A Hon's Layover

November 18, 2006

A Hon’s Layover

Well, our holiday has officially begun, and thanks to our good friends in Vancouver, the foodie aspect is off and running. As soon as I mentioned to my friend Kim that we had a four hour layover in Vancouver, she said, “Chinese in Richmond!!” To which I replied, “Hon’s.”

I have had a long and widely reknowned love affair with Hon’s Won Ton House since I started work in Vancouver at an office mere blocks from the Robson Street location. They have four or five locations throughout the lower mainland, each making minor adjustments in its authenticity to suit the location. The Robson Street location is pretty mainstream compared to Chinatown or Richmond, due to the higher volume of Chinese-speaking clientele.

I cut my teeth on the Robson Street location—but my first experience with Chinatown cemented my love for the place. The best way to describe any of the locations is to say, “It’s a Chinese food factory.” The outer edges of each restaurant have various cooking stations: potstickers, wonton, dimsum, meat kitchen and a separate vegetarian kitchen. Service is fast and no nonsense, and the food is always fresh and flavourful. The Richmond location set the scene when we walked through the door and came face to face with a whole bbq pig, hanging next to a whole gaggle of bbq duck and a flock of soy sauce chickens. I was ready.

My sister, Kim, and our friend Vicki, came along for lunch with Kelly and me--we had an excellent selection of good eaters. My sister refers to herself as Chelsea “Chocolate Cheese” Chorney, and lives for red wine, oysters and foie gras (I believe I can take credit hooking her up to those addictions). Vicki has invented the term, “to Vicki oneself,” which is what happens when you eat so much food, you have trouble getting out of your chair, and feel ill for hours afterward.

So I took over ordering—and didn’t hold back.

There were requests from the floor. Kelly couldn’t leave without some bbq pork on rice and Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce. Chelsea had been dreaming about the chicken in black pepper sauce on crispy noodles. So I got those. I ordered a bowl of minced beef and preserved vegetable congee (I love their congee!), and some of my favourite a la carte dimsum items—ha gao, siu mai and shrimp and pork stuffed bean curd.

Hon’s also has great seafood items, and often serves dishes in a crispy shredded potato nest, so I got one of those. Our server recommended the special: half a soy sauce chicken with a green onion dipping sauce, and I couldn’t resist the bbq duck wrapped in taro root and bean curd, served with mushroom and oyster sauce. I’d never heard of anything like it.

The food kept coming, and I kept promising, “Okay, that’s the last dish. Oh! I forgot, there’s still one more to come.” So we feasted. And we managed to have food left over for Chelsea to take home to her boyfriend, Lukas—the most athletic consumer of food I know. If he’d been there, we probably would have had to order a couple more dishes.

Everything was as good as I’d remembered, and the duck wrapped in tarot root was absolutely amazing. It looked sort of like a large sushi roll, with the bbq duck in the middle, the tarot root replacing the sushi rice, and the bean curd replacing the seaweed. Heavenly, but with so much other food, we only each managed to have one—and there were eight on the plate. I’m sure Lukas enjoyed them.

Kelly hoarded his bbq pork and Chinese broccoli, and confirmed once again that he didn’t like congee. Chelsea had never tried it before, and I think I’ve got another convert. We were all unanimous on the soy sauce chicken, though. The dipping sauce combined with the savoury roast chicken was enough to make my eyes roll back in my head.

When we were all completely satiated and couldn’t eat another bite, and we’d sucked back all the hot tea in tall plastic water glasses that we could possible handle, we asked for the bill. All of that, feeding five people, plus impressive leftovers, cost a whopping $70. Chelsea said, “That’s my favourite part of Hon’s. Getting the bill. You get so much food, and for so little money!”

Vicki didn’t Vicki herself, “but almost.” And we were back at the airport in tons of time. On to our next foodie adventure!