Down in Chinatown tonight

I got a Travelzoo coupon for Sai Woo.  I haven't been doing many of these lately since somehow they seem to make it less of a good deal than it seems.  But I was especially attracted to the menu which had "Chinese Paella" and included two glasses of wine or beer...could we resist that...no!

We haven't been to Chinatown for a while and being in UBC we thought we probably wouldn't be going down there as much.  But, this is an amazing restaurant and we loved wandering around Chinatown.  It's nice to see this community coming back although many are complaining that it  is becoming too "gentrified".   Well,  it was almost dead when we came back to live in Vancouver 6 years ago and I was very sad to see that.   In my student days at UBC, I  had many wonderful meals with my friend,  Judy Hanazawa, and her Chinese friends, at the On On Gardens.  The menus were only in Chinese and no one spoke English so you pretty much had to go with Chinese speakers.   For a wonderful meal with an unbelievable amount of food and free tea of course was 75 cents each.  Them was days...

The City of Vancouver has put up a number of very interesting history notes.  We loved seeing these and I hope there will be more of this around the city.

This is a bit out of order...it goes with the photo of the men working on the railway.

Lots of colourful things for the eye in Chinatown!  It's a wonderful antidote from seeing all the fancy designer shops on Robson.  To think that Robson was "Little Italy" and cheap restaurants...ah,  how times change.

Now,  this is the building where the restaurant is and there is quite story about the neon sign.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/searching-for-a-lost-piece-of-vancouvers-chinatown

I thought this was rather cute.  We didn't see "Pounce"

We walked into the public park at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden...lovely oasis in a busy city.

Jim and I were born in the year of the Pig.

Richard was born in the year of the Snake. It says you shouldn't have much to do with people in years of the Pig...well,  you can't choose your parents!

Saiwoo

I loved the real trees with light and the dragon...!

So,  the first course was sharing an appy.   This is about 1/3 of the portion of Korean Chicken.

This is the Chinese Paella.   I took half of it home.  Jim finished his as you would expect.

And we split this amazing chocolate dessert.  Jim had most of it,  of course.

Trying to find something or a photo of the On On Garden...no luck but brought this up.  Wow...I do remember so many of these places!  A trip down memory lane.

http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/history-of-vancouver-restaurants-a-chronology-and-memories