Vancouver’s Chinatown restaurants: Your must-try tasting guide

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Who, having witnessed Chinatown’s glory days, wouldn’t feel wistful watching it fade?

For Carol Lee, whose Chinese heritage is three generations deep in Vancouver, it’s akin to losing pieces of herself and why she’s a fierce advocate of preserving some of it.

Lee, chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, also understands that it’s an important and incredibly unique part of Vancouver and B.C. history. And food, as ever, is a doorway into that story. It’s why she founded the hugely successful Chinatown BBQ with its cool retro vibe and delicious Chinese barbecue and why she’s bringing back another Chinatown institution, Foo’s Ho Ho restaurant, later this year.

Over Lunar New Year weekend last month, the foundation and the Chinatown Business Improvement Area tossed out tasty lures to the ‘hood, reeling in curious appetites with a guide to must-try takeout snacks, specially sized for under $5 for the event.

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“COVID really changed things. There are no tourists and generally fewer visitors and we were looking for a way promoting some of the restaurants,” says Lee, daughter of the late Robert H. Lee, a philanthropist and founder of the Prospero real estate firm.

She patronizes Chinatown restaurants herself. “Chinese food is very complicated to make, so I gave up. It’s so much better and cheaper to let them do it.”

Moreover, Chinatown still holds new discoveries for her. “I’ve been working down here for 15 years and I hadn’t explored dry goods places like Continental Herbal. Their walnuts, honestly, are a quarter the price they’d be anywhere else. They sell 20 kinds of ginger and wild rice, but they don’t know how to market themselves and right now with people staying home, how are they going to sell?”

The following are some of the must-try foods Lee and her Chinatown scouts came up with for that Lunar New Year snack tour. Most of the dishes are still available in regular-sized portions for dine in or take out, and these places are worthy of a trying out, period. If you’re driving, Easy Park at the Chinatown Plaza Parkade is charging $1.95 for the first hour, $6.95 for two hours and the third hour is free, a special rate until summer.

Bao Bei, 163 Keefer: Stir fried sticky rice cakes. This is from the cool school of Chinese restaurants and the must-try dish is a riff on owner Tannis Ling’s mother’s rice cakes. It’s wok-tossed with shredded pork, preserved bamboo shoots, wood ear mushrooms and preserved mustard greens.

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Boss Bakery, 532 Main: Apple tarts. “They cost about $1.20 and they’re amazing,” Lee says. “My mom and dad used to love them and people in our office would bring them in. You can take them home and heat them up.”

Chinatown BBQ, 130 East Pender: Char siu on rice. This is Lee’s own restaurant with cooks and staff from a well-known Chinese barbecue restaurant, previously destroyed in a fire. Really, really good barbecued meats here.

DD Mau, 145 East Pender: Banh mi. The first DD Mau opened in Yaletown as a banh mi shop, so they know their way around these Vietnamese sandwiches. Try the lemongrass chicken or saté beef or BBQ pork banh mi. If dining in, you’ll enjoy an intense evocation of Vietnam.

Fat Mao Noodles, 217 East Georgia: Thai Boat Noodle Soup. I’m cheating here. The Lunar New Year snack-around item was made just for the event, so instead ask for this off-menu. It’s made with braised beef shin and pork crackling and its chef/owner Angus An’s favourite. This dish was originally hawked off boats in Thailand.

Floata Seafood Restaurant, Chinatown Plaza,180 Keefer: Shrimp and chive dumplings. The 1,000-seat, banquet-oriented restaurant catered to a who’s who crowd including the prime minister’s entourage during the 2019 Chinese New Year celebrations. The dumplings are but one item to order from the dim sum menu.

Gain Wah, 218 Keefer: Hong Kong-style soft noodle chow mein. It’s been steady on its feet for more than 30 years and prices haven’t changed much. Roberto Luongo and Elvis posters hang incongruously on the wall.

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Jade Dynasty, 137 East Pender: BBQ pork and shrimp fried rice. Lee: “An old-time restaurant and one of the few places serving authentic Chinese food. The reviews are quite good.”

Kam Wai Dim Sum, 249 East Pender: Frozen takeout sticky rice. Lee: “You can pick up something from the steamer or buy it frozen. It’s where my family buys sticky rice.”

