The Vancouver area is a Mecca for some of the best Chinese restaurants in the world, last February, the world’s most prestigious travel publication, Condé Nast Traveler, proclaimed what many residents already knew, that Metro Vancouver has the best Chinese food in the world.

These Awards celebrate that excellence!

The Diners’ Choice Awards allows the public to participate in all the fun. This year, for the first time, members of the public can play an important part by nominating restaurants. From September 28 through October 5, the public is invited to nominate their favourites on the Diners’ Choice web site. The top 20 restaurants nominated by the public will form the list that will be voted on to receive Diners’ Choice Awards. Voting will take place, also on-line, from October 6 through November 12 at www.votedinerschoice.com .

For the Critics’ Choice Signature Dish Awards, the judging panel is comprised of 11 restaurant professionals and journalists who possess a strong knowledge of Chinese cuisine. “They have to understand the cooking methods, history and traditions of Chinese food,” says Judging Panel Chair, Stephan Wong. “This is really important. It creates a level judging field where they all share the same criteria.” Upon joining the panel, each judge receives a directory of the more than 400 Chinese restaurants in Metro Vancouver. By mid September, they have submitted three to five nominees for each category. Then all the judges go out and taste each other’s recommendations. This goes on through November and December, when they meet to vote on the 24 Gold Signature Dish winners as well as name a Chinese Chef of the Year and a Best Wine and Spirit Service Award. The Chef of the Year will be awarded for the first time this year.

With more than 600 Chinese chefs in Metro Vancouver, how is one chosen for Chinese Chef of the Year? This year the HSBC Chinese Restaurant Awards is pleased to welcome three professional organizations to the judging panel: Canadian Dim Sum Chefs Association, Chinese Canadian Chefs Association and Hong Kong Canadian Chinese Chefs Club. These three organizations will spearhead the search for Chinese Chef of the Year through a series of competitions – the final competition taking place on the same day as the Awards Ceremony. Watch the CRA web site for more details as they are announced.

All winners will be announced at an Awards Ceremony to be held on January 18, 2011.

The public is encouraged to start dining and cast their votes.

By: Richard Wolak

Executive Chef | Lin Chinese Cuisine

I talked with Lin Zhang in his kitchen while he was cooking with the help of Stephanie Yuen who assisted with the translations.

Where do you look for Inspiration to Create New Dishes?

A lot of this is based on trends, these days people are looking for healthy  food with less oil. Customer feedback is very important and encouraged, I like to use as many local ingredients as I can find and I look to nostalgic dishes.

Do Your New Dishes Change by the Season?

Yes as most of the produce grown here is seasonal I rely on what I can make such as creating a dish with pea shoots.

What are the Basic Dim Sum Dishes in Northern style?

The dumplings and cold plates.

How long does it take your Dim Sum Chef Madame Yu Miao to create the steamed Dumplings?

She prepares the dough first which takes some time, then hand fills and steams the dumplings takes 6-7 minutes. She often makes 700-1000 dumplings by hand each day.

What dishes do you not think people in Vancouver would eat in your restaurant?

Braised Pork hawk

What kind of food do you like to eat when eating outside of your restaurant?

I look in the newspapers to see which Chinese restaurants have new items, I spend a lot of time in the markets when I am off work.

At Home What are the Top Ingredients we would find in your Kitchen?

Light soy sauce and bean paste.

What would you like people to discover when coming to your restaurant for a Dim Sum Experience?

I would like people to try the traditional Shanghainese dishes such as the 8 Treasure Rice off our desserts menu for example.

How do you work with Local Ingredients?

90% are local ingredients.

How would you describe your 8 Treasure Rice that you created?

Classic dish made with skill and passion and full of regional culture. These days the chef can present all the home made ingredients in this dish.

By: Richard Wolak

Translator: Stephanie Yuen

Here goes the culinary journey, that began and ended in Richmond.

BBQ Platter

Chef Erik of B.B.Q. Master

Started off the evening at Northern Delicacy Restaurant (Silver award winner – Best Environment) at Unit 2788, 4151 Hazelbridge Way inside Aberdeen Centre. Here we dined in a private room, banquet style in the round with a spin top table to move around our various dishes. Our server poured a Sumac Ridge Brut and Chinese tea all around for those that wanted bubbly or tea.

Our first course was a BBQ Platter from B.B.Q. Master (Gold award winner – Best BBQ Shop) which is another restaurant located at #145 -4651 No. 3 Road. Chef Erik delivered his platter to us to eat as our first course and I enjoyed the BBQ Duck and BBQ Chicken with the tasty green onion and ginger sauce.

