No.1 Beef Noodle House (Burnaby)

Address: 4741 Willingdon Ave. Burnaby BC
(SW corner of Moscrop & Willingdon)
Ethnicity: Taiwanese

Fortunately for me my parents often enjoy dining out and as a result many recommendations have been thrown my way. This particular restaurant is pretty easy to miss as it is located in the back-corner of the 'square' almost behind the convenience store.

What used to be in its place was a Malaysian/Singaporean restaurant called Orchid Delight. I'm not certain why it's gone now, the food was not bad by Canadian standards. I suppose it might have been a combination of location+price of food+price of rent that ultimately did them in.

My first impression upon entering the establishment was surprise. They've completely renovated the restaurant, wow, have they ever... unfortunately I forgot to take a snap. It looks more like a BBT place now, but pretty contemporary. There's a long bench along the South wall, seating room for about 30-or-so patrons and the counter is along the back. The menu was pretty nice too =p hehe, I know menu appearance doesn't exactly make or break a restaurant, but it gives you an idea on how much the owners care about their restaurant (does for me anyway).

The atmosphere was nice as well. It wasn't noisy like some of the other BBT spots in Vancouver. I didn't have to compete with the music or other patrons (who in other places would be shouting to be heard over the music or other patrons... ya). Upon ordering our food I wasn't sure what to expect regarding food quality or portion size. I'm happy to tell you that I was quite pleased, shocked actually because they are very generous and porvided some little extras that I was not expecting.

Me being my non-adventurous self ordered a Milk Tea w/ Pearls ($3+.50 for pearls) to drink and the Wonton in Chili Sauce (10pcs $4.50) to start.


I'd never tried the Wonton in Chili Sauce before, so it was just a random pick. I'm not sure what to make of the taste... don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but we couldn't put or fingers on the taste exactly. Tasted sorta like Wonton with chicken, pork, sausage, chili, ketchup... ya, you get the idea. Not sure if I'd order it again ;) but I definitely don't regret trying it =)


For my main I ordered the Crispy Salty Peppery Chicken with Rice ($6.95). I wasn't expecting to get full off the order... I was wrong. The main came with an interesting (warm) salad, deep fried tofu (sprinkled w/ meat), a bowl of rice (topped with pork) and the chicken... to tell you the truth I think the salad had some sort of meat with it too.

Overall this was a nice experience. The menu was fairly extensive, here are the catagories: Noodle (17 items), Rice (25), Soup (10), Appetizer (24), Dim Sum (11), Toast (11), Green Tea/Black Tea (42), Milk Tea (33), Special Milk Tea (17), Special Series (16), Fresh Fruit (18), Calpis Slush/Juice (18), Slush/No Milk (18), Smoothy/with Milk (19). Price was very good considering the size of the portions. The average price for a main was about $6, Dimsum about $4, Appetizers about $4. But to give you an idea, 3 of us were stuffed for little over $20. Would I go back? Yes =)

agh.. just read my post :/ must rewrite some of it later... sleep time =p