#yvr eats

(Capstan Way)

Last visit 2/12/2019

For the last few years, we had considered Banh Mi Tres Bon the best local Pho place. Pho 37 has changed that.

The traditional fried spring rolls are very good; great presentation. Taste identical to Banh mi Tres Bon (that's a good thing).

But the traditional beef w/ meatballs Pho was a revelation: sweet, savoury in a rich and delightfully fragrant way. It's very telling that this was the only time my wife didn't try to add seasoning to her noodles; perfect as is. This is the new standard in town; so much so that we can't even imagine going back to Pho Hoa for their traditional pho (their coconut broth beef saté pho and their fancy drinks are still worth going back for, but I digress).

Speaking of which, Pho 37 also has a peanut sate pho (I tried beef, but you can also order it with chicken, or vegetarian & tofu). Again, this has their signature sweetness, but with a kick; very much like the Vietnamese version of tan tan. Again, richest most intese pho broth in town (wife found it spicy. I couldn't taste the spiciness, but could feel the heat afterwards)

Alas no fancy drinks, no macaroons or French pastries. But we have to return to try everything else!

Recommended: every thing we ordered.

Avoid: nothing. Good service; they even accept credit cards here.

4.75 stars, 9.4/10. The new king in town.

Photos by Michelle W.

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Check out this Yelp review for Daan Go Cake Lab!

https://yelp.to/4oe8ggkEV7

Last visit Jan 2025 A little hard to rate, due to their croissants being considerably better than everything else, but here goes:

Churro Croissant: 5 stars, 10/10 beautifully decadent. What you'd imagine a churro at a Michelin star restaurant would be like.

Strawberry & Cream Croissant: 5 stars, 9.9/10 better than any strawberry cream cake. Crunchy and flakey, not too sweet. I actually can't go back to just cakes.

The Macarons were good, but for the price they'd need to beat Thiery, and unfortunately they don't. 4 stars

Lucky Duck mini lemon cake: I love lemon tarts, but this one underwhelmed me, especially for $9. 3.25 stars

Strawberry Pocky Cookie: everything I'd want in a cookie, except I'd have wanted white chocolate as well. 4.5 stars

Horin Ramen (Metrotown)

This is the first time I've had ramen outside of Nakiryu with identical tasting noodles. And since we only tried the Tan Tan there, Horin has the best Tonkatsu Ramen we've ever tasted. Anywhere.

Tonkatsu Ramen 5 stars 10/10

However, even up sizing, the portion was a little small for me. But they've attained perfection with both the noodles & the broth.

Tan Tan Ramen (Vegetarian); the noodles were as good as Nakiryu; which are flavourful, perfectly al dente and the best I've had outside of Japan. The soup base however, while flavourful, wasn't quite as rich as Nakiryu, Afuri, or Hibiki Ramen Yakitori Bar, but the noodles here are tied with the best (Nakiryu). 4.75 stars

Gyoza: nicely done with a crisp pan sear. 4.25 stars.

Overall 9.5/10, 5 stars. Fantastic noodles, best Tonkatsu Ramen we've ever tried, slightly smaller portions and very difficult parking (unless you were already shopping at Metrotown, which we fortunately were)

Can't wait to come back and try the curry and croquettes.

Last visit Nov 2025

https://yelp.to/AG-6iu98JN

Last visit: July 2024

Have grabbed takeout here several times; it's never disappointing! The bang bang shrimp bowl (5 stars) is absolutely delicious and one of our go tos; I just wish it came in different sizes. It's not quite enough for those of us with bigger appetites, and just slightly too much for my wife's. But it leaves other fast food bowls in the dust

Their crispy fish works better as a burrito than a bowl. Their crispy fish Burrito is as good as any of the fish tacos I've had at local dine in restaurants, which is impressive. 4.5 stars

In a bowl, you get 2 large pieces; it would have been better if there had simply been more, smaller pieces. But delicious nonetheless. Crispy fish burrito 4.5 stars, bowl 4 stars.

On the flip side, their bang bang shrimp makes for the best bowl (5 stars), but it tends to be less crunchy a burrito (4.25 stars)

Haven't tried their pulled pork in a bowl yet, but it's absolutely smashing in a burrito, 4.75 stars.

Extreme Fries: fries with the works (beef, salsa, sour cream) taste good, but nothing special. 3.75 stars

Crispy Chicken Burrito: excellent, demands Buffalo sauce (of course).

Recommended;

Bang Bang Shrimp Bowl

Literally any Burrito.

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant (dim sum)

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant

(Dim Sum)

10/11/2021 Uber take out

Our entire order was cold (no idea if the driver or restaurant's fault). That's understandable, we've had cold Delivery before.

Har Gow (shrimp dumplings): 5 pieces instead of 4 because they're smaller. Still very tasty, buttery goodness. 4.25 stars.

Siu Mai: Again smaller, 5 instead of 4. Not bursting with flavour, just ok. Honestly thought they'd simply given us frozen microwave Sui Mai. 2.5 stars.

