Tim Hortons are everywhere in Canada. Photo by David Lansing.

It’s time for me to get out of Canada. I know this for sure because this morning, without really thinking about it, I went into a Tim Hortons for coffee and a donut with sprinkles.

What was I thinking?

Canadians say they love Tim Hortons coffee. That’s crazy. It’s like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, which is fine if you think Juan Valdez grows only the richest, most flavorful coffee beans on the planet. If you still swear by your Mr. Coffee machine (and miss Joe DiMaggio), then maybe you’d like the coffee at Tim Hortons. If the only tea you’ll drink is Lipton’s, then maybe you’ll like Tim Hortons. Frankly, I think the Canadians go there just for the donut balls. Which aren’t very good, either, but at least they give you an excuse to order the coffee (you’ve got to wash those gut balls down with something).

You know who always loved Tim Hortons coffee? Hitler. I’m not kidding you. Look at this video of Der Führer throwing a hissy fit when he realizes it’s going to take forever to get his coffee and a donut with sprinkles.

Meanwhile, I’m heading for the airport. Where maybe I’ll make one final stop at Timmy’s.

Pork belly and boneless short ribs at Claypot Hot Pot and BBQ. Photo by David Lansing.

I don’t understand people who go to an Italian joint and complain about the tenderloin they ordered. Or go to a steakhouse and complain about the scampi. You have to know what the restaurant you’re dining at does well. And usually it’s not too difficult if you look at the menu.

For instance, at Claypot Hot Pot and BBQ, a Cantonese-style all-you-can-eat hot pot joint, there are like 20 meat items versus 8 seafood items (assuming a fish head is seafood). So why do so many people complain about the oysters being too small or the prawns not tasting fresh enough?

Question: Who the hell orders oysters at an AYCE hot pot restaurant? Would you order oysters at KFC? You want great oysters, go to a seafood restaurant on the docks. You want cheap food, go to Claypot and order the sliced boneless short ribs. And the sliced lamb shoulder. And the pork belly.

And then order the spicy Szechuan soup stock, which has a nice kick to it, and then dip your short ribs in the stock for a minute or two, give it a good dunking in one of the side sauces, and enjoy.

Better yet: Order the spicy Szechuan soup stock and the hearty free-range chicken broth, and they’ll put them 50-50 in one pot. That’s what we did. And it was killer. Just don’t order the oysters.

The dragon’s beard candy stall at Richmond’s night market. Photos by David Lansing.

So Mijune and I were gobbling up some serious crispy skin pork from Parker Place Meat & BBQ when Mijune spotted a place where they sell dragon’s beard candy. She bought a little four-pack of the stuff and I tried it. It was okay. Not great, but okay.

And then a few days later, we were at T&T, the Asian supermarket, and, again, we got some dragon’s beard candy. I liked it better this time.

So last weekend when we were pigging out at the Richmond Night Market, our last stop was the Kam’s Dragon’s Beard Candy stall.

Dragon’s beard candy is sort of like Chinese cotton candy—with a peanut cluster in the middle. What makes it interesting isn’t so much what it tastes like but how it’s made (and I think you could say the same about cotton candy).

She’s holding a piece of dragon’s beard candy while the guy on the right is doing his magic making the sugar strands. Photo by David Lansing.

I stood watching the guy making the candy at the Night Market and Mijune tried to explain to me what was going on. Basically, the guy takes spun sugar that has been boiled and then repeatedly pulls and folds it over until he’s created hundreds of thread-like sugar strands, and then he covers the sugar strands in rice flour, to prevent sticking, while pulling the strands apart.

Once the strands are made, he hands them to a woman who cuts them into small pieces and wraps the spun sugar around a mixture of peanuts, sesame seeds, and coconut. That’s it.

Originally, Dragon’s beard candy was only made for the emperors of China (and called dragon’s beard because dragons are a Chinese imperial symbol). According to Mijune there are only a few hundred people in the world today who even know how to make it. So I suppose that also adds to its allure. Also, it doesn’t really hold up very well after its made. You kind of need to eat it fresh. Which also makes it seem more exotic.

Anyway, we waited in line for 15 or 20 minutes, watching the guy pull the sugar strands apart and it was like watching a magic trick. I couldn’t quite figure out how, exactly, he did it.

