[CRA 2010 Signature Dish] Braised Lobster and Taro Noodle Hotpot ????? and Baked Live Pink Scallops ??????? from Ken?s Chinese Restaurant on Kingsway, Vancouver

It took us TWO trips before we got to try the CRA award winning dishes from Ken’s Chinese Restaurant.

We thought we got our bases covered. Since it was a long drive from Richmond to Ken’s and there are THREE award winning dishes we wanted to try, we called ahead for reservation and asked if they serve the specific THREE dishes we were looking for.

Reservation, check.

The THREE dishes?

“Yeah, yeah, we have it”, they said over the phone.

So we made the long drive there with the boys complaining over and over again why we had to drive all the way across the bridge for “something to blog about”. LOL! When we arrived at the restaurant, the table was reserved for us. We did not even look at the menu and this time we even brought along the Chinese language list so that there is no misunderstanding of what we wanted.

You know what is the problem with many Chinese restaurants? They are so impatient with your questions over the phone that they will just say what you want to hear without checking. Well … it was when we were already served tea and all that they said they ran out of Pink Scallop!

We were NOT going to eat if they only had two of three dishes. I complained to the captain that I called ahead already and was told that they have it and that we came all the way from Richmond. Unhappy was I was, I must say that the captain handled the situation pretty well. He told me that if I come again he will guarantee that the pink scallops will be available, even if we want to come back a few hours.

We said we rather come back the next day, same time.

So we went back on Sunday. And true enough, this time the captain was expecting us. LOL! The first thing he said to us was “the scallop came in at 2PM yesterday” and that he made sure he reserve four for us as promised.

That wasn’t so hard, isn’t it? I always have respect for people like that who immediately fixes things that went wrong — and not be defensive. Things will go wrong once in a while but it is the manner one goes about fixing mistakes that makes the difference.

Ken’s Chinese Restaurant calls themselves a Hong Kong Style Cafe. I felt that they deserve a better description than that because this is one restaurant that had consistently won awards after awards with dishes that are not typical of HK Style Cafes.

Ken’s Chinese Restaurant is located on Kingsway in Vancouver, somewhere between Knight and Fraser.

Oh I did mention that Ken’s won three CRA awards. They won:

Above are some of the pages of their menu. It was a lot of pages and so I just took pages of their set, combo and specialty sections.

Chinese Restaurant Award 2010 ? SILVER in the CRAB AND LOBSTER Category ? Braised Lobster and Taro Noodle Hotpot ?????

When I saw the word lobster on the name of this dish, I was expecting the worst. It wasn’t so bad and it did not burn a hole in the pocket. The Braised Lobster and Taro Noodle Hotpot costs … More after the jump. Click to read the rest of [CRA 2010 Signature Dish]
Braised Lobster and Taro Noodle Hotpot ????? and
Baked Live Pink Scallops ???????
from Ken’s Chinese Restaurant on Kingsway, Vancouver (754 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. |
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Post tags: Hong Kong, Restaurant Review, Vancouver