Kao's Family Restaurant - Richmond, BC

Came across this small joint from Urban Spoon. This restaurant is quite hidden and it's through the power of Google Map Street View that helped us find it. If you are familiar with the restaurants on Alexandra Road in Richmond, it is located in the same mall as Deer Garden and Haroo. It is in the lower level. You should see the signs on the lower level to guide you. 

When we got there, there were only one other table. The place isn't very big and can only fit a few tables. The restauant is family owned so the husband helps with the front while the wife is in the kitchen cooking. We wanted to try one of their homemade appetizers, but they were sold out. So we ordered the seasoned seaweed instead. We also ordered the beef brisket noodles and the dumplings.  Because there is only one person in the kitchen, the food took some time to get to the table. 

First came the seaweed. I really wanted to like it and I normally like anything seaweek but this dish was quite bland. It was boiled / steamed seaweek with some oyster sauce seasoning on top. The dish itsel was small too and it was $5 I think. It was definitely on the pricey side considering the quantity that we get. 

I was really craving beef brisket noodles because we recently had a family friend who made her taiwanese beef brisket noodle and it was so good. So we were craving it. Unfortunately, this noodle was not as good as the one our family friend made. The soup itself wasn't too flavourful. It seemed like the broth still needs some time. The noodle was alright, nothing spectcular. 

Lastly, we had the dumplings. We enjoyed the filling of the dumplings and would prefer more meat. The dumpling skin was too thick though. We can definitely feel that it was homemade with the filling as the filling was quite fresh. The greens in the dumplings were still quite crunchy. 

Overall, I am not sure if I would come back again. I feel bad for the couple because we should definitely support local business but the most of the food wasn't worth me coming back again. 

I hope the couple would step up their game and make better food so I can go back and visit again.