February 25th, 2014

Chinese New Year

  

This is the parade passing by my favorite Vancouver Chinataown restuarant, the Gain Wah on 200 block east Keefer Street this past Sunday.

I wandered around Chinatown afterwards and marvelled at the changes in businesses in recent years from since I have been visiting this historic part of town since I was a kid in the 1960's.

In a building occupied by the Wongs' Benevolent Society on the 100 block east Pender Street is this very neat stained glass window; maybe it is the only one in Chinatown.

The day before, there was a special event hosted by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC at the Vancouver Public Library centred around a book called Eating Stories: A Chinese Canadian and Aboriginal Potluck which features great stories by 23 different authors including handed down recipes.  

 Moderator Hayne Wai, holding up a family photo from 1959.

 Shirley Chan,  Larry Wong & Dan Seto presented stories.

Shirley read some excerpts recalling when she and her family were part of the stopping the big freeway project in the 1960s & 70s that would have obliterated Chinatown and Strathcona neighbourhoods, and the memorable dinners held to pull people together in this eventuallly successful fight with City Hall.

Larry spoke of how life in Chinatown in the 1940s and 50s was pretty closed and tight; and about his sister moving out and ending up in Ontario where she married a white man.  They came back to visit and the father had proclaimed disowning her for leaving home, and then even more so, for the interracial nuptials.  But Mr. Wong the father ended up accepting the new member of the family when he showed how much he loved Chinese food and ate everything Mr. Wong cooked up, which was old Chinese village style rather than Chinese Canadian restaurant style.

Dan grew up in Alberta and recounted how the long time local benevolent society hung on and he finally joined.  Through this, he learned of  history of Chinese in Canada and of his own family roots, to the point where he finally undertook a trip over to China in 2005 to where his ancesters where from near Guangzhou.  The society in the past five years has dissolved due to the passing of the elder generations and the disapora of young Chinese Canadians.

The audience was invited to ask questions or share stories, and invited to purchase a signed book.  Some other books mentioned were  Chow - From China to Canada: Memories of Food & Family by artist Janice Wong that is about her parents who operated a Chinese Canadian Cafe in Print Albert in the 1940s to the 1980s, with lots of great recipes.   Also, the history of Chinese food in America through a book called Chop Suey. All of these books are available through Vancouver Public Library.

Talking with this guy afterwards, upon knowing I grew up in North Van he asked if I remembered to old St. Alice Hotel, now gone.  Indeed, and I remembered the great little hole-in-the-wall Chinese kitchen in the beer parlour where I would drop in for an oyster burger sometimes, they were the best.  He said it was his Dad and Uncle who used to run that kitchen. That was neat.

Then I went upstairs to the Special Collections department where they have volumes of the BC Chinese Canadian Directories from 1945 up thru the 1970s.

I selected randomly the 1958 issue as it was in a hey day of Chinese restaurants and Chinese owned cafes  & coffee shops. From this directory I provide the Vancouver ones including a couple from North Vancouver and Burnaby as listed:

This picture of some of my local Chinese Restaurant collectables is in the BC 150 Virtual Museum online project from Emily Carr Art College.

Below I am sharing some old menus...

Don't know the date of this menu, maybe 1940s or 50s?

The Ho Inn,  1964

Before it burned down, the Ho Inn was my overall favorite Chinatown restaurant.  Very neat with little wall jukeboxes at the booths. Once when I was about 4 or 5 years old, my family went for a dinner there.  Upon paying, my Dad claimed he paid with a $20 bill not a ten and required more change.  The man at the cash register said Dad paid only with a ten.  So they had quite an argument and Dad slammed his fist down so hard on the counter that the glass broke.  So the guy told my Dad he was phoning the police, and my Dad said go right ahead, he isn't going anywhere.  So Mom ushered me and my brother out quickly and said Dad would come home later.

In the 1980s I used to play summer adult ice hockey out at UBC on Wednesday nights. Afterwards we'd often go down to the Ho Inn.  The guy that ran our group was quite a character.  He would call out as soon as we walked in, "Come on, Ray. Set a dozen cokes on every table!"  and then put a bottle of rum in a bag under each.   Sometimes some of the wives would meet us there too.  After dinner was done, we'd all have to break our frotune cookies open and give them to Ted our head guy.  He would read them for us.  Of course, they were all one liners, a lot of fun.