Beef balls: worst I've had in years. They had the texture of frozen dim sum that's gone straight from the freezer to the microwave, after getting freezer burn. 1.5 stars

Wu Guok (tarot & pork deep fried flakey dumplings): Really well done, curry filling, very nicely done crispy shell. 4.75 stars

Dan Tat (egg tarts): again sub par. Crust was under baked and doughy, egg custard was okay. 2.25 stars

Ma Lai Goh (sponge cake, essentially): actually pretty good; light & fluffy, could've been a bit more flavourful. 3.75 stars

Seaweed wrapped Shrimp Spring Rolls: actually fantastic, despite our order being cold (our Uber driver most likely dropped off multiple orders en route, with ours being last) the flavour shone through. Fresh, crispy, flavourful. 5 stars

Recommend: Seaweed Shrimp Spring Rolls, Wu Guok

Avoid: Beef Balls, Dan Tat

Overall 6.5/10, 2.5 stars. The score isn't reflective of the overall quality (some dishes were good, some not so much) but for the comparables: in Richmond there are a ton of great Dim Sum options; and for the price and size & quality of the portions, there are a lot better choices. Chef Tony's gourmet (truffle infused) portions are small, but more filling & more generous than Sea Harbour; for cheaper but still decent portions & quality there's ClubOne, and for high quality, decent prices there's Empire, Kirin (although their takeout has slipped lately), Tin Tin, Continental are all better quality & larger portions.

In other words, most dishes weren't bad, but with so many better alternatives, we are in no hurry to order from here again soon.

A 2 star review of Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant by Mark W.:

Gingeri (dim sum)

Date of last visit 2/6/2019

Cha Siu soh: flavour is good, but pastry to filling ratio too high. Dry pastry, but tasty. 3.75 stars

Beef rice rolls: very good. Good ratio of filling to skin. Flavour could have been more intense, particularly the rice noodle skin. 4 stars.

Shrimp springs rolls with tempura: 5 stars. Crispy with seaweed, the tempura with Japanese mayo are also really good. Beautiful presentation to boot. Just as tasty as Fisherman's Terrace's, but slughtly even more elevated with the unusual serving with tempura. Then again, you get fewer shrimp spring rolls.

Har gow: large and fresh, not as buttery as I'd like but still very good. 4.5 stars.

Normally you get a discount if you order before 10am and request the bill by 10:30, which we did. However, they said no discount for ordering early because it was Chinese New Year.

Which is malarkey... CNY eve was Feb 4th this year, CNY itself on the 5th. Maybe they thought I wouldn't know because I'm mixed, but Chinese businesses *only* bump up their rates for CNY and CNY eve. This left a rather bad taste in my mouth.

Heck, we went to Shiang Garden for dim sum on Christmas day, and they still gave us the "before 10:30am" discount. Considering the prices were also a bit higher ($6.95 and $7.25 per dim sum compared to 4.50 to $5.95 at others like Fisherman's Terrace; even top rated Kirin is less pricey).

So, if you have to try the most elevated shrimp spring rolls, try here. Otherwise there are more economical and better dim sum (except the spring rolls. There aren't better spring rolls)

nearby.

Recommended: Shrimp spring rolls, har gow.

Avoid: Cha sui soh.

Not bad. 3.75 stars 7.5/10

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Richmond's on No 3 Rd.

Last visit: 1/29/2019

We'd been here a couple of times before; usually it's very crowded and difficult to find parking. But Tuesday night, a short 5-10 minute wait (it was still a packed house, but a packed house with parking spots).

We started with chicken satay skewers. Most places are pretty similar (using the same peanut sauce, etc), differing mainly in the quality of the cook. Well, this elevates the simple skewer by adding a honey glaze. Best ones we've tried thus far.

The roti canai with chicken curry arrived next; the roti bread was flakey, buttery, and perfect (we've had vaguely similar ones elsewhere over or undercooked). However, it would've been nicer aesthetically had the drumstick bones not been broken & exposed. Also, this was significantly less spicy that actual Malaysian curry I'd tried; the same applies for the other dishes, but this was the one missing the most bite.

Next came their signature beef rendang with rice (basically a mild coconut curry). It never disappoints. Very intense flavour without resorting to actual spiciness; with large stewy chunks of beef, and a couple of obligatory slices of potato. In fact, that could be said of every dish we've tried here; intense and complex without being excessively salty or spicy. Note that we'd previously ordered the rendang sans rice, and it seemed only marginally larger.

Including the last of the 4 dishes, Char Koay Teow (essentially Malaysian version of Pad Thai), but with slices of fish cake, and Chinese sausage (lap cheung). Non greasy and flavourful.

Additionally, our appetizers arrived within 5 minutes of ordering, with all dishes arriving very rapidly. We've only tried a few other Malaysian restaurants (mostly various Tropika branches and other mom and pop shops; yes I've been to Banana Leaf, but a long time ago. Based on other comments here, we should try there again, soon) so I can't definitively say how good this is (yes, we'll be travelling there someday to compare) but for now, this is the best we've found. We highly recommend this place, especially if you're not driving. Good portions (we had leftovers with only 4 dishes!) and while not economy dining, not pricey either.

4.75 stars, 9.4 /10

Recommended: everything we ordered: beef rendang w/ rice, chicken skewers, char keow teow noodle, roti canai (for the amazing roti bread).

Avoid: those looking for the intense heat of actual Malaysian curry may be disappointed in how toned down the spiciness is here. But for those who want to try the complexity of flavour without the Scoville burn should try here. So avoid the roti canai if you crave that heat.

Gordon Ramsay says "Any place can be packed on Saturday. You want to know if it's good? Check how busy they are Monday". We went on a Tuesday, and it was pretty darn busy.

Photos by Michelle Wilburn