King's Chinese Cuisine

For the last family dinner before my relatives flew back home, we decided to go to Fraser Court Seafood Restaurant since we haven't been there in years. We dropped in unannoucned without a reservation again like we did previously at Empire Seafood  Restaurant, but had no luck this time. There was a full blown wedding reception in progress and we left hungry.

After much discussion, we finally decided to head to King's Chinese Cuisine. We've been going there for years, and while it's a bit of a dive, the food is consistently good and affordable. We're not the only ones that of that opinion as King's is always packed and this time was no exception. After a short wait, we were seated and once again proceed to order from a set menu in Chinese that I had no part of since I am Chinese illiterate. Even though we have a party of 5, we ordered a 6-person set meal, this time featuring a crab main, at $88.

Unfortunately, they seemed to have forgotten about us as we sat around for a good 20 minutes and had to call the staff multiple times before we were served anything. We were all too eager to dive in when we were finally brought our first dish, an appetizer of jellyfish and pork hock. This is a cold cut dish of shredded and marinated jellyfish and thinly sliced ham hock.The jellyfish was very crisp and both it and the pork was very flavorful.

Next, we were served fish maw soup. This was a very large portion for 6 people and everyone had at least 2 servings each. This had noticeably less chunks of seafood than the other night at Empire, but this was not a surprise since we expect to pay a lot less for this meal. Despite this, the soup was very good and enjoyed by everyone.

After the soup, we were brought the pepper salt fried prawns. This was shell-on shrimp deep fried with lots of chilies, scallions, and garlic. The shell was sliced open at the top to facilitate easy peeling, but was still a bit of a hassle to peel. The flavor profile was very good though. The chilies were sweet and not overly spicy, and there was plenty of garlicy flavor without being overpowering or salty.

We were then brought the live crab. This looked to be poached crab topped with a thin sauce and served on top a bed of egg noodles with ginger and scallions. The essence of the crab was infused into the sauce and made the egg noodles very delicious. However, the sauce was very mild and could have used a touch more seasoning.

The next course to come was fried tofu skin with mushrooms and bok choy. There were osyter, shiitake, and enoki mushrooms served with a thick sauce. The tofu skins and sauce were very sweet and went very well with the tender bok choy. This was a very delicous dish.

The 6th course was cod and broccoli. It again had a thin sauce that was adequately seasoned, and both the fish and broccoli were nice and tender. This is a pretty typically executed dish you can find at other restaurants. Nothing special to say about it other than that it was well executed.

At this point, we were pretty stuffed, so we were quite surprised when the pepper chicken hotpot landed on our table. We didn't think we were going to touch this very much, but we ended up finishing most of it because it was soooo delicious! There were huge chunks of succulent boneless skinless chicken, with pickled red and green bell peppers, and onions. What made this dish successful was the sweet and sour peppery sauce. This was very appetizing and rejuvenated ours right away. The pickled vegetables were crunchy and crisp, and married very well with the tender chicken. Everyone loved this dish!

We ended the meal with the usual red bean soup. This was a very good meal, and dollar for dollar, much better in my opinion than the one we had at Empire the previous night. Not only were the flavors altogether more successful, but we had a lot more to eat as well. If you don't mind the fact that they've probably never renovated in 20 years and that the paint is literally chipping and peeling off some of the walls, King's is a great place for some decently priced Chinese food. Be prepared to wait for a table though. They were especially packed at lunch since they also have dim sum awesomely priced at $2.30.

Pros:
-decent food at reasonable prices
-decent portions
-cheap dim sum

Cons:
-food can take a while to come out
-extremely busy
-you can see the paint peeling off the walls
-service can be sparse due to volume of customers

Notes:
-small parking lot in back.
-ample free street parking nearby

Rainbow Butterfly

I took by parents out for a belated Chinese new year dinner on Friday. They're in Coquiltlam and I'm in Vancouver, so it was difficult for me to get out to see them other than on the weekend. The selection of Chinese cuisine in the tri-cities area is pretty abysmal, but Rainbow seems to be one of the better ones. I first found it through Sherman's Food Adventures earlier this year, and have been back for dim sum and dinner several times since. They look to be a family run business, with some hired help.

Rainbow Butterfly isn't named like your typical Chinese restaurant, and doesn't look like one either. The place looks like it was a former western diner or coffee house of some sort, and it's clear that they didn't bother to redecorate much. This is probably because the Chinese population around Port Coquitlam is pretty scarce, and they cater to a lot of western clientele. If you ever come here for dim sum and dinner, you'll notice quite a larger demographic of non-asians than at your typical Chinese restaurant. Their menus are heavily based on Americanized Chinese food as a result, with lots of sweet and sour, chop suey, egg foo young, fortune cookies, and other crap like that. No self-respecting Chinese person orders this garbage for dinner.

