VanCityGuide
Food & Culture

A Newcomer's Guide to Richmond's Food Scene

By VanCityGuide Team·Published February 20, 2026·Updated April 5, 2026
The exterior of Aberdeen Centre shopping mall in Richmond at night, home to one of the best Asian food courts in North America.

Richmond, BC has arguably the best Chinese food scene in North America. That's not hyperbole — food writers from the New York Times, Bon Appétit, and the Globe and Mail have all made the same claim. But for newcomers arriving in Metro Vancouver, knowing that Richmond "has good food" doesn't tell you where to start, what to order, or how to navigate a food court where 90% of the signage is in Chinese.

This guide is for you.

Start at Aberdeen Centre

Aberdeen Centre is a three-level shopping mall in Richmond City Centre, connected directly to Aberdeen SkyTrain station on the Canada Line. The third-floor food court is the single most famous food destination in Richmond — it has more than 30 stalls serving regional Chinese cuisine from across China, plus Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian options.

What to order on your first visit:

  • Xiao long bao (soup dumplings): Shanghai-style steamer baskets with pork broth inside each dumpling. $8–12 for a basket of 8.
  • Hand-pulled noodles (la mian): Wheat noodles stretched by hand in front of you, served in beef broth. $12–16.
  • Hong Kong-style milk tea: Thick, strong, sweet. $4–6. The good ones use a silk stocking-style strainer.
  • Egg tarts: The Portuguese-style ones with a flaky pastry crust. $2–3 each.

The food court is busiest on weekends from 11am to 2pm. Go on a weekday for shorter queues.

Alexandra Road — "Food Street"

Alexandra Road between No. 3 Road and Garden City runs for about 6 blocks and has more than 200 Asian restaurants packed into strip malls on both sides. This is the stretch food writers mean when they say Richmond has the best Chinese food on the continent.

What's here that's hard to find elsewhere:

  • Sichuan hot pot with 40-ingredient broth and tableside cooking
  • Xi'an-style hand-pulled biang biang noodles — thick, chewy, spicy
  • Cantonese seafood — live tanks, whole steamed fish, lobster with ginger and scallion
  • Taiwanese bubble tea shops with fresh taro and brown sugar
  • Vietnamese pho houses and Malaysian laksa spots

If you speak Mandarin or Cantonese, you'll navigate easily. If you don't, Google Translate's camera mode on menus is genuinely useful. Most restaurants have picture menus or point-and-order systems.

Steveston — the seafood option

Steveston Village is Richmond's historic fishing village at the southwest tip. The food here is completely different from the City Centre Chinese scene — it's fresh-caught Pacific seafood, fish and chips (Pajo's is the institution), and waterfront cafés.

Go to Steveston specifically for:

  • Fresh spot prawns off the fishing boats (seasonal, May–June)
  • Fish and chips at Pajo's on the pier
  • Japanese restaurants in the village (several excellent sushi spots)

Night Market

The Richmond Night Market runs Friday through Sunday evenings from May to October. Over 100 food stalls with carnival-style Asian street food — takoyaki, grilled squid, bubble waffles, lamb skewers, mango sticky rice, and everything else you've seen on social media. Entry is around $5.

What a casual dinner costs

A typical casual dinner for one in Richmond runs about $18–22 — noticeably cheaper than downtown Vancouver for equivalent quality. See our full Richmond cost breakdown →

Getting there

The Canada Line SkyTrain runs from downtown Vancouver to Richmond-Brighouse in about 22 minutes. Aberdeen Centre is one stop before, at Aberdeen station. No car needed.

Ad slot · horizontal