After just two months of having Michelin Guide Recommended status, a high-end Vancouver Chinese restaurant has quietly shut down.
Regal Mansion, which occupied a sprawling upper-level space near City Hall at the City Square shopping mall, closed at the end of 2023.
The owners sold the business to a new restaurant called ChiuChow Seafood Restaurant, which opened in December, a representative for City Square told V.I.A.
For its part, Regal Mansion debuted in December 2020, touting its 40-year culinary veteran Chef Hui, who curated the restaurant's extensive menu that featured several dishes using high-end seafood ingredients, like abalone.
However, the restaurant did face backlash for its inclusion of shark fin on its menu.
Michelin Guide praised Regal Mansion for its dim sum, seafood, special dishes
Regal Mansion was added to the Michelin Guide's list of "Recommended" Vancouver restaurants in the awards' second year in the the city, just two months before the business was sold.
Of Regal Mansion, the Guide's reviewer effused: "There are always diners lined up waiting for a table here, where a wall of Dungeness crab gliding around their aquarium hints at the seafood-focused meal about to be enjoyed."
"From the dim sum menu, pick the steamed chive dumplings with spinach sauce, or pan-fried pork dumplings that will have you ordering another before you've finished. Chicken feet in herbal soup will cure what ails you, but don't skip the chef's special menu with items such as sizzling cauliflower with Chinese preserved meat," suggested the Michelin Guide.
Regal Mansion's website is gone, and while its Instagram is still live, the business had not posted in several months prior to its departure.
New restaurant showcases the delicate flavours of Chiu Chow cuisine
With just a few weeks of operation under its belt, Regal Mansion's replacement, ChiuChow, has lofty ambitions: "As an authentic Chiu Chow restaurant in Vancouver, ChiuChow Seafood Restaurant is committed to offering the most genuine Chiu Chow cuisine and preserving the cultural heritage of it," describes the new business on Instagram.
"We adhere to using traditional Chiu Chow ingredients combined with culinary artistry, exploring innovation, and preparing exquisite dishes that embody the rich colour, aromas, flavours, meanings, and presentations of Chiu Chow cuisine."
Chiu Chow (also often spelled Teochew) cuisine originates from the Chaoshan region in the eastern part of China's Guangdong Province but also shows Cantonese influence. Dishes tend to favour vegetables and seafood and are delicate in flavour, relying on the freshness of ingredients.
ChiuChow's menu includes dishes such as poached cuttlefish, pan-fried stuffed tofu in clay pot, and a Chiu Chow-style marinated meat platter. The restaurant has live seafood available to enjoy served in a variety of preparations. There are two shark fin soups on the menu; the restaurant indicates one is an "imitation" product.
Follow ChiuChow on Instagram @chiuchowseafoodrestaurant for updates.
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