BC

A vacation for your mouth… I love that! Smart marketing campaign, Richmond BC!

A Dumpling Trail. Can you imagine my excitement when I came across it on Twitter? I still didn’t realise it was an actual campaign, I thought it was just some bloggers in Vancouver going to town with the dumplings and making up hashtags.

Then I found the website… I may have squealed with excitement. And just like that, I knew what I was doing the next day!

The website is a fantastic resource – there’s itineraries, maps, fast facts. It’s a hive of information and I wanted to devour it all! It was like they had created a marketing campaign just for me and luckily other people would enjoy it too.

I checked out the dumpling itineraries on the site and came up with my own. I’m a huge fan of Xiao Long Bao (XLB soup dumplings) which automatically added R&H Chinese to my list. I also can’t go past a spicy wonton option – those bad boys make my mouth water when they’re done right! Xi’an Cuisine was rumoured to have the best ones around so they went on the list. I had a third option too, Golden Sichuan for more spicy dumplings, water boiled ones. I never made it there though as I was so full! I recommend taking a friend so you can get through more dishes.

R&H Chinese is at Lansdowne Centre Food Court. you get off the skytrain and turn right (I turned left, oops – lucky I enjoy walking and the sun was shining) to head into the small foodcourt. You go around and around and end up in the food court. There there was a large line up for the outlet already, turns out there’s no secret that these are fab dumplings. It took all my willpower not to order a bunch of plates and just the XLB. You can watch the staff make the dumplings right in front of you by hand while you wait. The wait was worth it, the XLB was delicious and full of soup! The wrappers weren’t too thick or thin, the broth was flavorsome and steaming hot. Perfect!

I walked to my next spot, Xi’an Cuisine at Richmond Public Markets.  It’s a very unassuming place. You have no idea about the buzz on the inside from the outside. It’s a plain building, I thought I was in the wrong place! You enter, go up some stairs and come out in an open spaced hawker-style market, bustling with people and stalls and eateries. I ordered my spicy wontons (again, so many things I wanted to try) and waited, people watching. These are hands down the best spicy wontons I have eaten. And believe me, I have eaten soooo many spicy wontons! They were soft and silky with a delicious filling and the sauce, oh the sauce!!! I actually drank it from my spoon when I was finished. It was both spicy and sweet, not too hot though. I was in a very happy place right there.

A very happy place and a very full place. I couldn’t eat any more if I tried. That was the end of the dumpling trail for me unfortunately, although fortunately for my waistline.

Awesome tourism idea – I loved it and wish I had more time to sample the entire list of twenty!

Check out their website here and create your own dumpling trail – awesome day out for a group of friends who love those little parcels of goodness that we call dumplings.