Hakkasan Bistro and Canada Berries

I was invited to an event hosted by Hakkasan Bistro and Canada Berries, a local winery in Richmond that specializes in fruit wines. We started off the evening with a tour of the winery and some wine tasting. The staff were very passionate and knowledgeable about the wines. I never even knew we had a winery in our own backyard! While I am not a huge wine drinker, I do enjoy fruit wines and we got to sample several of their most popular wines. My favourites were the Blackcurrant and Cranberry wines. Popular among some of the other guests were the Peach and the Blue Queen Gold (blueberry) wines. There were also some appetizers to munch on, including grapes that were grown in their own vineyard! The green grapes are smaller than those you find in stores and very sweet!

After the wine tasting, we were shuttled off to Hakkasan Bistro. The restaurant is located in an industrial area so it's quite hidden. It's a small space but very modern looking inside. Hakkasan is a fine dining establishment that features authentic Cantonese and modern Chinese cuisine. Their dishes originate from the Hakka culture with popular Hakka dishes such as Ancient Style Salt Baked Chicken and Hakka Mui Choy Braised Pork Belly, with other dishes that fuse more contemporary styles.

Canada Berries provided fruit wines to pair with the meal.

To start off, we had an appetizer dish of Jasmine tea smoked mushroom beancurd crepes, balsamic cloud ear mushroom, honey roastsed BBQ pork cheeks. The pork cheeks were very tender.

 Next was a bouble boiled whole young coconut pork soup. Easily my favourite dish of the night, this is one of the specialties at the restaurant which require ordering a day advanced. It is double boiled for over 3 hours and the soup is infused with the flavour of coconut.

I was looking forward to the specialty odourless garlic lobster on Jasmine rice. You all know I love garlic! This did not leave any garlic breath, and the lobster and rice were delicious!

Next was the ancient style Hakka salt baked chicken. The chicken is marinated with a combination of herbs and spices, wrapped in parchment paper and the slow baked. The parchment paper allows the chicken to remain moist without being overly salty.

Country style fish fillet - the fish were tender and the peppers and onions gave it that extra kick. 

Hakka homestyle steamed egg, pork and duck yolk. This one another favourite of the night, as my family used to make steamed egg all the time. It has a very smooth texture, similar to tofu, and the duck yolk on top made it even better! I definitely recommend ordering this if you visit Hakkasan.

The braised pork hock comprises of very fatty meat that is cooked in sauce. It was a bit too salty for my liking, but could go well with rice. The restaurant staff will cut the pork hock up into serving sizes for you.

For veggies, we got the mui choy stirfry seasonal Chinese greens. This dish was very flavourful, since it had some pork bits in it too.

We ended the night with a steamed milk dessert. It was very smooth and creamy, and wasn't too sweet. Delicious!

Overall, it was an excellent dinner with many unique traditional and modern dishes that are must tries. They offer fixed and tasting menus as well as a la carte, so you can go and try some of the dishes mentioned above! I had a wonderful time - thank you Hakkasan Bistro!

Disclaimer: The food and wine mentioned above were provided free of charge by Hakkasan Bistro and Canada Berries. The opinions expressed in this post are those of Savvy Shopping, Deals and Reviews and have not been influenced in any other way.