Great food, excellent service keeps award-winning restaurant at the top of the pack
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Jade Seafood Restaurant chef Tony Luk shows off three of his famous dishes. From left: Grandpa’s Smoked Chicken, Mushroom dumplings and Clay Pot Chicken. Photograph by: Ian Smith, PNG, Vancouver Sun
AT A GLANCE
Jade Seafood Restaurant
Where: 8511 Alexandra Road. Richmond,
604-249-0082
www.jaderestaurant.ca.
Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, daily.
Overall: 4
Food: 4
It’s double happiness for me. First, the start of the Chinese Restaurant Awards two years ago became my compass for bushwhacking through the forest of Chinese restaurants in Metro Vancouver.
That’s especially so in Richmond with the highest number of restaurants per capita in the universe. I have no stats to back me but all you need to do is look. There’s nothing but restaurants, block after block after block. They are so well-loved by the populace that you use more fuel circling parking lots than in getting there.
The second source of my delight is the Canada Line, which shrinks my carbon footprint guilt and my time spent in getting to Richmond, although I confess, I sped to Jade Seafood Restaurant in my gas-fed steed.
The restaurant won awards at this year’s Chinese Restaurant Awards for two of their dishes: a gold for the Mushroom Dumplings and a silver for Grandpa’s Smoked Chicken. Last year, it won an award for its Claypot chicken.
It was a good tip. I couldn’t try the Mushroom Dumplings because it’s a dim sum dish (I went in the evening) but I did try Grandpa’s Smoked Chicken. I don’t know who Grandpa is, but his chicken is sure delicious.
The chicken is smoked with stir-fried rice and tea leaves in a wok, then served cold with a ginger green onion sauce; it was so juicy, masterfully balanced and delicately flavoured.
Hot Sour Soup was good but nothing out of the ordinary. Crispy Golden Shrimps, were large prawns which appeared to be deep-fried with a tempura-like batter. But no, the batter is just egg yolk. Large fresh prawns lie in wait inside the crispy coating.
I wondered if the Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Scrambled Eggs would feature the perfect scrambled eggs I’ve had in good Chinese restaurants. I wasn’t disappointed. My omelettes where I beat the egg whites for extra poof aren’t as good as these slightly jiggly, poofy eggs.
The also-noted Claypot Chicken is first marinated, then baked until the skin is crispy before cooked further in the claypot with herbs, green onions and a sauce.
The dishes averaged about $15 and what I tried is but a tiny fraction of the menu. Owner David Chung, a Richmond developer (Dava Developments) loves food and considers the restaurant his hobby.
“Some people spend money on their hobbies. I don’t make much money but I enjoy it like a hobby and spending time here,” he says.
The head chef, Tony Luk, who previously cooked at Grand Honour restaurant, likes to invent dishes, like his lobster or crab with foie gras sauce. “You take off the cover and it smells like foie gras,” Chung says.
“And our dim sum chef is one of the best,” Chung says. “He apprenticed in one of the best places to eat in China.” The various dumplings, he says, all have different wrappers. “Every one has a different recipe, no matter how small the difference.”
There are three levels of set menus, he says. The “family dinner” is $45 for a party of four but they must be finished by 7:30. The next level is called Corner Store Cafe and costs about $25-35 per person. The customized dinner is upwards of $40 per person and gets the most creative work from the kitchen.
Chinese restaurants aren’t always noted for service, which is often perfunctory and quick and efficient.
Here, they go the extra distance, with greetings and welcomes and friendliness even when the place is going nuts with a dinner rush. Servers are suited and dressed to impress.
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