We decided to check out at least one restaurant along the Canada Line together before her departure. She has a soft spot for Taiwanese food by way of her mother’s restaurant eating habits, so our short list whittled down to Pearl Castle near Aberdeen Station and Dinesty Chinese Restaurant by Lansdowne Station. Pearl Castle seemed the more Taiwanese of the two, but it being a bubble tea cafe more than proper restaurant, my husband and Eileen compromised on Dinesty, which peppered its primarily Shanghainese offerings with flavours of Taiwan.

Dinesty was an easy 5-minute walk from the mouth of Lansdowne Station. Our first hurdle was encountered before we stepped foot inside: Dinesty accepts only cash. Groan. My husband had us grab a table while he searched around for the nearest cash machine (which was thankfully somewhere inside the square).

The restaurant was busy with lunch-goers even at 2pm. We waited 5 minutes before a table cleared, and proceeded to wait another 20 before a server came to take our order, which involved all three of us flailing our limbs in attention-grabbing gestures. Our next hurdle was the actual ordering, made awkward by the lack of English on our order sheet.

With a barely discernible sigh, our server shelved her impatience with our inability to use this checklist. We communicated our 5 items using the single black menu that our table got, filled with useful image galleries of the most popular items and subtitled with codes like S10 and N01 for those of us who needed the cross reference.

After another 20 minute wait, we received our first dish: xiao long bao, item S01 on the menu with an English description of “steamed pork dumplings”. The bamboo steamer held 9 soupy, porkalicious morsels that were worth the $5.95 we paid and somewhat made up for the neglectful service we had experienced up to this point.

Next came the noodle soup with beef (N01, $6.95), the only Taiwanese item in our eating line-up. The spice level of this dish is up to you. We opted for a mild spice as per my companions’ wishes. Eileen was giddy with delight as she consumed her portion, noting the handmade noodles and the clear, delicate notes of the broth. My husband declared it his favourite of the dishes we tried that day.

I preferred the shrimp and pork shaomai (S10, $7.50) that followed the soup. All of us appreciated the presentation of whole shrimp that topped the mouth of the dumpling as well as the mouthfeel that the separation of shrimp from pork ball imparted. I’m still trying to figure out what the visuals evoke… gift bags? An erupting volcano? A sea polyp?

We were doing well with our pace of consumption until the arrival of the shredded pork with hoi sin sauce and pancakes (E33, $11.75). It was a mountain of pork for our table of three. We probably needed three more helpers – and either 6 more pancakes or a bowl of rice – to polish this baby off. Think of it as a pork rendition of the traditional Peking Duck starter, with the greens, sauce, and meat convieniently tossed together, ready to be rolled into its pancake casing. I ate as much of this as I dared, knowing there was one more dish to come.

I wish that the bean curd mushroom roll (D01, $5.95) had graced our table when the other dim sum items were still around, as it was rather anticlimactic after the soup and the shredded pork. My husband, being the tofu-hater that he is, passed on this completely; Eileen tried one mostly out of politeness than curiosity or hunger; I had two at the table and three to go to prove that the order was not unwarranted. I must admit, however, that this dish was mighty bland in comparison to the four dishes that had preceded it.

All in all, we enjoyed our meal at Dinesty. But let’s make it clear: we enjoyed what we ate, not the service, wait times, ordering process, or cash-only environment. The  items we downed and the dim sum items that we have yet to sample are alluring enough to convince me to return for subsequent visits. But I’m going to agressively downgrade my service expectations and bring a friend that can decipher the ordering sheet before I give this place another try.

Dinesty Chinese Restaurant
8111 Ackroyd Rd | Lansdowne Station, Richmond
(604) 303-7772

Now that this newest Skytrain line has subverted the irritations of driving and bridge congestion, I will be hopping on a Richmond-bound train as often as I can, reporting on Skytrain-friendly eats between now and the wrap-up of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Today’s report: where we ate on Opening Day

Our adventure began at 4  o’clock around Yaletown Station. The Canada Line had been up and running for 3 hours, but the line was still hundreds of people deep. Our wait began near the entrance of Rodney’s Oyster House, moving at a thankfully rapid pace considering the crush of commuters. I grabbed a passionfruit iced lemonade at the Starbucks across from the main entrance while we waited. Others passed the time chatting with neighbours about the traffic found at other stations: Waterfront’s queue was 2-3 hours and the estimate for the airport was similar.

For us, the snaking line took 45 minutes to get through before we witnessed our first train at the platform. We hopped onto one of the two already packed cars and hoped to high heaven that my brother would be able to jump onto the correct car from where he waited at Broadway – City Hall Station.

Thanks in large part to the cellular signal that was meant to be available even underground, we managed to connect with my brother with little difficulty. It petered out between Oakridge – 41st Ave Station and Marine Drive Station, but otherwise was stable throughout the rest of the trip.

