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I have been to many many good and bad Asian restaurants in Vancouver, its suburbs and elsewhere in the world. If you want a recommendation for a good authentic Chinese restaurant in a suburb outside of Vancouver pay attention and read on. I share with you a hidden gem is suburbia.

The name of this place is Deer Garden. They have 2 locations, both about 30 minutes in opposite directions from downtown Vancouver. One of the locations is in Port Coquitlam the other Richmond. I have only been to the Port Coquitlam location, so everything I say here is in regards to the Port Coquitlam location.

Unless you are at a “fine” dining Chinese restaurant, most Chinese restaurants are not known for there cleanliness, or service, but more importantly their food quality and quantity and value. You know you are at a great Chinese restaurant when it is packed all the time with Chinese people.

I went there this past weekend with eight members of my immediate and extended family to celebrate a late Chinese New Year dinner. Usually we order off this killer dinner combo menu that offers combo meals for 2, 4, 6, or 8 people.

If you order the combo for 2, you get to choose a selection of 2 dishes from a list of 100. The dinner combo’s all include Rice, Soup of the Day, Tea and Dessert.  The prices for combo meals for 2, 4, 6, and 8 people are $22.80 (2 people), $45.80 (4 people), $68.80 (6 people), and $88.80 (8 people) respectively.

We ordered the Combo dinner for 6, and because it was Chinese New Year we ordered an Alaskan King Crab. I haven’t had Alaskan King Crab in a long time, but I have to say Alaskan King Crab is my favorite type of crab next to the ever so tasty West Coast Dungeness Crab.

Our first dish was the complementary soup of the day. Wintermelon soup with pork bone soup base I believe. Whatever it was, it was warm, soothing and full of flavor. 

The Alaskan King Crab at Deer Garden did not disappoint, and it seemed like every other large table around us was having it as well. When we arrived to the restaurant around 7pm the crab tank was full, and when we left, the tank was half empty.

The Alaskan King Crab that was plucked from the tank for our table was about 11.5 pounds and it was served to as 4 different plates.

The first plate was a bunch of crab meat chunks quickly deep fried with some spicy jalapeño peppers and other spices.

The second crab dish was a large platter that had the crab legs sliced in half, steamed and served with some sweet soya sauce and shredded green onion.

The third crab dish was similar to the second one, but instead of the sweet soya souce and sliced green onion on top of the crab meat, there was soya sauce and minced garlic on top with fresh green onion cut in rings on top of the crab.

The fourth dish, was a crab fried rice. Get this, the crab fried rice was served to the table in the head of the crab shell! This fried rice was excellent!

The Alaskan Crab was the first 4 dishes, and the next dishes were the Dinner Combo for 6 that we selected from the 100 different dishes. We ordered:

1-Stir Fried Pork Cheek with String Beans. This is dish is one of my favorites. The beans are cooked to absolute perfection. Every time I have these beans, they have the same great taste and are just the right crunchiness. The cooks must have the temperature and timing just dialed as I can’t get my beans at home tasting like this.

2-Sweet and Sour Pork . I’m usually not a big fan of Sweet and Sour Pork, as usually the sauce is too think or too runny or the taste is off or the pork is too dry and cold, but here at Deer Garden the sauce is bang on and the pork is hot, tender and moist. The fresh pineapples had a great sweet flavor and the bell pepper and white onion had the optimal crunch.

3-Curry Boneless Chicken – What can I say about this dish? This dish is just awesome. One of my top 5 dishes here at Deer Garden. If you like curry, you will love this dish. The bowl is massive and overflowing with tender, juicy, marinated boneless chicken. I have no idea how they get such the flavors, but this dish here at Deer Garden goes down as one of the best curry dishes I have ever had; both homemade and from a restaurant. The curry sauce is just KILLER on the rice!

4-Assorted Seafood Hot Pot – If you like an assortment of Seafood cooked in a hotpot style, you will like this dish. The pot came to the table still steaming from the heat. I’m not a big fan of mixed seafood dishes, so I picked for the fish, tofu and other recognizable pieces of food from this dish. The gravy is something to note and very good on rice.  Everyone else at the table really liked this dish.

5-Steamed Cod with Tofu in Black Bean Sauce – Hands down this is one of the best dishes at this restaurant. I love steamed cod, and I love tofu. The combination of these two with soya sauce and fresh black bean sauce topped with crisp circular cut green onion is to die for. One scoop of this dish onto your rice and you will be sold forever. If you go here, get this dish. The fish and tofu are cooked just right and if you don’t like tofu, don’t worry about it, because the tofu doesn’t even taste like tofu it is cooked so well.

6-Chinese Gai Lan with Mushroom, Carrot and Chicken – Yet another perfectly cooked vegetable dish. The Gai Lan had just the right crunch, the dish wasn’t greasy and the other accompaniments were just savory.

 

Dessert- So after the soup, 10 dishes, and some rice we had some dessert. The dessert that is included in the meal is a Hot Red Bean style soup, but it really wasn’t Red Bean Soup. I can’t remember the name in English of Chinese, but all I know is this is one of my favorite after dinner dessert dishes. Served to you piping hot, this mixture of red bean, coconut milk barley and black rice is a perfect cap after a big dinner. I love this dessert! I just wish they had it every time I ate here as they change up their desserts every night.

As mentioned above, Deer Garden is a great place to go if you want authentic Chinese food that is consistent, tastes outstanding and an awesome value. This place is always packed full of Asians which is a really good sign that the food is great. Lots of Asians don’t eat at a place if it isn’t good!

Don’t expect the waitresses to wait on you hand and foot as at times, the service is non existent because this place is so packed and busy.  On this particular night the service was pretty good, but I have been here on some nights where getting service isn’t very good and you are always waiting around for someone to come by.

This is one of those places where if you want something, you had better wave your hands in the air and flag someone down or go up to the counter and ask.  Although the service is at times slow, once you have your order in with someone, the food is amazingly quick to come to your table. I have never waited more that 5-8 minutes for the first dish to hit the table after I have ordered. After the first dish, the rest just keep coming at the right times.

If you are a big “ambiance” type person, don’t come here expecting the most romantic or trendiest place on the planet. The interior is pretty boring and the high pot lights and the single yellow lights over the booths, with the hand written florescent poster boards  don’t help at all.  There is no fancy entrance, swank bar or back ground music.

Our bill for 8 people that were all very hungry was  $282.16 CDN plus tip. $195 of this was the crab dish. We were all super full at the end of the night and even had a full bag of left overs to take home.  Like I mentioned above the crab was a bit of a treat due to the special Chinese New Year celebration. $282.16 averages out to about $35.27 per person. Not too bad considering we just had a 12 course meal including soup and dessert. Usually we would have ordered the Dinner Combo for 8  and that would have averaged to about $11.05 CDN per person before tax and tip.

If you are looking for a no frills, authentic Chinese food restaurant in the Coquitlam suburb of Vancouver this place is it. I have taken many of my non asian friends to this place and they all love it.  This place focuses on good, plentiful, excellent value food and will keep you coming back time after time after time.

Ranking  (out of 5 stars)
Food – 5.00
Service – 2.75
Washroom Cleanliness – 2.50
Restaurant Ambiance – 2.00
Plate/Cutlery Cleanliness – 3.50
Value – 5.00
Overall rating: 3.46

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