Sanbo Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

Located tucked away in Richmond’s Empire Mall. Much of the storefront parking was limited - many spots on the south side of the lot are designated 30 minutes only but there is also a three-level parkade (3 hours max). Came in on a busy holiday Friday evening. Restaurant was bustling with diners and our party of nine were shown to a table in the back adjoining room. Strongly recommend making reservations for dinner no matter the size of party. Ordered and dined on the following: Curry Crab with rice cakes - a house speciality; curry was a yellow curry with a mild kick; crab was delicate and meaty; fantastic flavour profile with the rice cakes absorbing the crab and curry flavours well Salted Egg Yolk Crab with rice cakes - crab meat again very tasty but this time coated with the savouriness and texture of the dry salted egg yolk coating Soy Chicken - a house speciality that lives up to its title! Chicken marinated in an exquisite soy recipe with a balance of savoury and sweetness; chicken was moist and tender. A bowl of white rice is a must-have to soak up the sauce! Sweet and Sour Pork - deep fried pork pieces coated with a nice sweet and sour sauce. Gai lan with garlic - crisp and tender; tossed in a minced garlic sauce Salty Egg Yolk Fish Skin - crunchy, salty, what’s not to like?!?! A nice savoury compliment to the meal Preserved Vegetable and Pork Belly (“Kow Youk”) - pork belly was so tender and came with the preserved vegetables and Napa cabbage. Spicy Prawn Vermicelli - a must-try dish (and a must-repeat for many diners I’m sure); ample sized prawns in a hot pot of vermicelli that really absorbs all the spices and flavours so well!

Overall a fantastic dining experience- food was incredibly tasty and fresh; despite being a busy Friday night the dishes came out quite quickly. An accompanying soup was served before the first dish and the meal was capped off with the dessert of green bean porridge/soup. Drinks at our table included iced lemon teas and an iced lemon coke. The staff were friendly, helpful and accommodating! A quality experience through and through! Meal before tip divided by 8 adults (one accompanying child) came to $62 which was well worth it for the quality of food and service! (all accompanying photos courtesy of fellow diner in our...

Following our Northwest Pacific themed, seafood-centric lunch, we settled for a relatively simple Chinese dinner. With a prerequisite criteria that the chosen restaurant must offer one of Rosy’s favorite dishes - “ Cantonese style steamed LIVE whole fish with julienne scallions, ginger, cilantro in premium top soya sauce and finishing off with sizzling oil “. Our gracious and hospitable hostess, acting once again as our chauffeur, picked this smallish, award winning restaurant as our venue. Whilst our past Toronto Chinese Restaurant Award winner - the now defunct ‘O’Mei’ was famous for its ‘ Giant Lobster 5 ways ‘, ‘Sanbo’, a Vancouver award recipient is famous for preparing ‘Alaskan King Crab multiple ways‘. As such, Sanbo kitchen’s forte is their skilled ‘ wok-hay ‘ preparation in all sorts of seafood. However, their rise-to-fame was actually non-seafood related but rather, the result of their amazingly tasty and perfectly executed house specialty - ‘ Rose essence, herb infused premium soya sauce poached free range chicken “! With huge demand for this gem by dine-in and take-out patrons, it was believed that the kitchen needs to prepare over a hundred of this bird every day to satisfy the craving of its fans! In addition to ordering the above captioned fish and chicken dishes, we augmented them with a simply prepared vegetable dish of ‘Poached pea shoot with fried garlic nuggets in Chicken ‘Shang-Tong‘ broth’.

For our choice of fish, sadly, being a Monday, the priced west coast Grouper was not available. Instead, we opted for a couple of Pacific Soles. Less meaty but with more delicate, velvety and less firm flesh. Perfectly cooked and enjoyable! As for the chicken, it was as good if not better than all the hype bestowed upon it. Flavourful, great texture and yummy!

For dessert, they even offered us a rarely encountered, classic Chinese hot dish…” Baked creamy Tapioca/Sago dessert “.

For our next visit, we have already made it our mission to round up enough people beforehand to try out their Alaskan King Crab,...

My brother and my uncle decided to have some chinese food on a Wednesday night and I felt like having it after I played football the entire afternoon-evening. We decided to go to Sanbo Chinese Restaurant which was recommended by one of my uncles friends and I had very high hopes for this place because I thought it was good however, it turned out to be the EXACT opposite. To start off, we ordered wonton noodle soup which was the most mediocre and average soup I have had and it was not as good as other quality places that I have eaten them. The vegtables and fried rice that we ordered was very average and it wasn't that good but the Kung Pao chicken that we had.. Oh my god it was not good at all and my brother and uncle eaten it and they thought it was very bad. It was essentially just 20% chicken and the 80% was just a bunch of chillies, peppers, nuts and other vegetables. Not to mention that the floor was very greasy and slippery and after coming back from playing football in the rain, I was not in an ideal situation and it was very unprofessional from the restaurant to have it very dirty and slippery to have it's customers walk in it, very unacceptable. Other than that, the only good thing from tonight was the sweet and sour pork which was the ONLY thing that could even redeem the restaurant from it's poor food and poor cleaning.

In conclusion, the bill costed nearly 200$ for my uncle which was ridiculous and I think that we recommend you should go to other chinese restaurants that serve BETTER quality of chinese food and much more cheap than what this was because paying nearly 200$ for that quality of food for my uncle was unacceptable. We will probably not come back here anytime soon and I encourage you guys to not come here if you are thinking of having chinese food for dinner or...