I first went to Happy Valley about five or so years ago. I was driving out of Vancouver around midnight, and it happened to be open. DL spotted it while we whizzed by on East Broadway. When Happy Valley first opened, they had late-night hours and were open until 1 or 2 am. The next time we went for late night snacks, they had tweaked their hours to close at 11pm or midnight.

Needing a quick snack we stop into Long’s Noodle House. Coming off of a long ferry ride, having some food at Long’s Noodle House is a welcome break. Have you subjected yourself to BC Ferries lately? The fares are crazy.

We decide to just get some old standby dishes, before heading out to complete some evening tasks in Vancouver.

Wine Chicken ($6.95)

Red Star Seafood Restaurant, the last time I ate here was several months ago for a 10 course dinner service. I’ve heard good things about their dim sum, so I am very eager this morning to give it a go.

Deep Fried Pork Dumplings

Oy, an hour and 40 minutes. That’s how long our wait was to be seated in Din Tai Fung. I hate waiting. Generally, I won’t do it. I can probably tolerate 20 minutes...if I have errands to run...otherwise I go elsewhere. This is not a choice today as I am dining with others and Din Tai Fung was the agreed destination. Damn it.

This blog post started as a reply in the comments section of the Victoria Oriental Restaurant post. As I started to respond to mikeeymike's comment about poor service at Victoria Oriental (...terrible name by the way, who uses the term Oriental anymore?), it occurred to me that this might be an informative (...or offensive, depends on how you take it) post to have on the main page
The following is not speaking directly about the service of the above restaurant, just simply a response to a comment and some things I’ve noticed about certain places I go to.

I've been watching the renovations of this DDE since Spring. It was a dodgy looking place for a while, and then all of a sudden there was sprucing up going on. I thought it was just getting a face lift on the outside and I totally expected it to still be dodgy on the inside...I was so wrong.

**UPDATE 2012: Zen Garden is now closed***

Washington State is NOT a great place to have dim sum if you are accustomed to having dim sum in places like Richmond,BC. In fact some Washingtonians suggest that their peers make the drive across the border to get their dim sum fix in Richmond.
Zen Garden is kinda dodgy looking. The building looks a bit like a recreation centre from the outside.