Just up the street on the next corner was the Ho Ho Chop Suey House, the place with that amazing iconic neon sign.  A buddy and me used to go there often on paydays.  Chow Mein for me, and Tomato Beef Fried Rice for him.    The waiters were all old guys, wore these green lab jacket type smocks.  They would walk up the aisle and slam down the menus on the table and keep going.  Then they would come back and plunk down the tea pot and a couple of those little handleless tea cups and keep walking.  Then a few minutes later come back to the table and take the order, repeating it out loud.  Then walk away without change of express the whole time there. 

In recent years the owner had died and so the owners of Foo's down the street decided to buy it.  Then the fellow died and his wife Joanne Lam ran it until it closed recently. A sign on the door says under renovations and opening summer 2015.  Doesn't look like anything has started though.

The On On Gardens up the street, or was it on Keefer, the block past Main Street, had a good reputation. My Dad used to love their dry garlic ribs with the black bean sauce there.  Once a buddy and me went in and Canucks general manger Jake Milford and his wife were at a table across from us.  Jake saw that we recognized him and being the gentleman he was, he gave us a smile and nod knowing we must be Canuck fans.

At this point I will mention another Chinatown restaurant I really liked, this would have been back in 1977.  It was in Market Alley that ran between Pender and Hastings Street. This place was called the Green Door.  It was in the back of a gambling club and very, very cool.  Really it was like stepping back into the past.  Just a couple of tables and some stools at a counter where you watched them in the open kitchen.  Cheap, delicious.  It closed down in the early 1980s.

I thought I had a picture of The Green Door Restaurant in Market Alley that I had taken back in 1977,  but all I could find was this one and I don't know that it is the restaurant. I think this shot is right across the alley looking at the north, or Hastings Street side of the laneway.  During one of my moves one time I lost a whole box of photos taken back in the mid-70s, you know how it is when you're a young guy moving around a lot, things sometimes end up going missing....

JASMINE INN, North Van  late 1970s or early 1980s

Over in North Vancouver where I live,  this restaurant ran from the 1960s to the 1980s.  The phone no. was one number different than my home phone when I was growing up and we used to get a lot of wrong numbers called.  I remember one Sunday when I was about eight or nine years old, very rainy one as I recall, and we had several calls thinking we were the Jasmine Inn.  Finally on one of them, when the guy on the line asked if it was the Jasmine Inn, I said "Yes, it is".  He asked to make a reservation for six people for 6 :30 so I took his name. Afterwards, I felt guilty.  I felt bad because the entrance to the restaurant could only hold a few people then the rest lined up outside, and what if the restaurant was full and these people thought they had a table reserved, etc....oh well. Bad boy I was.

We hardly ever ordered in from Jasmine Inn.  Our favorite was the Green Jade, around the corner at Lonsdale.  Mom and Dad had a few pretty good fights when we were growing up and sometimes no words were spoken between them for a time.  It would usually end when my Dad would finally say to my Mom to order in Chinese food.   It was great excitement because it meant everything was alright again.  The foil tins of food on the range of our oil stove was like a smorgasbord.  I used to love dipping my fork into the soy sauce then the sesame seeds.  My favorite food was, and still is today--and I make it at home all the time, is Chow Mein. Yummy!

Other Chinese restaurants I remember in North Van in the 1960s were Wings, at 18th & Lonsdale. Somehow we never liked their food.  Then they had a fire in the kitchen and it was reported that it was due to grease so that did it for my Mom not to order from them anymore.   

Then on Marine Drive across from Heywood Park was the Kau Kau Corner.  They got busted for using alley cats, that was a scandal.  I do remember lots and lots of alley cats all over North Van back in the day.   

Up at Edgemont were a couple good Chinese restaurants. They were the Woodbine Inn and the Edgemont Diner.  I liked to go to the Edgemont Diner in the 1980s often for lunch. Chow Mein of course.  Tony Fung was the guy who ran it.  Recently, I found out that Tony and his wife were still in the restaurant business with a little cafe on Hastings near Nanaimo Street.  A few weeks ago I went to find it, only to see this:

Later Chinese restaurants in North Van were many, and the one called Yic's down on 3rd Street was a favorite. Very affordable, smorgasbords.  And the scorpion bowl.  Once my ex and I were there with another couple and it turned out to be the 10th anniversary and they gave us each two free drinks to celebrate it.   Jack the owner expanded with Cheers down on the next block and finally closed Yic's down.  Now six months ago Cheers is closed. Owner Jack & his wife deserve their retirement too.  Great community minded folks too, they hosed thousands of community organizations and political parties and banquests upstairs; they will be missed.

Back to Vancouver Chinatown dining, you might like to check out this website where a number of people have shared their memories from in the 1960s & 70s:

http://urbandiner.ca/2010/09/27/vancouver-chinese-food-in-the-70s/