes, beer. The “wine” chocolate is sharp and heady, the beer chocolate is so mild, it almost comes off as plastic. And yet, both work. Oh, and don’t miss his chocolate as art murals. They really ARE art.

Duby also explains that he and his wife Cindy have partnered with a chemist at University of British Columbia to research the scientific side of chocolate.

Hungry for more? Read Yvette’s article about Tucson, Arizona and parts south.