Alexandra Chronicles: Peaches Cafe, It's š...
- 604Menu
- May 22, 2024
- 6 min read
May, 7, 2024
Another edition of Alexandra Chronicles! This week I visited Peaches Cafe, a Hong Kong-inspired cafe serving Cantonese classic dishes. Keep reading to find out more about this restaurant and what they offer... (spoilers: there isn't much!)
Special Guest This Week: Chrys Lim
Back with a new featured special guest! This week, Chrys has joined me on this journey! I first met Chrys back in high school we became close friends from taking the same classes and riding the bus together after school. Starting 604Menu has opened many opportunities for me to reconnect with past friends that I haven't spoken to in a while. Chrys has been a close supporter of mine since the inception of 604Menu and I knew it would be fitting to bring him along as one of my special guests. Chrys' fun fact is that he has a fervent passion for singing in the shower! Chrys' positive energy is unrivalled and he is excited to share his experience with you down below!
Socials:
Atmosphere
As I entered the restaurant, I was getting a lot of conflicting feelings. The colour and illumination of the dining room contradicted the demographic of the customers. When you walk into a restaurant catered to family-oriented dining, you expect a cozy and homey feeling but with the bright lights bouncing off neon walls, it felt as though I was walking into a fashion show where the spotlight was on me. It was quite uncomfortable as you received these unanswered feelings along with glaring and blinding lights. As you scan the area, the demographic of the restaurant is mostly families and seniors, so for two male friends in their twenties you can see why we felt out of place. Like many Hong Kong cafes, if you've ever been to any, it is quite rushed. Lots of loud noises such as the clattering of dishes and utensils, waitstaff calling out orders and interacting with customers and many loud conversations fill the room all while food is flying out of the kitchen swiftly. This kind of atmosphere is not for everyone especially if youre looking for a relaxed and chill place to dine in the afternoon or evening, this is quite the opposite of what you would want.
The Menu
The Menu is quite complex. Similar to many other HK-style cafes, they have hundreds of dishes on their menu. Sometimes you wonder, with the number of different items and dishes that they have to offer at these HK cafes if actual human beings are in the back of the kitchen cooking, or if it's a robot and a machine that are processing the orders with how many different kinds of dishes and variety, it's hard to believe that a few people in the kitchen can remember and produce all the food on the menu. To simplify some of their menu offerings, some categories of dishes that are served are soups, snacks, sandwiches, baked rice, steaks, spaghetti/penne, curry, noodle soups, and fried noodles to name a few. It is honestly quite overwhelming with the amount of options you can choose from. Chrys and I both found it difficult to decide on a dish and it took us over 20 minutes to just read through what they had and to finally order. I have attached parts within their menus for you to view you can click on the photos below to take you to their main website where you can see their full menu and offerings.
The Dining Experience
It is quite simple to sum up the entire dining experience. The first thing I want to highlight is the service. The service was extremely slow, which is interesting given that the entire dining experience felt like it was rushed and as I mentioned earlier the atmosphere also gave a very rushed feeling. They were slow to take our orders and slow to recognize when we needed assistance. When our food eventually came, they got it wrong by serving us the wrong drinks. It felt like the waitstaff didn't care and was putting a subpar effort to satisfy the needs of the customers. Speaking of subpar, their food was also very mediocre. Nothing about this restaurant in terms of their food is a wow factor in any sense. It's your typical HK-style restaurant and the food is as average as they come. For more details about the individual dishes, keep reading below!
Chrys and I took family-style dining in Cantonese culture to our dining experience where we got two extra bowls and shared our dishes so we could each try the other person's dish. The family-style dining in Cantonese culture emphasizes communal dining and unites friends and family alike by sharing a variety of dishes at the center of the table.
