Garlic & Chili Restaurant

Normally, I enjoy food from Southern China which is also known as Cantonese Cuisine which is basically famous for allowing to speak for itself. Today, I want to venture up North where everything is spicy and has lots of flavour, meat and is rich. Venturing into Garlic & Chili, I was not disappointed in what I had ordered.
I ordered the cumin lamb and the green beans since I was fancying some lamb. The lamb was very tender and the cumin was the right amount since it can overpower and cover the dish easily. The green beans had a touch of garlic which perfectly balanced the flavours of the dish.
These are the type of restaurants I would definitely be happy to recommend to if I want to recommend some food from the North.
+.5 for accepting credit cards.

I live close by in the neighborhood and I enjoy coming here for the lunch specials. The prices are very reasonable — includes choice of rice or noodle dish with choice of wonton soup or hot and sour soup. My advice is to take the hot and sour soup. The wonton soup is not that good in my opinion.
I usually order a chicken type rice dish (i.e. chicken with black bean or with mushrooms and bamboo shoots). The food is always freshly prepared and delicious. I agree with another reviewer that this place won’t be anything too special if it is in Richmond but it is exceptional based on N. Burnaby standards. Seriously, it is a hidden gem in North Burnaby.
I’ve been here for dinner too and the dinner menu is great. My favorite dish is the cumin lamb — you won’t be disappointed if you like lamb!
Extra bonus as this place also accepts credit card which is not too common for a small Chinese restaurant.

I absolutely love this place! The food is always so fresh, tasty, and AMAZING! Definitely have to try the country style wonton when there (Alert-​spicy!!). My mouth is watering just writing this review.

I’m honestly amazed that this strip mall is still around, after 25+ years. Unless you live here, you’ll probably only encounter it by accident. The restaurant is open later than other businesses in the strip mall as well.
Parking is plentiful, as I’m sure the land is really cheap back then.
The interior is mostly pink and white, and gives the place a bit of a tacky feel.
Overall, the food is on the mediocre side. «Food Court» comes to mind.
Hot and Sour soup — hot in temperature, but missing the hot in spiciness.
Honey garlic spare ribs — nice fluffy batter, but again, missing that special something.
White rice — served in nice giant bowl for sharing.
Stir-​fried chicken — again, missing that special kick.
Overall — meh. Mediocre and forgettable.

The lunch specials here are very good value. The quality of the food is solid especially for a place in north burnaby.
The regular dinner menu is decent but not spectacular. If this place was located in Richmond it wouldn’t be worth mentioning but for north burnaby it is a stand out. It is probably a slightly above average restaurant in terms of the GVR but for burnaby it is one of the best.

* Egg tart quest sidetrack *
On the never ending quest for a perfect egg tart I went on a wild goose egg tart chase today to find the bakery recommended by Claudia L. to be shut down for a holiday for a month! Argh! It was a long drive away to face that «Dear Customer» sign.
I regretted schlepping out there to return tartless, but figured I would make the best of it and stepped in a few doors down to try out this restaurant.
I got a bit scared when I first saw the menu as it looked like a full-​on Canadian Chinese menu at first glance. Items like lemon chicken and General Tso’s chicken.
Yikes! What did I get myself into?
But then I spotted one dish that sounded good — Szechuan Beef Noodle Soup. And it was on the lunch special pricing of $ 5.50. I figured, «Why not?»
The food was actually not bad. The beef had been seared before being put into the soup, so it held in its natural juices very nicely. It was very tender. It had a slight bit more fat content than I normally like — but it was tasty. The veggies in the soup were at the right consistency as well — still with a bit of crunch. And the noodles were actually perfectly done. Didn’t expect that! The only major drawback was the broth. It had such a large amount of MSG that you could taste it. I was happy to find a few actual Szechuan peppercorns to give your tongue that good numb feeling as well — also not expected at this location.
Overall a pretty decent lunch, for not much at all.
The place is pretty clean as well, as it appears they recently renovated and changed names to Garlic & Chili. There were some hints that the place used to be called «Chiu Yuet» or something such as that.
The egg tart quest continues, with its pleasant diversions along the way!