The food fair is intoxicating with vendors cranking up smoky grills to sizzle meats and seafood and dazzle passersby with performances of cutting, shredding and mixing as flames flare up behind the Plexiglas windows. Chefs hawk Hong Kong-style nibbles and many traditional Chinese dishes from crammed stalls. An April to October weekend extravaganza, it features 110 food stalls filled with specialties such as sushi tacos, barbecue squid and octopus, and fried things on sticks. It’s North America’s largest outdoor market spread across 18 acres near the Bridgeport Canada Line Station.
(Photo by Elliott Almond)įor first-time visitors, the Richmond Night Market perhaps best represents the cultural shift. James Chen has served Uyghur food at the Night Market for 15 years. Now practically everything from China can be found amid gleaming apartment buildings and state-of-the-art shopping centers. Richmond’s Asian citizenry once had to travel to Vancouver’s Chinatown to get bags of rice, Medrano recalled. “A bunch of Hong Kong restaurant groups planted their flag in Richmond” after the 1997 handover to China. “We’re living in a white colonial town and you have this amazingly rich ethoberg with great Chinese food,” local food blogger Fernando Medrano said. With more than 180 local farms, Asian chefs have access to produce as well as freshly caught fish off the docks at Fisherman’s Wharf in the too-cute village of Steveston. The township has remained a haven of cranberry and blueberry production. I explored Richmond four times this summer to sample as much food as possible because, well, someone had to do it.Įarly colonial settlers gravitated to Richmond because of the fertile soil. No wonder Chinese immigrants call it Fu Gwai Moon (Fortune’s Gate). With a population of about 75% Asian descent, Richmond is the center of dim sum palaces, food courts offering to-die-for noodles and dumplings and expansive Chinese grocers, such as Foody World and T&T Supermarket. The atmosphere resembles the streets of Chengdu or Hong Kong just an hour’s drive from Bellingham.
In the past two decades, Vancouver’s agricultural suburb across the Fraser River has been transformed into an energetic community of Hong Kong and mainland China immigrants who brought their traditional cooking to British Columbia, similar to what has happened in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley. The public market is the working-class contribution to a flourishing Richmond food scene that has gained international attention for its diverse Asian chefs and out-of-this-world menus. The spicy pig’s ears at the Richmond Public Market are served in a plastic cup.
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