Sun Sui Wa - Richmond

You know a blog is in decline when posts come up only every few months and the only pictures that are posted are from a crappy phone cam, haha!  But I promised a friend I would get back into it so here we are.  My buddy Eric was in town and we hit a couple of places like Le Crocodile, and The Keg, but I've reviewed those places already and this time around, I only had my phone cam so I'm not going to repost.  We still have to go to Bishop's one of these days, but that will have to wait till his next visit.

So the night before Eric went back, he tells me he has a craving for seafood.  I was thinking ok, let's go to Alleluiah and he can have the baked seafood on rice but he had other things in mind.  We ended up at Sun Sui Wa, a place that evidently has no late night combos of baked seafood on rice that comes with a cream soup and ice lemon tea.  I let Eric do the ordering and we started off with this scallop and mushroom soup (at least I think there were mushrooms in it).  I guess they were using dried scallops to make it, so the first thing I thought of was how I was going to replicate this and my mind drifted to the Chinese medicine shops in Chinatown that sell dried scallops.  I figure dried scallops, enoki mushrooms and cornstarch?  Anyway, it tasted good.

Eric ordered Alaskan King Crab steamed with garlic and green onions.  It was a medium sized one apparently, but there was enough to feed about ten people and there were only three of us this night.  I have to tell you, I don't eat much Alaskan King Crab, maybe a few times a decade.  It sure is a step up from dungeness crab, which is already a treat so when Eric ordered this, I couldn't stop grinning.  The three of us stuffed ourselves to the point where we actually had about a quarter of the dish left.  The crab was steamed perfectly and the meat came out from the shell without much effort.  Surprisingly, the garlic didn't overwhelm the flavour of the crab.  Since we had leftovers, when the staff were packing it all up, I made sure that they didn't pour out the drippings.  It's packed full of flavour that you could easily make a crab bisque with it, or dump it into pasta, or cook veggies with it.  It would be criminal not to.

On top of ordering crab, Ercic also ordered scallops steamed in a similar sauce of garlic and green onions.  The three of us were on sensory overload from the crab already and the scallops came half-way through.  Surprisingly, we were still able to enjoy the scallops.  Again, steamed perfectly, not rubbery at all.

Another shot of the crab.  I know we had veggies at some point in the evening, but I guess I was so distracted by the seafood, I must have neglected to take a picture of it.  The food at Sun Sui Wa was pretty good, as was the service.  The staff was always there to make sure we had clean plates, the dishes came quick and they were always friendly.  You know it's a better than average Chinese restaurant when they give you the wet wipes before and after your meal, haha!