Shiang Garden is located at 4540 #3 Rd in Richmond, BC.  They offer dim sum in the mornings and afternoons whereas at night time they serve Chinese style dishes.   We recently had an opportunity to try this restaurant with a bunch of friends!  We had a big table so we got to order lots of stuff.  Take a look!

The dishes for the night were already pre-decided and written down on our menu.  Most dishes of the night were decided by iPanda’s super AWESOME friend who also loves to cook.  We had 9 dishes, a soup, rice and dessert.  This is a very typical LARGE Chinese dinner.  With such a big table filled with people, there are usuaul multiple courses.  It’s important that you take small portions of each so that you can sample all of the dishes and still have room for dessert.  It’s all about portion control!  Haha. iPanda always has difficulty with this because I love FOOOOOOD!

To start off the meal, the assorted appetizer plate came first.  This was loaded with tons of goodies.  There were shredded chicken in sesame sauce, marinated beef slices, and jelly fish.  All of these were very good. My favorite is the shredded chicken because it had crispy sour vegetables mixed into it.

We didn’t take a picture of the soup but it was a delicious chicken broth with Chinese herbs and mushrooms.  The soup was filled with flavor but didn’t have any MSG at all.  I’ve tried chicken soup at many Chinese restaurants and they usually don’t put the time and care into making sure the chicken skin doesn’t make the soup fatty and oily.  Shiang Garden did a wonderful job at making sure that this clear soup was healthy and tasty.  It was similar to the kind moms make at home but it had a lot more herbs and Chinese mushrooms in it.  Thumbs up!!!

The sweet and sour beef steaks were delicious.  Can you see the glossiness of the sauce on the steak?  As for the beef, it wasn’t hard and chewy at all.  I could easily bite into the steak and taste all the juices inside.  I love sour things so this dish was perfect for me.

A vegetable dish came next.  This is the fish, mushroom and kai lan.  Kai lan is a Chinese vegetable that is full of leafs on one end and has a stem that is very crunchy.    This was great to balance out the strong sweet and sour beef that we just had.  The kai lan didn’t have a lot of oil in it either.  In addition, it was cooked just right so that the slices of fish were still smooth.

Soy sauce shrimp!! Yum!  You can tell by the dark colour of the shrimp how delicious this dish was.  The shrimp was topped with pieces of green onions.  Even though this is made with soy sauce, it wasn’t salty because it was cooked with dark soy sauce.  Dark soy sauce is aged longer than light soy sauce. As well, dark soy sauce has a darker brown color and thicker texture.  As for light soy sauce, it is lighter in color but is often saltier than the dark version.

Now this next dish completely surprised us. Can you guess what it is just from the picture?  Haha.  Yes, it is port ribs.  Yes, it has some sort of glaze on it.  But can you guess what the glaze is?  It’s soda!!!  They probably used 7 up soda for the sauce.  I was surprised by the color of it because it was a bit yellow.  We had the pleasure of meeting one of the head chefs at this restaurant and I asked him about this dish right away.  It turns out that in addition to soda they also put in a bit of vanilla.  All you super foodies out there must be thinking….wouldn’t this dish be super sweet then?  Nopes!  It was great because the sweetness was balanced very well (it was similar to a honey glaze).  This dish offered an inventiveness beyond the typical sweet and sour pork.  The pork ribs were lightly battered and fried.  Then this honey like sauce was drizzled on top.  It was VERY good.  I’m happy to see that Shiang Garden is inventive and moving away from the traditional Chinese style dishes!!

And here is iPanda’s favorite dish of the night!  This is the broccoli topped with fried soft tofu, Chinese style mushrooms and enokitake.  These little fried soft tofu circles were what made this dish my favorite. The moment you put the whole piece of tofu into your mouth and bit on it…the outer layer will explode and fill your mouth with soft and smooth tofu.  Haha.  I know it’s not polite to stuff an entire piece in your mouth, but these things were medium sized and I wouldn’t chose to eat it any other way.  It just wouldn’t have the same effect if I had bitten it in half first.  The tofu is definitely the star of the night.  The broccoli and mushrooms where just there to provide contrast of texture and flavour.  The mushrooms had already absorbed the majority of the sauce and went great with the broccoli.  DELICIOUS!

The dish after this one requires the use of these little buns.  But before we talk about that…take a look at how cute these litttle buns are.  Yes, they are little buns…or bao (in Chinese).  They were meant to be dipped into a sauce or paired with another dish.  Thus, they are just plain white buns and does not have any taste to it.  But I enjoyed eating these alone too.  Most kids love eating these because they are fairly small and can be rolled and unrolled before they eat it.  Haha.  I’m not saying you should play with your food though, kids!

This last dish is the vegetable and pork belly.  The pork has a thick layer of fat on top and a bit of meat on the bottom.  The purpose of this dish is really to have the soft layer of fat on top.  This is a very old and traditional dish.  Some people love this dish while others do not dare eat it because of its fat content.  The pork is cooked for a long time so that everything just melts in your mouth.  I sampled a bit of this and it was perfectly done.  The sauce for the dish may look a bit dark in color but it wasn’t salty or overwhelming at all.  The little buns were served to accompany this dish so that people can soak up the sauce and balance the thick taste of pork with the bao.  It was very good.  We also had an egg fried rice at the end.  But ipanda was too full to sample that.  May be next time!

And last, but not least….Shiang Garden’s signature dessert….the Almond tea (杏仁茶).  Most restaurants make this with rice and almonds.  First, both ingredients are soaked in water. Then, the almond skins are peeled off and the rice and almonds are placed in a grinder.  Finally, it is boiled with water.  The result will be a thick creamy almond tea.  A side note for those of you who like to eat healthier. Almonds are great for the body because they provide monounsaturated fats which are the same fats found in olive oil.  So, adding a bit of almonds to your daily diet will reduce risks of heart disease! Now, back to the almond tea!  This was a great dessert to end the meal with because it wasn’t super sweet.  As well, they added some egg whites to this smooth, silky dessert~

Overall impression:

Good:

• taste was well balanced (nothing too salty or sweet)
• they added a twist to some traditional dishes
• almond tea is a must try!
• great service – very welcoming atmosphere