Kent’s Kitchen, 232 Keefer: Sweet and sour pork on rice. Lee: “My mother, to this day, does takeout from here. The takeout food’s in stainless-steel trays and they’re busy all the time.”

Maxim’s Bakery and Restaurant, 257 Keefer: Pineapple buns. The buns take the shape of a pineapple but no pineapples were harmed in their making. This is one of several Maxim’s around Metro Vancouver.

Ming Fong Fast Food, Chinatown Plaza, 180 Keefer: Singapore-style noodles. Lee: “It’s so cute. There are only two food stalls left at the Chinatown Plaza and they make amazing noodles.”

New Town Bakery and Restaurant, 148 East Pender: BBQ pork buns. I love having lunch here, soaking in some of that old-timey Chinatown. A New York Times restaurant critic once told me he was taking New Town’s apple tarts back to New York. They’re good, too!

Phnom Penh, 244 East Georgia: Salad rolls. Comes with beef, pork or shrimp but you know what? If you’re dining in, you can’t go wrong with anything on the Cambodian/Vietnamese menu. The world has beaten a path to this place.

Red Beef Vancouver, 550 Main: Bubble tea. One of three Red Beef noodle shops in Metro Vancouver, better known for the Taiwanese beef noodle soups, but they do some mean bubble tea and slush drinks, too, should you need hydrating.

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Sai Woo, 158 East Pender: Dine Out Vancouver menu. Take advantage of the $30 DOV three-course menu before the event ends on March 7.

Sun Fresh Bakery, 245 Keefer: Vegetable buns. Time stands still here, especially in terms of prices. Steamed and baked buns as well as dim sum items are available here.

The Chinese Tea Shop, 101 East Pender: Traditional Chinese teas. Lee: “The tea master is very knowledgeable and if you’re interested in a tea tasting, this is one of the places to do it. There’s an amazing collection of teas.”

The Ramen Butcher, 223 East Georgia: Ramen. This is part of a Japanese chain. Made-in-house noodles and kae-dama style servings. The thin noodles don’t like to sit in the broth too long so instead of serving it in one heap, they’ll give you seconds.

Treasure Green Tea Company, 227 East Georgia: Superior Roast Iron Buddha oolong tea. Upscale shop selling high-altitude Wuyi tea and lovely, affordable teaware. “This has been here since 1978 and I’m embarrassed I hadn’t been. It’s beautiful and the woman (tea master and owner Olivia Chan) is so interesting,” says Lee.

Zhao Mah Bakery, 280 Pender: Crunchy sesame balls. Lee: “A real hole in the wall. It’s very old school, adorable and very affordable.” They sell buns and breads and cookies.

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SIDE DISHES

Reading material

We know chef Alex Chen, of Boulevard Kitchen and Oyster Bar, is a star chef here in Vancouver, and it’s great to know he’s orbiting around the world. He is featured in the recent release of Today’s Special (Phaidon, $79.95) where 20 of the world’s leading chefs pick 100 standout emerging international chefs.

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“Although his achievements are countless, Alex Chen is not a flashy chef,” his profile reads. “Precision is the first quality that comes to mind when assessing Chen’s cooking, built on an old-school French foundation but with zero pomp. Instead, he melds wild and fresh West Coast sensibilities with an atlas full of flavours to make an elegant declaration all his own.” So true. I’ve seen his immaculate workmanship combined with impressive artistry, flavour control and his deep knowledge of ingredients. His recipes in the book are for duck fat poached halibut and a terrine of hamachi, foie gras, and local side stripe prawns. Well done, chef!

Also from Phaidon, another book by that comet in the sky, Ferran Adria, who captivated culinarians around the world at his el Bulli restaurant in Spain, which closed 10 years ago. The book costs $200, but still that’s nowhere near as costly as a meal at el Bulli was and at 592 pages long, it could be a way to spend pandemic hours. It’s the first book in a series of volumes on the history of fine dining covering cooking during the Palaeolithic age, the great leap after the discovery of fire, the hunter-gatherer stage where animal breeding and plant cultivation began and lastly, the invention of pottery and tools. “We cannot understand our contemporary experience if we don’t look at when, how, and where it all started,” he writes. He’s also written A Day at el Bulli, Coffee Sapiens and What is Cooking.

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