I asked the woman who was taking the sugar strands and stuffing them with the nut/coconut mixture how long it took the guy to learn how to make the candy. She said four years.

So it takes him four years to learn how to make the candy, and then we have to stand in line for 15 minutes to buy a package, and the whole thing is gone in like 30 seconds. The short, happy life of dragon’s beard candy.

The jerky girls at Mei Jan Hong in the Aberdeen Centre. Photo by David Lansing.

When I was a kid growing up in Oregon my dad would make venison jerky. It was as tough as it was salty. We’d take it with us when we went fishing since a slab would last you all day. It was like gnawing on shoe leather.

Yesterday I was walking through the Aberdeen Centre and my nose led me to Mei Jan Hong, a Singapore-style jerky joint. If you’ve ever had Singapore-style jerky you know it compares to the sort jerky sold in convenience stores that way a baguette compares to Wonder bread.

In Malaysia it’s called bak kwa and you can get it everywhere. In Malaysia and Singapore bak kwa is usually made from beef, pork, or mutton. At Mei Jan Hong, they make beef and pork as well as chicken or salmon. No mutton.

Usually there are two types of Singapore-style jerky: One is made from very thin slices of a whole cut of pork or beef; the other is made from scraps that are pressed and made into bricks. Jerky made from whole cuts of meat are generally leaner than the bricks of meat, but the bricks are easier to slice and work with.

Mei Jan Hong uses bricks and slices the meat into squares so it kind of looks like a very thin Wendy’s hamburger (actually, what they most remind me of is these frozen meat patties we used to fry up when we were in high school; they tasted great but god-only-knows what they were made of. Pink slime?).

At Mei Jan Hong, they air-dry the squares of meat in stainless-steel drying boxes (you can see the guy in the back doing this), then finish them off on the grill so you get this slightly-smoky taste (which was what lured me here in the first place). You pick your meat, then order it either sweet or spicy. I went for one of each of the pork and beef. The winner, hands down, was the sweet pork jerky which, to me, tasted like jerky char siu. Sweet, soft, fragrant and nothing at all like the jerky I remember from my youth. Thank god.

The dish with the egg on top is the dol sot bee bim bahb. Photo by David Lansing.

It takes me just about five minutes to walk from my hotel to Alexandra Road in Richmond. This is great because Alexandra Road is known as Richmond’s “Food Street.” They say that around a three-block radius of Alexandra Road are well over 200 Asian restaurants.

Imagine.

So I walk beneath the Aberdeen Centre Canada Line station, up No. 3 Road past the Parker Place Mall, and then hang a left at Alexandra and I’m on Food Street. And it is. A food street. There’s are Vietnamese pho shops and Thai noodle places and Hong Kong bubble tea cafes and Shanghai dumpling joints. But tonight I’m headed for Jang Mo Jib, a well known Korean restaurant.

I’m having dinner with Stacey Chyau who really knows the food scene around Alexandra Road. Stacey was born in Taiwan and moved to Canada a little over 20 years ago. The good thing about dining with someone like Stacey is that you can let them do the ordering.

Jang Mo Jib is an interesting place. It was a Japanese restaurant and lounge before the Moon family turned it into a Korean claypot and bbq place in 2005. But the building itself, to me, looks like a Swiss chalet.

Stacey says Jang Mo Jib means “mother-in-law’s house.”

“In the Korean culture, a husband always looks forward to eating at his mother-in-law’s home because he knows he’s going to be spoiled and well-fed.”

The seafood pancake at Jang Mo Jib Korean Restaurant.

The first thing Stacey wanted me to try was the hae mool pah jun which the menu says is “assorted seafood pancake.” Well, it was round like a pancake but to me it looked more like crispy hash browns. Stacey sliced it into wedges and spooned on a little soy sauce with chopped scallions. Fabulous.

We also got the gam ja tahng—pork back and neck bones served in a hot pot with green onion, vegetables, and potatoes in a broth—but the main attraction for me was the hot pot with an assortment of beef, preserved vegetables, sautéed kimchi, and a fried egg on top called dol sot bee bim bahb. It was tasty but it was also quite beautiful. So much so that neither Stacey or I wanted to break the egg on top and ruin the composition of the dish. But we did.

