Home for the holidays: 4 feasts with Asian flavours
Vancouver chefs serve up everything from siu mai to soft-shelled crab on festive take-home menus
Heritage Asian Eatery has BBQ pork, Peking duck, and more in its take-home holiday meals. Photo by Richard Won
WITH TRAVEL OFF the books this year and the holidays fast approaching, there’s still time to find a feast that will bring a taste of Asia to your celebratory dining-room table. Here are a few standout options.
Heritage Asian Eatery.
Heritage Asian Eatery
From baos (Chinese steamed and stuffed buns) to rice bowls to dumplings, Heritage Asian Eatery is known for premium comfort food. Now, chef Felix Zhou is cooking up holiday feast take-home kits.
On the menu for two to four people are Heritage chicken, BBQ pork, truffle siu mai, crystal scallop-and-pea-tip dumplings, eggplant, gai lan, black sesame balls, and ginger scallion sauce ($69 plus tax). Those are all included in a feast for four to six ($139 plus tax), with the addition of two courses of Peking duck, rice, and radish cake with XO sauce.
Meals are available for pick up on the Broadway location )382 West Broadway) with 24-hour advance notice. More info is here.
Street Auntie Aperitivo House.
Street Auntie Aperitivo House
This brand-new spot on the Granville Strip comes from Yuyina Zhang, who designed the concept based on her childhood experiences in Yunnan Province. There, street-food vendors are often affectionately known as “Street aunties”. Five different menus reflect the region’s food culture: Butcher Auntie, Ocean Auntie, Yunnan Auntie, Dim Sum Auntie and Vegetarian Auntie.
For the holidays, Zhang is making meals with dishes like 72-hour slow-braised abalone, Chinese BBQ pork and char siu, Hainanese chicken with spicy sour sauce, shrimp salad with pickled papaya, sesame-dressed seasonal veggies, a fortune cookie cake, and more.
The cost is $98 for one; $198 for two; and $398 for four. See Street Auntie to order.
Potluck Hawker Eatery. Photo by Richard Won
Potluck Hawker Eatery
Chef and co-owner Justin Cheung is nailing it at his Cambie Village spot that specializes in Southeast Asian hospitality. For the holidays—Potluck’s first—he’s got a Crab Feast for home, inspired by meals his mom and uncle would make when he was growing up. He has switched up flavours throughout the month; now until December 20, it’s chili crab cooked with seafood stock, tomato, and chili, thickened with egg. The dinner for two to four ($150) comes with golden buns and sides like caramelized Brussels sprouts, winter vegetable gado gado, seafood nasi goreng, and Potluck’s signature char kway teow.
There’s also the Potluck Surf and Turf Feast with Singaporean black-pepper and whole fried coconut chicken ($200 for four to six people) available by pre-order for pick-up on December 24. Malaysian-style Nasi Lemak bentos are available for dine-in and take-out are. The national dish of Malaysia, Nasi Lemak features fragrant coconut rice, Cheung adding caramelized shallot sambal, roasted peanut, ikan bilis (fried baby anchovy), cucumber, boiled egg and kerupuk (an Indonesian-style cracker). Protein options include popcorn-salted egg-yolk chicken, green curry and sambal eggplant. Check out Potluck’s website for more.
Regal Mansion Cuisine Seafood Restaurant
Another newcomer to the local dining scene, Regal Mansion Cuisine in City Square Mall is an upscale contemporary-Chinese spot. As part of its opening celebrations, it’s offering “This holiday season, it’s on us”: until December 31, any pre-order of a holiday set menu comes with a gift card of equal value.
In collaboration with chef David Hawksworth, Regal Mansion Cuisine chef Hui is offering two holiday menus.
Roasted five-spiced squab comes with Japanese-squash seafood soup, pan-fried egg rolls with shrimp paste, sablefish with crab and yuzu vinaigrette, 48-hour braised beef short ribs, braised lamb in clay pot, sauteed cucumbers with minced pork, blushing special fried rice, and crispy crusted baked taro sago pudding. It serves six and costs $338.
The abalone special (with four Australian abalone in chicken sauce) features sea coconut stewed partridge soup, sablefish with crab-and-yuzu vinaigrette, 48-hour braised beef short ribs, stir-fried shrimp in XO sauce, crispy garlic and chili fried rice, and papaya snow-fungus sweet soup with peach gum. It’s $480 and serves four.
Both meals come with assorted appetizers. More details are here.
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