Iced Lemon Tea (Comes With Your Entree)
Chrys' Rating: 7/10
My Rating: 4/10
A traditional custom that comes with every HK-style cafe is that every dish comes with a drink of your choice, usually ranging from hot beverages to an extra charge for cold beverages. If you are an avid consumer of Cantonese food, you would know that Iced Lemon Tea is a staple when it comes to drinks in Hong Kong. In my humble opinion, it's quite difficult to mess up something as simple as a classic Iced Lemon Tea, with quality lemons and proper sugar and tea ratios, this classic dish can turn a mediocre entree into a treat. However, I found that their Iced Lemon Tea was peculiarly bitter. The tea itself also tasted extremely watered down. I have rarely ever BAD Iced Lemon Tea because it is tough to screw up this HK classic drink, yet they were able to pull it off.
Chrys' EntrƩe - $20.74 CAD
Baked Seafood W/ Cream Sauce on Rice
Chrys' Rating: /10
My Rating: 5/10
Baked dishes are a staple in Cantonese cuisine. The baked contents are served in a casserole-like dish that is placed directly in the oven and brought to your table piping hot. The contents in the baked dishes can range from anything from rice, pasta, seafood, chicken, and beef, the options are limitless!
The seafood contents in this baked rice dish were quite inconsistent. We found that the fish was rather dry and overcooked. The scallops and mussels were extremely tough to chew and the imitation crab meat was so soft and slimy that it tasted like a paste. We also thought that the dish was quite dry and could use more sauce to enhance the flavour as well as more vegetables to incorporate more texture that can elevate the dish. Overall, there isn't anything about this dish that stood out as unique or outstanding and I wouldn't recommend it as you could find this dish virtually at any HK-style cafe.
My EntrƩe - $26.50 CAD
House Special Chow Mein
Chrys' Rating: 5/10
My Rating: 5/10
I ordered the House Special Chow Mein, another Cantonese classic. This dish is unique due to its preparation method. The dish includes special egg noodles that are deep-fried in oil to create a crispy and golden brown texture. It is served under a thickened cornstarch sauce that incorporates a variety of Chinese classic sauces such as soy sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce and chicken broth. By merging the distinct flavours and contrasting textures of crispy noodles with a thick, savoury sauce, you are presented with a harmonious dish that boasts complementary tastes and unique textures.
Some issues I had with this dish include the runniness of the sauce. Normally, the sauce for this dish should be quite viscous, and thick to compliment the crispy noodles, however, the sauce on this dish was quite runny which ruined the dish. The noodles were also quite "starchy" in taste which made me think that the egg noodles they used were quite low quality. The beef in this dish was rather dry and overcooked, but the sauce helped to mask its dryness. On a positive note, the black pepper adds a nice kick to the dish that enhances the flavour and the extra vegetables such as mushrooms, onions, and bell peppers provide fresh textures and colour to unify the dish.
Chrys' final scores
Service: 6/10 Atmosphere: 9/10
Iced Lemon Tea: 7/10 Baked Seafood W/ Cream Sauce on Rice: 7/10
House Special Chow Mein: 5/10 Ryan's final scores
Service: 4/10 Atmosphere: 6/10
Iced Lemon Tea: 3/10 Baked Seafood W/ Cream Sauce on Rice: 5/10
House Special Chow Mein: 5/10
Overall Score: 5/10
Overall this dining experience at Peaches Cafe was quite a letdown. When you come to Peaches Cafe you can expect fast (but not accurate) service, decent portion sizes and a bright calm interior design. What you WON'T find is quality food, attentive care, and a chill atmosphere where you can wind down with some friends and enjoy food. I probably wouldn't come back here as there are many different HK-style cafes in Richmond that I could go to that are much better and I wouldn't recommend you visit this location either. Peaches Cafe Official Website: https://www.peachescafe.ca/
Peaches Cafe Phone Number : (604) 285-3311
Address: 8580 Alexandra Rd Unit 1020, Richmond, BC V6X 4B3
Ryan Ng
BCIT Bachelor of Business Administration |
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