In the amber glow of a late afternoon, I find myself crammed between strangers at a round table in a Richmond restaurant. Someone’s grandmother is insisting I try more har gow—crystal-skinned shrimp dumplings that shimmer under the pendant lights. This isn’t just another meal; it’s my third food stop on a tour that’s revealing Vancouver’s intricate relationship with Hong Kong cuisine.
“You can’t understand Vancouver without understanding our food stories,” says Stephanie Yuen, a food writer who has chronicled Chinese cuisine in the city for over twenty years. She gestures toward the dim sum carts rolling past us. “The flavors here tell you when people came, why they left home, and what they brought with them.”
Vancouver’s connection to Hong Kong runs deep and complex. According to Statistics Canada, the city saw its largest influx of Hong Kong immigrants between 1984 and 1997, coinciding with uncertainty around the territory’s handover to China. This migration transformed neighborhoods like Richmond, where nearly 54% of residents identify as Chinese Canadian.
But it’s not just about demographics—it’s about taste. The tour begins in Chinatown’s historic streets, where older establishments serve dishes largely unchanged since the 1960s. Our first stop is a bakery where pineapple buns (containing no actual pineapple, but named for their crackled sugar topping) are pulled fresh from ovens. The owner, Mr. Chow, hands me one with a slice of cold butter tucked inside—a classic Hong Kong teatime snack.
“My father opened this place in 1975,” he tells me while expertly wrapping egg tarts. “Same recipe from Kowloon. We didn’t change anything because the first customers were homesick.”
What makes Vancouver’s Hong Kong food scene unique is its preservation of traditions that have sometimes faded in Hong Kong itself. Several tour participants—themselves Hong Kong emigrants—note that certain dishes taste more authentic here than back home.
“In Hong Kong, space is so expensive now that many old-style cafés have disappeared,” explains Dickson Wong, who moved to Vancouver in 1992. “Here, there was room to keep cooking the old way.”
We move from Chinatown to Richmond’s Alexandra Road—nicknamed “Food Street”—where newer establishments showcase Hong Kong’s contemporary cuisine. Inside a sleek dessert café, we sample mango sago pudding and black sesame soup. The owner explains how she modified traditional recipes to appeal to younger tastes while maintaining essential techniques.
What strikes me most is how these food establishments function as cultural archives. At each stop, stories emerge along with the dishes. One restaurant owner shows us photos of her parents’ dai pai dong (street food stall) in Mongkok before they moved to Canada. Another describes adjusting recipes to accommodate local ingredients while maintaining authentic flavors.
“When my family first opened in 1995, we had to bring certain spices from Hong Kong in our suitcases,” says Jenny Lam of Golden Paramount Restaurant. “Now, with so many people from Hong Kong here, those ingredients are grown locally or imported properly.”
The tour reflects Vancouver’s unique position in the Chinese diaspora. University of British Columbia sociologist Dr. Miu Chung Yan notes that Vancouver became home to one of the most concentrated Hong Kong populations outside Asia. “Food businesses were often the first enterprises established by new arrivals,” he explains. “They created economic opportunities while providing cultural continuity.”
This continuity is increasingly important as Hong Kong itself undergoes rapid change. Some tour participants discuss how Vancouver’s Hong Kong-style establishments have become time capsules preserving culinary traditions that are transforming in their homeland.
The final stop on our tour is at a cha chaan teng—a Hong Kong-style café serving comfort foods that blend Chinese flavors with Western influences. We share plates of baked pork chop rice, milk tea, and macaroni soup. These fusion dishes emerged during Hong Kong’s colonial period and tell stories of adaptation and creativity.
I watch an elderly couple at the next table methodically working through their meal, precisely timing the dipping of their pineapple bun into steaming milk tea. They’ve likely performed this ritual thousands of times, and there’s something deeply moving about witnessing such ordinary, persistent connections to home.
As Vancouver continues to welcome newcomers from Hong Kong—with recent political changes triggering a new wave of migration—these food spaces take on renewed significance. They’re not just restaurants but community anchors where language, memory, and tradition are maintained.
Standing outside our final stop as evening settles over the city, I think about how food tours like this one offer more than culinary experiences. They provide windows into the ongoing story of how communities recreate themselves across oceans, adapting while holding tight to what matters most.
In Vancouver, that story is written in char siu and egg tarts, in the steam rising from bowls of congee, and in the careful folding of dumpling skins—each dish a small act of cultural preservation served one table at a time.
