Gingeri Restaurant (Richmond BC)

Recently, my cousins have been getting married, and *gulp* having kids. Of course, for M and I all this leads to is winks from older relatives and questions about when we'll be getting married and when we'll be having our own "baby showers" and such. Oh. And when they can buy my parents some baby bibs. haha!

One such cousin who got married and had a cute baby boy is cousin Vandeley and cousin-in-law Donna Chang, as you may know from Sherman's Food Adventures. Yes, I am Vandeleys' cousin, although I wasn't even sure at times myself!

For Vandeleys' baby (have any names for him yet, Sherman? :), the moon yuet / one-month baby shower was held at Gingeri Restaurant in Richmonds' Landsdowne Mall. I've written about Gingeri before, but I'd never gotten an entire meals' worth of dishes in a post, thanks to overzealous diners in my family. It was nice to have another food blogger madly snapping photos throughout the course of the meal. :) There was wedding that took up the main dining area of Gingeri, but the restaurant accomodated both parties very well.



We started off the moon yuet dinner with some dyed eggs and pickled ginger. I'm not sure what the ginger symbolizes, but traditionally the red dyed eggs were to announce the moon yuet (one month anniversary) of the babys' birth. I barely had a chance to crack open my hard boiled egg when the appetizers platter showed up - everything was fresh tasting, except for the spareribs which could have been hotter, were more sour than usual, and had a gummy glaze on them.



Next up was the crab claw. Now, I am no superhero like our friend Sherman, (I am simply Vandeleys' cousin.) so I was not able to get a shot of the entire dish in its untouched state. I can tell you that Gingeri does a great crab claw - they offer it at dim sum occasionally and it is crispy, has a slightly springy shrimp portion encasing the crab claw.



A sea cucumber and prawn dish was next, served with steamed broccoli and lychees. This is one reason why I like Gingeri. Not only do they offer seasonal dishes like every other restaurant, they also offer new, non traditional dishes that no one else has done. Sometimes they don't work, in which case they get the axe from the menu, other times they are hits. Last season they had an orange roughy dish; another time it was a stuffed chicken wing with a mushroom-soy sauce. Yet another time, it was a whole deep fried fish with a tangy peanut sauce and konyaku bundles. I love how Gingeri offers something different!



Along with the set menu for the dinner, shark fin soup. Best enjoyed with a touch of pink vinegar.



As with every special occasion Chinese banquet, abalone made an appearance, this time with stewed mushrooms, vegetables, and sea cucumber. We're not fans of sea cucumber done this way, so we passed on that. I *do* love mushrooms, however, and had about three that night, along with vegetables and abalone.



By the time the crab and lobster combo came, I was pretty full. I did manage to make some room for lobster though, while M picked up a couple pieces of crab. It was all good. The good thing about the crab and lobster is that everyone gets their favourite piece. For me, it'd be the crab claw and a piece of lobster tail or knuckle.



Unlike the crab and lobster, chicken usually has people in my family fighting over certain pieces. I'm a wing girl myself. Unfortunately, so are about five other people in my family. I gave up my piece that night for a nice moist thigh. (that's what she said. :)



From what I understand, Vandelay is a bit of a wine connoisseur. The bottle of wine we had at our table, a 2004 Visan Cote de Rhone from France was no exception. Slightly cherry / blackberry in like flavour, it complemented a lot of the rich food well.



The fish dish was a bit of a mystery. It was just called "cod" on the menu, however I suspected that the breaded and fried pieces on the perimeter of the plate were orange roughy. The sauteed fish, we were told, was "Ching Yee". My uncle tried telling me that it was "ching" as in "clear" (three drops of water in the character) and "yi" as in clothing. I'll have to do some searching around T&T for the English name! The fish was quite firm in texture and had a slightly meaty flavour to it.



Yang Chow rice was also on the menu. There had been a lull in the dinner service (presumably so that the wedding party could do a speech or something!), so M and I had gotten up to chat with Sherman. When I found that the rice had arrived at the tables, I looked over at my table and expected to see it half demolished and consumed. It was. So the above shot is of the rice at Shermans' table! Saucy and packed with veggies, mushrooms, dried scallop, and prawns. It was a nice close to the meal.



Dessert was yummy red-bean paste filled butter cookie, and sesame cookies (smiley face cookies! - named for the way they look.)

Did I tell you that the above food was served to tables of ten? And that a lot of the tables had many children below the age of ten at them? Needless to say, there were a lot of leftovers!



Gingeri Chinese Cuisine

323 - 5300 No. 3 Road [map]

Richmond, BC

P: 604-278-6006