From Homesick To Hot Spot

My first introduction to Lao cuisine comes in the form of crispy rice nam khao and khao piak sen, a comforting chicken soup with handmade noodles.

I’m sitting inside Di Chai, Burnaby’s only dedicated Laotian restaurant, a multi-generational space where co-owner Lena Truong works alongside her parents, her brother Calvin, and even her nine-year-old son. 

The dishes on the table are rooted in the food Lena grew up eating in Winnipeg, where her Lao mother and Vietnamese father raised their family after arriving in Canada in the late 1970s. 

For me, these flavours are entirely new. For Lena, they taste like home.

“When I first moved here, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, where am I going to get this food now?’” she says, recalling her move from Winnipeg to Burnaby. “If you ask me what my favourite meal is, I will tell you Laotian food. And 99 per cent of the time, no one knows what it is.”

She began thinking that she couldn’t be the only person craving it.

“I just felt like it’s been such a sacred meal. Like it’s so hidden, and I felt like the timing of it would be so perfect to be shared with everyone.”

In 2024, Lena and her family took over a Vietnamese restaurant close to their Burnaby homes. Six months later, they began introducing Lao dishes, with her mother’s cooking providing much of the inspiration.

For some, the familiar food creates a connection back to something they thought they had lost.

She hears from customers whose mothers once made these labour-intensive dishes but no longer can, as well as younger Lao Canadians eager to connect with their culture.

“They’re just excited to see the Lao culture finally coming up,” she says.

Lena’s story isn’t the only local food story rooted somewhere else. 

Before my trip to British Columbia, Burnaby wasn’t exactly on my culinary radar. Yet there I was, in a city just east of Vancouver, contemplating another slice of porchetta at a family-run Italian deli, discovering the joys of an Aussie meat pie, sipping Belgian-inspired beer and getting a hands-on lesson in dumpling making at a bustling Asian mall.

Clearly, I had underestimated this place.

What made my food fest through Burnaby particularly memorable were the chefs, bakers and brewers I met along the way. Again and again, I discovered businesses born from a desire to recreate a taste of home, preserve a family tradition or introduce locals to flavours their owners believed deserved a wider audience.

It turns out that if you want to experience Burnaby, eating your way through it is a pretty great place to start.

From film sets to fermentation

Burnaby’s culinary influences aren’t limited to food, either. At Dageraad Brewing, Belgian beer traditions are the inspiration, but one of the people helping bring them to life took a rather unconventional route into brewing.

Before beer became his career, Mitch Warner worked in the film industry and brewed copious amounts of homebrew on the side. That hobby eventually led him to join the team behind Dageraad’s Belgian-inspired beers, which have earned awards nationally and provincially, including Brewery of the Year at the 2018 Canadian Brewing Awards.

It remains a relatively small operation, which Mitch sees as an advantage.

“Being small allows us to be more dynamic,” he says.

Along with nine core beers, Dageraad typically produces another six to eight new beers each year. 

While Belgian brewing traditions remain at Dageraad’s core — including techniques such as bottle conditioning — the brewery continues to evolve. Its lager program has expanded, while different yeasts allow its brewers to experiment with bolder styles without completely abandoning their Belgian roots.

A trip through Germany and the Czech Republic also gave Mitch a renewed appreciation for the refreshing simplicity of a well-made lager. One beer remains particularly close to the brewery’s heart.

“Blonde is our flagship beer,” Mitch says. “We wouldn’t be here without it.”

Come hungry to Crystal Mall

And while my food tour through Burnaby Heights offered a delicious introduction to Burnaby's culinary chops, it barely scratched the surface of what’s cooking across the city.

For proof, I only had to venture next door from where I was staying at the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown to visit Crystal Mall. Here the sheer number of places to eat could keep a hungry traveller satiated for days. The mall’s food court alone contains 29 food stalls, while another 12 eateries and five refreshment shops are found on the ground floor, and two restaurants sit upstairs.

There is an extraordinary range of choices here, Crystal Mall Strata Council President Alvis Tsui tells me, pointing to food from northern China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Shanghai — and plenty more.

His own favourites include freshly made steamed buns at Yummy Bao, fried noodles at Ipoh Malaysian Cuisine and baked chicken or pork with rice from One Cafe. Beyond the prepared food, the mall’s markets are packed with fresh fish, produce and ingredients you’re unlikely to stumble across at the average supermarket.

My own visit took me behind the scenes, where amid the steam, sizzling woks and bustle of a restaurant kitchen, I tried my hand at making dumplings with the help of some dumpling masters at Shanghai Dimsum House.

Mine weren’t exactly bundles of beauty, but thankfully eating your handiwork is considerably more forgiving than looking at it.

For Alvis, who has spent more than 15 years volunteering on Crystal Mall’s strata council, watching the mall evolve has become a point of pride. What began with a strong Asian focus is becoming increasingly multicultural as businesses representing other cultures move in.

“I am seeing Crystal Mall has an unlimited potential to grow into the most unique multicultural shopping and dining hub in the Greater Vancouver area,” he says. “It’s so satisfying and encouraging to see multicultural vendors and business operators choosing our mall to run their business.”

Ultimately, he says, “it’s a true reflection of Canada.”

After eating my way around Burnaby, I see what he means. And there were plenty more restaurants, markets and bakeries I had yet to explore.

What has stayed with me since returning from Burnaby wasn’t simply the variety of foods to try there. It was how much of those foods were tied to somewhere else: a grandmother’s recipe, a meat pie missed from Australia, a Belgian brewing tradition or the Lao dishes someone once thought they’d have to go home to enjoy.

Now I’m convinced that Burnaby is a foodie destination that deserves a spotlight all its own.