Ruby Chinese: Bittersweet Farewells

Another restaurant closing gathering, all quite bittersweet. Basically, I grew up with Ruby and the staff there since everyone was like family there. This post is basically the farewell party on their last day!

They officially closed after lunch, I saw some people there for dim sum still, but she had portioned off three tables for guests to sit at. It was so warming as strangers shared a table and recalled all our good memories at the restaurant. They were familiar faces since we see each other so often during dim sum. First they served a Potato Salad! It was gigantic for 8 people! Crispy melon mixed with soft potato and loaded with shrimp, so amazing!

Food continued to appear on our table, there was soup with fish maw, super yummy!

Favorite is their Singaporean fried rice noodles, just as I remember them =)

They called this "Owner fried rice special" because it was personally made by the owner herself! Loaded with ingredients, this tasted delicious.

One of our all time favorites must be their pan fried string beans, mildly spicy with meat bits and the beans crunchy and flavorful-- I'm definitely going to miss this!

Then poured in many many dim sum plates freshly steamed! Various buns stacked atop each other, some sweet, some savory.

There was also har gow (shrimp dumpling), which is kinda crazy because in all my years here we've never actually ordered it! First--and last =(

Pork hock was one of my grandma's favorites, since they're so tender and the flavors are all soaked up into the pork hocks.

I've always admired them for having clean oil to fry their foods (they change it weekly and sometimes more frequently if the "color" of the oil changes), as compared to most Chinese places that just use their oil until unfryable. These tomato sauce shrimp were lightly fried and had just enough sauce to coat the outsides. These were quite large as well, and crunchy in my mouth!

We all held the plate of deep fried squid since we were running out of room on our table! So heavenly.

Look at how much food we still had! This was about the time when three people from our table had to leave-- leaving six of us staring at all the food.

There was bonus beef omasum-- Elephant's favorite! (Too bad he wasn't here for it)

Here's the owner still working hard, going around to make sure everyone was comfortable and well fed.

There was so much food left over and we couldn't bear to waste it, so packing it for later!

Lastly, a picture with the owner (and famjam)! Thank you for the many years of great memories, food, and chatter! We will definitely miss you, and hope you see each other around town ^-^

Hon's Wonton House: Going down memory lane

Wanting to relive some childhood memories, we made a trip with the famjam for dinner here! Came here as a kid a lot, never really liked the food, but for nostalgia's sake ^-^

Restaurant: Hon's Wun Tun House (visit their website here)

Location: 310-3025 Lougheed Highway (in Sunwood Square), Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Noodle Shop
Price range: $10-15 per person



Date of visit: March 4, 2015
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

We had the Pork and Chicken Pan Fried Potstickers ($3.98/6; $7.29/12), turns out ordering two types counted as 2 orders of the 6, not really a big deal, just throwing it out there. Crispy outside and juicy inside, this was very fresh and just like how I had them as a child. Still mediocre because it was very oily but very nostalgic.

Then we ordered a Two Barbequed Meats Platter ($9.25) with BBQ Duck and BBQ Pork. This was quite delicious, the duck was meaty and the pork was very real (not overly tenderized).

"Honey Moon" Fried Rice ($12.50), so we ordered one. Lots of sauce, both of which were rather bland but had adequate ingredients. Rice was good underneath.
I forgot if we ever got this here as kids, but I really liked

Elephant's favorite, House Special Fried Crispy Egg Noodle ($11.50) had super crispy noodles and lots of ingredients on top. I felt it was very oily but not enough sauce to soften the noodles (I'm not one for crispy noodles).

Finally, a Hong Kong Style Congee Large ($10.20) to finish off our meal. This had the basic ingredients down, such as pig stomach, jellyfish, fried pig skin, and squid. However it was rather sparse and the congee base didn't taste or feel ricey enough (likely thickened with flour).

Walking down memory lane, I grew up with Hons and they have neither deteriorated nor improved. At least it's at an expected level of quality!