Side trip - a long layover at YVR
The best way to start a three week trip to New Zealand is a 16 hour layover in Vancouver, Canada? Well, maybe not the ideal situation, but that was our fate on January 1, 2023, since we were using reward ticket miles to fly on Air Canada. It was New Years Day and cold and drizzly and we had luggage, so it wasn’t the best day to gallivant around the city, but YVR’s close proximity to Richmond did make a trip for dim sum a good and relatively easy option.
I did some research in advance and found that most dim sum restaurants in Richmond open at 10:00am, but there were a small group that opened at 9:00am and I cross-referenced that list with a list of top dim sum restaurants in Richmond and Empire Seafood Restaurant was one of those, so that was our selected destination.
The TransLink is really easy to use and convenient to get from YVR Airport to Richmond, although it does require a train change.
Vancouver/Richmond style dim sum is ordered from the menu and not via carts. I like this as I always feel a bit stressed about making decisions on what to eat based on what is coming by on a cart. So we had plenty of time to decide on our order.
The first item delivered to our table was the steamed glutinous rice with pork.
My favorite part of dim sum is the bbq pork buns because they are always yummy (and also because I can’t eat the shrimpy things). Empire Seafood Restaurant had several options for bbq pork buns, so we went for the baked option which came with the crispy sweet topping and they were very enjoyable. The egg tarts were super flakey and rich.
Next up were beef balls, which tasted good and were fairly gelatinous in texture.
The spare ribs are always delicious and full of bones.
And to finish the meal, we tried something new that was described as rice noodle with chinese donut and pork. It was a large rice noodle sheet wrapped around a crispy Chinese donut and pork floss on top. The donut was super crispy and it was puzzling and interesting and tasty all at the same time.
