Today is our big shopping day, which meant a work day for Baba. We had several malls to hit, with several meals to break up the shops. Starting off with a 10:30 visit to Deluxe for "fancy" dim sum.
L is READY for dim sum.
Baba...less so. Needs more coffee?
Here we go! Shrimp dumplings. These were very very good. We decided we will get shrimp dumplings at every dim sum stop to compare. These tastes a lot fresher and more complex than any shrimp dumpling I've had in recent memory. Honestly the others taste like they're reheated compared to these. I give it 4.25 stars.
Mochi red bean...I wasn't a big fan though the twins liked them. They tasted as you would expect, through the green leaf did provide a hint of green tea freshness that elevated it a bit. I'll average us out to 3.5.
Mushroom, truffle, and some type of greens dumplings. This was my attempt to go non traditional dim sum to see how it went. Consensus: not well. Wouldn't recommend unless you are a huge truffle fan. 2 stars.
Squash red bean pancakes. I think we all thought these were good...crispy outer shell, not too greasy, filling plentiful but not too sweet -- we were just too full by the end so it was hard to eat these (they are DENSE!). Trying to give it a fair shake and pretending we got them when we were freshly hungry, I think it deserved a 4.
I think I missed the siu mai - again, like the shrimp dumplings, just tasted a lot more freshly prepared compared to standard dim sum we are used to. I am not a big siu mai person but I think I'd have to give it at least a 3.75.
Here's the snow buns - cha siu bao filling. The filling was much lighter and less cloyingly sweet like what I'm used to finding. I'd give these a 3.75 as well. But I should say a connoisseur of siu mais and cha siu baos would probably give both of these a 4.
After this first dim sum breakfast we went off to Aberdeen, the "Asian mall" in the area. Literally every store inside seemed to be an Asian brand. Such that we didn't really recognize any of them. 😆 But still bought various items at a Daiso-like place (including an avocado storer, I was intrigued!) and some blind boxes and notebooks at Art Box. We proceeded to walk over to Parker Place for some classic stall/shop type browsing (you have to assume the vendors all get their stuff from Shein and Temu?) and some boba tea. It took me awhile to pay for the boba tea...cash only...or wechat pay/alipay. I spent probably 10 min trying to get my alipay to work...never succeeded so ended up giving them some USD. Apparently cash needed in various places in Richmond! R was somewhat unnervingly excited about her blind boxes. I do not really get this trend...but her happiness was truly unparalleled so I guess I'll just go with it?
By now it was mid afternoon, so obviously time for another dim sum break. This time we went more low brow/classic, to Chef Tony. The cha siu bao was more similar to home in terms of flavors...but I must admit still tasted more fresh. 3.5 or even 4. This preserved duck egg and pork congee though, man, it was DELICIOUS. The flavor of the congee was SO good. The duck egg was actually flavorful. I might have to give this our first 5 star rating. The twins were close to licking bowls at the end.
We also got a vinegar cucumber. Nothing to write home about but I felt like we needed some vegetables. 😆 3 stars probably.
This was my other highlight -- salty egg yolk soft shell crabs. I love salty egg yolk. The rest of the family...not so much. So I'd give this 4.5 but they'd only give like a 3...I can't bring myself to average and draw down the score of what was (to me) absolutely scrumptious, so I'll leave the two scores separate.
I think I missed the xiao long bao here...I didn't even eat one (everyone else took 2 each of the order of 6) so wont score it. Our big XLB day is tomorrow! Instead I'll close out with their liu sha bao (runny egg bun), painted with gold! 😆 Reminded me of the abu dhabi butter flecked with gold. The filling was not as sugary sweet as variations we've had in the past and the filling was runny even after we let it sit there for a good 30 min or so. I would say a strong 4.25 here. I thought we wouldn't be able to finish them but even Baba went back for a second half.
Baba went back to the hotel after this (btw, the hotel was really amazingly centrally located for all of this eating and shopping -- I thought we would take Ubers at some point but everything was max 25 min walk and they were often shady straight line walks so not unpleasant at all) while we headed towards Richmond Centre, a more "classic" mall with a Sephora, Uniqlo, Muji, Claire's, Pop Mart etc. We bought some clothes, some chocolate (Dubai flavored at Laderach, the free samples man, they get you), and some more blind boxes. Again, I cannot quite understand or capture the level of excitement and happiness that resulted from these purchases. Suffice it to say they were extremely pleased with their birthday present/money purchases.
L also picked up the pink wallet style phone case in the photo below. It's like so Boomer that it's Gen Alpha again perhaps? Because I was proud of them carrying all their stuff for what was now edging on 6 hours of walking about, I agreed to spend the money we saved on Uber rides for a starbucks drink. We ordered a deconstructed pink drink (ice, foam on the side and extra cups) so that they could split it. Twins liked this so much we may start doing this for all our starbucks orders.
The original plan for the evening was actually to go hit up the Richmond night market. This was originally the only thing I was going to see in Richmond (back when we were only going to be staying in downtown Vancouver). But after so much walking and shopping and eating (I also told the twins it cost $7 to enter the market before we even eat anything there), the twins actually both decided it wasn't worth the effort. The only thing they really wanted from the market was a tang hulu. I think we can make that happen elsewhere. So we went back to hotel. Everyone rested a bit and recharged some phones...I wasn't actually sure if people still had enough stomach space for dinner. I should not have doubted us! L had been making comments about hot pot since we touched down in Vancouver, luckily, we had like 3 different hot pot places all within a 3-5 min walk. Cue the soup bases and meat and veggies!
We all tried the spicy (I even ordered it "mild") and immediately decided it was way too much for all of us. I liked having one shacha for the meat and one bone broth for the veggies. I ended up eating mostly veggies and bone broth for the meal. But the rest of them still made it though 4-5 orders of meat. Capped off with some free green tea ice cream!
Very success-FULL day of eating and shopping in Richmond. Tomorrow we check out of the hotel and move over to downtown Vancouver for the rest of the trip -- there is some rain coming in the forecast which doesn't thrill me...but hoping for the best!
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