2 min read

Memory Corner

Updated: Nov 21, 2020

Memory Corner was voted Best Taiwanese restaurant in Canada by Asian Star TV. They won out over 375 competitors after an extensive evaluation by food experts, and through an analysis of media comments and online ratings. This restaurant is so adored that it inspires love letters. The story of this restaurant begins in 1975 when the owner opened a traditional Taiwanese lamb restaurant in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

"Originally Yu-Liu Wu worked as a supervisor for a government-run shipbuilding yard but found that his salary was not sufficient to support his wife, Hsuang Wu, and their 5 children. To make ends meet Yu-Liu and Husang operated a business from their home selling noodles, fruit, shaved ice, tea, and bread." He rode his bike for several hours to another village to study the art of Taiwanese lamb cuisine, and once mastered quit his job to start the restaurant. The restaurant was several hours by bicycle from home and he made the trip every day. It has been handed down for 3 generations.

When you enter the Richmond restaurant there is a sign that reads: "All meals are freshly made to order... Please wait at least 30 minutes during rush hour..." and they mean it!

Ordering one of their lamb dishes only made sense, considering that this was the family's speciality. We'd never seen lamb belly on a restaurant menu and immediately got excited. Each piece of lamb had a healthy strip of fat, which was beautifully balanced with lots and lots of julienned ginger. We absolutely loved this dish!

One of the best ways to get to know a culture is through its comfort food. Since this was our first experience with Taiwanese cuisine we just had to try one of the classics: Taiwanese Meat Sauce. Braised ground beef is coated in a well-spiced and slightly earthy sauce, then served with a marinated egg. It was amazing! We hope to find a similar recipe so we can enjoy this at home some day.

Being food adventurers, we're suckers for anything on a menu that sounds unusual to us. It's fair to say that "Blood Cake" immediately caught our eyes. These cakes are far more about texture than flavour, as much of the flavour came from the sauce. The texture was dense and soft, and overall it reminded us of "Black Pudding" which can be found in the UK, but this was much more pudding-like. Being rich in protein, it's also incredibly filling!