Silver Tower Cafe in Richmond – A poor imitator

We pay plenty of vists to HK Cafes. Sometimes too often. But we’ve only begun to scratch the surface in covering the numerous HK Cafes around Vancouver.

Today I paid a visit to Richmond’s Silver Tower Cafe on Alexandra road. A suspiciously familiar looking logo caught my eye upon entering the parking lot.

Hm… where have I seen that before? Oh yes,

I didn’t find any innovation from the food either. Their menu has all the usual HK Cafe items at a very reasonable price, and lets you mix and match to create your own combo plate.

Pick any 2 entree items for $8.50, or 3 items for $9.55, and that includes a hot/cold drink and soup.

We ordered the chicken steak and roasted duck leg, which was slightly dry and satisfactory at best as far as chicken steak goes, and the Thai style cod and eggplant.

From a pricing standpoint, Silver Tower is very competitive with its neighbor across the street, Kam Do (one of my favs, and to be reviewed soon), but falls short on food quality. I’d really only revisit S&T if its the only place on Alexandra road that had parking stalls.

I know we at ESR don’t usually write reviews of restaurants we don’t like, but hopefully we are doing the public a service by warning everyone of bad restaurants too.

Food: 4/10
Value:6/10 there’s really better food to be had for the same price
Redeeming feature: If you get to sit at a booth, its fairly private with the high seat backs and feels like you’re in a cubicle farm.

Like this, but in black

Interestingly, while googling for a logo of T&T supermarket, I came across this bit of news. T&T supermarket is/was apparently under investigation for human rights violation for forcing its foreign hired workers into working overtime by means of contract trickery and unnecessary retention of passports.

I really hope they get the punishment they deserve from court if this turns out to be true, because I don’t know if I can boycott Vancouver’s largest Asian grocer.

One Pic Post – Nissin Seasfood Cup Noodle

When you don’t have the time or pocket change to go out for a restaurant prepared meal, there’s always the option of eating dehydrated rations out of a styrofoam cup. If you feel guilty about not consuming any of the 4 basic foods during a meal, don’t be. Over 5 billion servings of instant noodles are eaten each year by Japan alone.

That’s 40 per person, or 1/10 of a package a day. The Japanese are a perfectly healthy group of people, so there’s really nothing to worry about if you have one once in a while.

Nissin has been making instant ramen under the Cup Noodle label for 50 years, and was in fact the inventors of the noodle and cup package. There’s an incredible variety of flavors for cup noodles, but unfortunately here in Canada we don’t get to see very many of them.

This particular Seafood variation (only available in China/HK) is found in T&T supermarkets in Richmond, and usually when you do find it on the shelf, there’s only a handful of the regular sized cups left.

For $1.79, you get a cup chock full of noodles and flavoring bits, enough for an afternoon snack. The yellow ball bits you see in the picture seems to explode MSG into your mouth (that’s a good thing).
I could not slurp the soup due to its saltiness, and had to water it down with more water after eating some of the noodles, which are cooked al dente after only 3 minutes.
Other than having to refill the water again to enjoy the soup, this has got to be the best instant ramen I’ve ever had. You pay a premium over the other brands, but you’re rewarded with an unostentatious, superior cup of noodle.

Ramen Rating: 9.7/10

Anyone else have a favorite noodle they’d gladly use as meal replacement?