Alvin Fung at the Seafood Kingdom stall at Richmond's Night Market. Photos by David Lansing.

Just the other day I was reading a story in the Wall Street Journal about how there’s a glut of East Coast lobsters this summer. The story noted that prices for lobsters at some docks in Maine have fallen to as low as $1.25 a pound—70% below normal and nearly a 30-year-low for this time of year.

Good news for consumers, right? Not according to WSJ. They say consumers aren’t likely to see any bargains this summer because “retailers have fixed costs that limit big price drops.”

The $6 lobster Motoyaki at the Seafood Kingdom stall. Photo by David Lansing.

Well, that’s not true at the Seafood Kingdom stall at the Richmond Night Market where, on Saturday, I not only got half a grilled lobster for $5.95 but I also got a whole abalone in oyster sauce for $6.

I don’t know how you can top that. In fact, I don’t know how they do it, even if lobster is going for only $1.25 a pound wholesale (you still have to ship it to Vancouver, keep it alive, and then you’ve got your operational costs).

I asked the guy who served me my lobster, Alvin Fung, how they could afford to do this. Alvin, it turns out, is the director of a special project by the seafood retailer A&J Specialty Seafood, and that project happens to be finding a way to expand their wholesale operation into retail as well.

Alvin explained to me that they can sell lobster and abalone for just $6 because they don’t have to deal with a middle-man—they are the middle-man. “We’re trying to introduce the public to our products,” said Fung, who told me that the lobsters, which are Ocean Safe, come from Nova Scotia, and the abalone is farmed in New Zealand.

They were both good although I definitely was drawn to the grilled lobster motoyaki. But I had to try the abalone since I haven’t had fresh abalone in—god, I don’t even know when. A long time. But next time I think I’ll just spend my $12 on two lobsters and skip the abalone.

Takoyaki at the Richmond Night Market. Photos by David Lansing.

Back to the Richmond Night Market where Mijune took me to the Daikichi Bakudanyaki stall. These guys specialize in giant takoyaki balls. Takoyaki us a ball-shaped dumpling (or fritter) and is usually sold in Japan at yatais, which are small, mobile food stalls (the word literally means “shop stand”).

They say the first guy to make takoyaki came from Osaka and they’re still considered something of a regional specialty there (you can find them in Tokyo, just not as easily; in Osaka they’re everywhere).

Daikichi Bakudanyaki at the Richmond Night Market.

So here’s how you make a takoyaki: You make a sort of pancake batter from rice flour and wheat flour and cook it in a special mold and then stuff it with squid or octopus (originally in Osaka it was just octopus) and then maybe some cabbage, pickled ginger, rice, and green onion. At Bakudanyaki, they also put a quail egg in it, which is kind of interesting.

So the inside of the takoyaki is pretty much the same. What differentiates one takoyaki from another is the sauce that goes on top. Each yatai vendor will usually make his own sauces and they can be as creative as the cook. At Bakudanyaki you had your choice of curry, chili mayo, wasabi mayo, original, and the special of the day was pizza. I don’t know why you’d want to put a pizza flavoring on your seafood fish ball, but there you go.

Mijune and I ordered several different takoyaki balls just so we could taste the different flavor toppings. I’m not a big curry guy so that definitely wasn’t my favorite. I liked the original, though I’m not sure what was in that. But my favorite was the wasabi. The cream sauce really cut the bite of the wasabi so it didn’t blast your mouth but definitely added a little kick to savory innards of the takoyaki ball. Good stuff.

Here’s a short video I took of them explaining what takoyaki is and how they make them.

Bubble tea at Zephyr Tea House Cafe in Richmond, BC.

Yesterday I wrote about having lunch with Mijune at the Zephyr Tea House Café, this Taiwanese-style bubble tea place in Richmond. Several people wrote me and asked: What the hell is bubble tea?

Good question.

Here’s what a place called the Bubble Tea Café says: “Bubble tea is a drink made from a blend of tea and natural flavors served over sweet and chewy pearls. These pearls are also known as ‘bobas’ and are made from tapioca starch and taste faintly like caramel-flavored Jell-O.”

I don’t know. That doesn’t sound too appetizing, does it? Tapioca starch that tastes like caramel-flavored Jell-O? Yuck.