They do have authentic Chinese cuisine, which I find delicious and well-priced, but they only bother to publish these on the menu in Chinese characters, which is a shame. This means I can only ever eat dinner here when I'm out with my parents or other Chinese literate people. Why they do this is beyond me. They're probably losing a great deal of business this way. It's also probably why their place is virtually deserted at dinner time, while packed beyond belief at lunch. Another odd thing to note is that despite some Chinese-only menu items, Some of their Chinese waitresses at lunch isn't fully Chinese literate!

Since I had my parents with me that night, I got to eat the good stuff! We ordered from their set meal, which comes with soup, a bucket of rice and dessert, with a minimum order of 2 menu items. We ordered 3 items, and was immediately served the soup of the day. It was a pork bone soup with veggies. There were bits of pork that fell of the bone, carrots, onions, and lotus root in the soup. This was mildly seasoned and a very nice way to start the meal.

The last time we were here, we had 3 hot pot dishes. They were all $10.80 and were HUGE. We though it was a great value and expected more of the same this time. Unfortunately, the first dish that we ordered, Cod Fillets with Gai Lan, was underwhelmingly small. As the most expensive dish we ordered that night, we were not impressed with the tiny amount of fish. The last time we were here, we had a cod and tofu hot pot, and it was cheaper at $10.80 and at least 3 times the size; a giant pot stuffed with cod , tofu, shitake mushrooms and Chinese ham.

Fortunately, it was made up for by the extremely tender gai lan and melt in your mouth fish. The dish was tossed in a lightly salted thin sauce. We griped quite a bit amongst ourselves about the disappointing portion  here, but agreed that it was very tasty. We wouldn't ever order this again, but at least it was enjoyable.

The second dish we had was also a bit of a disappointment. It was a vegetarian dish made up of Tofu and Bean curds with Veggies. I don't quite know how to translate it into English, so that's the only description you're going to get. Again, we expected more tofu and less veggies. It became clear immediately that we had ordered more veggies than we would have liked. Again, the tofu was a mild thin sauce and very appetizing, but the broccoli was less impressive than the gai lan we had earlier. Some of it was slightly bitter, and my dad thinks it's probably pesticide that should have been washed off. Yuck! That aside, I still enjoyed this dish.

The last dish to arrive was the eagerly awaited hot pot. We ordered this last time and was my favorite dish so we had to order it again: Chicken and Taro in Coconut Sauce Hot Pot. This was a huge pot overflowing with thin slices of taro and boneless, skinless chicken. Most places I've been to serve this with skin-on, bone-on chicken, and makes it a chore to eat. Rainbow's version is the best I've had, and a great deal at $10.80. The chicken and taro are stewed in a thick coconut sauce with large cloves of garlic, and slices of ginger. This was as delicious as I remembered. We couldn't finish all of it, and I ended up packing it home. I had some for lunch today, and will finish off the rest of dinner tonight. YUM!

To finish off the meal, we received the daily desert, which was Red Bean with Black Glutinous Rice Soup. Most places just give you plain red bean soup, and this version with black glutinous rice was very welcome, and successful. It was not overly sweet, and the rice added a nice pleasing chewy texture. It was a fine way to to end the meal.

The final bill is pictured here, so you Chinese literate people can see what we ordered. It was about $15 per person after tips, and I think it was reasonable. It was a little disappointing today, and we had a much better experience last time with all hot pot items, but I think that we will still return some time in the future.

I've also been here for dim sum before, and as I mentioned previously, it's always packed. Their dim sum items are quite reasonably priced at $2.75 for most items, and with a wide selection to boot. As their restaurant was originally designed as as western diner, they have little room for push carts, so dim sum is by order forms only. They also have some cheap lunch specials from Monday to Friday, but the fact that these prices were only for weekdays is noted in Chinese only. This led to quite a rude surprise when we got the bill. The price for some items increases by as much as $2 on weekends, and others no longer come with soup and rice. On week days, these are under $7 or $8 and quite a deal in my opinion.

Also of note is that when I first sat down on Friday, I started snapping pics of the menu while my parents perused the menu. One of the wait staff (looks to be the owner or owner's wife) saw me and immediately came over to ask me to stop. She made it clear she didn't want their menu posted anywhere, and I will respect her request. I took one of their handout pamphlets on the way out, and will post pics of this instead. Unfortunately, it looks a bit outdated, and not quite the same as the one we were given at the table. Hopefully it will give you an idea of what they serve here and the price ranges.

Pros:
-large portions on hot pot items
-decently priced
-cheap dim sum
-mostly well-executed food

Cons:
-lots of westernized Chinese food on menu
-doesn't look like a Chinese restaurant
-packed during dim sum hours, doesn't take reservations for lunch
-good dinner items are in Chinese only
-inconsistent portion sizes
-parking lot can be packed during lunch hours

Notes:
-street parking can be found about a block away
-have cheap weekday lunch specials

Menu: (owner requested for full menu to be omitted, so here is the take out menu/pamphlet)