This line is the least visually entertaining as a Skytrain tourist, understandably – the commute is mostly underground until Marine Drive Station, just in time to glimpse a bit of the Fraser River as one approaches Bridgeport Station on the other end. I comforted myself with the fact that this line opens more doors to shopping than the others do: 5 malls and 3 shopping districts connected to 8 stations. Food-wise, I cannot wait to explore the lunchtime cafes around Broadway – City Hall Station, the Asian delights around the Golden Village off of Aberdeen Station, and the seafood of Steveston Village, which will be connected via Richmond – Brighouse Station by September 7th. I will, however, have to remember to downplay the proximity of Bridgeport Station to River Rock Casino from my Vegas-loving husband.

Since the line-up at the airport was hours long, we decided to stop instead at Aberdeen Station and reacquaint ourselves with the food of the mall of the same name. Our threesome indulged in savoury buns from Saint Germain Bakery and a New York cheesecake Qoolala from Qoola’s second location before touring the food court at the topmost level.

You may scoff at the idea of being interested in food court stalls…but my dear readers, the food to be had in a Golden Village mall is nothing like the McDonald’s and the Burger Kings of your typical food court. We didn’t have time to linger despite our curiosity about the chicken wings at Wo Fung Dessert and my brother’s googly eyes at Beard Papa’s. I had a prenatal class to return to in the city while my brother wandered off to try a nearby Taiwanese restaurant (his girlfriend claims that Richmond houses the best Taiwanese food to be found in Greater Vancouver). But don’t fret. I’ll be back very soon to give you a much better report of the eats around Aberdeen Station. I hear there’s a great restaurant close by called Shanghai Wonderful whose soup dumplings are not to be missed.

Join us in dining across the Canada Line

As we jump aboard this newest of Skytrain lines leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, we’ll report the good food and sightseeing to be found in our journeys. Reporting style will be a little different for this series: we’ll add new content to existing posts, so that one can bookmark the article about, say, Richmond – Brighouse and have all the recommended eateries laid out for you in one spot.

Expect the next such article in a few weeks, which will give you a much better idea of Aberdeen Station and the eats that surround.

Want to come along for the ride? Have Canada Line food stops to recommend? Comment here or contact us and we’ll try to organize a field trip!

We left the eternal Christmas of the Philippines for the glitz of Macau in mid-January, expecting relief from the crowds that large holidays beget.  Not so.  The cultural duality of Macau meant that large Chinese New Year floats were already set up in San Malo Plaza. Portuguese edifices were laden with red lanterns and strings of lights.  Media and tourist alike vied for the best ops in front of each New Year’s structure.

Coincidentally, we had chosen Long Kei, one of the few Cantonese restaurants in the city, for our lunch spot.  From our table on the ground floor, we chewed on some of the most light-handed Cantonese cooking we had ever ingested while watching group after group tromp to the upper floor for what I guess to be dim sum (quite comical really; it was like a circus clown car in restaurant form).

Fish maw and egg drop soup

Braised seasonal vegetables in oyster sauce

Steamed pork spare ribs in apricot sauce

Typical multi-lingual format of restaurant menus in Macau

4 subsequent days in Hong Kong meant more Chinese New Year sights, sounds, and culinary delights.  Disneyland Hong Kong happened to launch its New Year’s makeover on the day we decided to visit.  It was a treat to see childhood Disney favourites wrapped in Asian apparel and to pick up Disney souvenirs that were decidedly one of a kind.

Mickey mouse fruit

Love against the castle

Happiness display

No trip to Hong Kong is complete without a banquet, so we corralled as many friends as we could muster on short notice to join us for an extravagant set dinner at Peking Garden Restaurant.  We savoured Peking Duck (my favourite and the specialty of the house), an assortment of delicate meats, vegetables, and seafood, and a cool demo of handmade noodle-making in a spacious, sumptuous dining room.

Sliced whitefish with olives, vegetables, and scallion oil

Peking duck!

Noodle-making demo

Since we had so much fun enjoying the imminence of Chinese New Year in Asia, it seemed only fair to join in on local festivities upon our return.  New Year’s Eve was spent in Aberdeen Centre in an atmosphere that reminded us all too fondly of Langham Place in Mong Kok.

The meal that we had at Northern Delicacy did not remotely compare to the food we enjoyed in Macau and Hong Kong.  The handmade noodles were bland; the honeymoon fried rice compensated for its lack of complexity with a coronary’s worth of grease.  Our favourite dish, the spicy wontons, was glaringly absent.

The one point of redemption was the steamed pork dumplings (known to me better as “soup dumplings”).  Lesson learned: we’ll revert to our routine of having dim sum at Northern Delicacy and finding someplace else to satisfy our dinner cravings.

Northern Delicacy
4151 Hazelbridge Way | Aberdeen Centre, Richmond
(604) 233-7050

In our attempt to last till the clock struck midnight, we wandered the halls of Aberdeen Centre amongst a most jovial crowd.  Perhaps we were too jetlagged or lazy or old, but we faded well before 11pm, with just enough energy to buy a coconut bun from Saint Germain Bakery and take in a Cantonese skit at the mainstage.

Nevertheless, we arrived home full and happy, our sadness at having left Hong Kong momentarily abated, with high hopes for what fortune the Year of the Ox will bring.