Wikipedia says bubble tea is “a Taiwanese tea drink that originated from tea shops in Taichung, Taiwan during the 1980s. Drink recipes may vary, but most bubble teas contain a tea base mixed with fruit (or fruit syrup) and/or milk. Ice-blended versions of the drinks, similar to slushies, are also available, usually in fruit flavors.”

Mijune says there’s a real dilemma in finding the best bubble tea places in Richmond (and there are dozens and dozens of them). At places like Zephyr Tea House Café, the drinks are made with house brewed black and green teas, “but they have a very limited amount of fresh milk and fresh fruit flavors. It’s such a double standard.”

Yet she acknowledges that at true Asian places powdered milk and powdered fruit flavors are “expected and normal. And some drinks just work better and at times even taste better with the artificial powders.”

But you never know until you try them. To read more about her thoughts on bubble teas (and the Zephyr Tea House Café) check out her blog here.

The food awaits my arrival at Zephyr Tea House Cafe. Photo by David Lansing.

I might have mentioned that Mijune doesn’t bother to listen to me when it comes to deciding where to go eat or even what to order. I could take this one of two ways: outrage or with a shrug. I prefer the latter.

Yesterday she told me to meet her at Zephyr Tea House Café for lunch. Which was fine with me since it’s just down the street from my hotel. She also tells me to be there promptly at 12:30. “Don’t be late!”

So exactly at 12:32, I walk into Zephyr. And there’s Mijune sitting at a table with at least half a dozen dishes in front of her.

“You’re late,” she says. “I ordered without you.”

As if she was going to let me order in the first place.

Zephyr is like this hip Taiwanese bubble tea place. Bubble tea places are to Taiwan what Starbucks is to Seattle.

I don’t think Zephyr is really known as a lunch place. It’s more like the place you go to late at night when you’ve got the munchies (they’re one of the rare places in Richmond that stay open until 1am on weekends).

So what did Mijune order for us? The Taiwanese-style popcorn chicken, of course, and the braised pork on rice, prawns with pineapple, shredded pork with bamboo shoots, and a Taiwanese sausage with noodle soup.

You know, just a couple of dishes to stave off the hunger pains.

The popcorn chicken was kind of addicting, but I hated myself for liking it since it reminded me of a slightly-less spicy version of KFC’s popcorn chicken (which is also addictive if some of the worst processed junk food out there). The other dishes were okay. Not great, but okay.

What was more interesting to me were the drink choices. There were like over 30 bubble teas and another 30 frappes. Mijune watched me agonize over the menu. Matcha green tea frappe or almond milk bubble tea? Green mango mint? Lychee peach?

“Bring him the matcha ice cream frappe,” Mijune told the waitress.

When I gave her the stink eye she said, “What? It’s the house specialty. You’ll love it.”

And I did.

The Japanese goth and Miss Lolita. Photo by David Lansing.

In the Japanese fashion scene there’s a Gothic subculture as well as something called the Lolita look which is primarily inspired by the anime scene. As Wikipedia says, the origin of the Lolita fashion “is complex and remains unclear.”

Last weekend while Mijune and I were wandering around the Richmond Night Market, I saw these two girls that perfectly embodied both the Japanese goth look as well as Lolita fashion.

According to one story I recently read about the Japanese goth fashion, “The main emphasis of Japanese gothic fashion revolves around Victorian style dressing. Basically the gothic girls attempt to dress up as Victorian porcelain dolls. The attempt is to exaggerate the element of cuteness to the extent that it appears to be childlike.”

Miss Goth was wearing a severe ankle-length wool black dress, a black cameo brooch at her neck, and a rose brocade hair ornament with several crucifixes dangling over her forehead. Miss Lolita wore a very short pink pinafore with a matching bow in her hair and her eyes were heavily made up to resemble an anime doll. They were quite the couple.

I was so transfixed by them that I eventually approached and asked them if I could take their picture. Miss Goth was a little outraged: “We are not like animals whose picture you take at the zoo,” she said. I told her that I wanted to take their picture because I thought both of them were quite beautiful and extremely fashionable (this was true). This calmed Miss Goth down. She then suggested they move to a spot that was getting better light and then she and Miss Lolita stared straight ahead at the camera while I clicked off a dozen or more shots. They were fantastic and I only wish I could have shot them in more situations at the Night Market.