Mushroom Wrapped Bean Curd

Chicken with glass noodles with peanut sauce

Marinated Dried Tofu

Vegetarian Tofu Dumplings

Crab and Tofu

Tea Smoked Duck

Our second restaurant or second course, round 1 would be the best way to describe the 4 cold appetizers that were created and served to us by Northern Delicacy. The 4 dishes included 1) Chicken with glass noodles with peanut sauce 2) Marinated Dried Tofu with 5 spices 3) Mushroom wrapped bean curd which was Smoked tofu filled with mushrooms and 4) Pork Hawk with Jelly fish. I only tasted 3 of the 4 dishes (did not have the Pork dish) and my favourite was the Chicken with glass noodles that I absolutely adored. Next up was round 2 at the same restaurant and here we were served 4 hot appetizers, these included 1) Vegetarian Tofu Dumplings 2) Crab and Tofu 3) Xiao Long Bao and 4) Tea Smoked Duck. I only tasted 3 out of 4 dishes in this round as well missing out on the Xiao dish.

Chef Alan Yip at Northern Delicacy

Onward we moved walking a few blocks outside in the cold to the next restaurant Empire Chinese Cuisine (Gold award winner – Best Cantonese Dim Sum) at 8251 Alexandra Road. It was almost as if we were about to sit down for our first meal, though we all felt like we had already eaten a fair amount of food. The cuisine at this next restaurant was a different style, we began with 4 dishes and these were actually more items, on plate 1) Deep Fried Prawn paste on sugar cane and also the Deep Fried Taro Root Dumplings 2) Shrimp Dumpling and Pork Dumpling Hagau 3) Trotter. I passed up the Pork Dumplings and the Trotter. My favourite dishes from this round was the Deep Fried Prawn paste on sugar cane and also the Deep Fried Taro Root Dumplings both were absolutely delicious. With another round of hot tea and waters we digested for a little bit after taking in the bright surroundings and then ventured out walking to the next restaurant.

Deep Fried Prawn paste (outside ring) & Taro Root Dumplings (inside)

Shrimp Dumplings (outside ring)

Our third and last restaurant of the night was to Northern Dynasty (Gold award winner – Best Fine Dining) at 1180 – 8391 Alexandra Road. At this point, I was surprisingly not full, probably because I had missed out on the pork dishes and paced my eating well throughout the previous restaurants. It appeared we were in for a real treat with the next round of dishes as this restaurant specializes in Crab. Here we were served a multitude of dishes that included 1) Alaskan King Crab with Roasted Garlic 2) Deep Fried Alaskan King Crab with garlic and bread crumbs and some cucumber salad 3) Portugese Style Rice served In the crab shell 4) Hand Pulled Noodles in Crab Jus. After these main dishes we were also served a Choy Vegetable dish topped with ham. My favourite dishes and actually these were my favourite dishes of the evening went to the Alaskan King Crab with Roasted Garlic and the Deep Fried Alaskan King Crab with garlic and bread crumbs both of these were so very good! Then to our surprise which we were not expecting they served us a few of their own desserts. First was the Agar and I had the Coconut, Lychee and Black Sesame all were good this then followed by a Pumpkin and Tapioca Dessert Soup which was hot and so tasty.

Alaskan King Crab with Roasted Garlic

Deep Fried Alaskan King Crab

Portugese Style Rice

Hand Pulled Noodles in Crab Jus.

Agar -- Coconut, Lychee and Black Sesame

Pumpkin and Tapioca Dessert Soup

Then there is dessert, I know what you are thinking didn’t I just have dessert. Well our planned desserts for the evening was delivered to us at Northern Dynasty by Micky Zhau who is the Executive Pastry Chef of St. Germain Bakery (Gold award winner – Best Bakery) and he presented each of us with our very own box of desserts, this was his own creation of desserts that included Macarons, Madelines, Cannoli and assorted cookies and a chocolate box covered with chocolate figurines, such a beautiful presentation. I wasn’t hungry neither were any of my counterparts and we all took this dessert to go.

Executive Pastry Chef - Mickey Zhao

More than 9,300 votes were cast in 15 award categories for the second annual HSBC Diners’ Choice Awards with Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in each. The HSBC Diners’ Choice Awards are one of two components of the Edgewater Casino Chinese Restaurant Awards. The other is the Critics’ Choice Signature Dish Awards which will be announced at a gala event scheduled to take place following the 2010 Olympics. Good food, good taste and the art of dining well are very important topics in cuisine-crazy Metro Vancouver. Many of the winning restaurants are to be found in Richmond. In fact 56 percent of the winners come from Richmond with Alexandra Road being a hotbed of culinary excellence – six winners come from that one street! For true Chinese cuisine cognoscenti, Richmond is a Mecca for the best dining in Metro Vancouver.

This was quite the night and quite the feast. I was able to try many dishes that I have never eaten or heard of as well as visit such an array of winning restaurants for the very first time. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and hope that you will visit some or all of the above mentioned restaurants.

By: Richard Wolak