T&T Lansdowne opening – Richmond

Hello friends! T&T supermarket is the largest Asian grocery store chain in Canada and they just opened their largest location this past week in Lansdowne mall. Not only does this T&T Lansdowne sit at a whopping 70,000 sq. ft, but it also has lots of new features that set them apart from the rest of their locations in BC. Being that I’m one of those people who like to wander around in grocery stores on my spare time, I was pretty excited for the T&T Lansdowne opening.

Weigh station

The changes start in the grocery section where you will now need to bring your selected produce to the weigh station for it to be tagged. This may sound tedious to some at first but it speeds up the self-checkout process because now your produce is given a barcode to scan so you don’t need to punch anything in yourself.

I had to use this system when I was living in Taiwan and while it was confusing at first, it was helpful in helping me figure out how much everything was going to cost in the end. I mean I doubt I’m the only one who has ever left a store with a bag of grapes thinking it would be $5 but it ending up to be $10.

Seafood bar

Another new feature you can find is the Seafood bar. Here you can eat seafood in house or take some home with you. They also have special lighting fixtures here in the form of lobster cages. I thought this was a nice touch.

So how does the seafood bar work? Well, first you select your choice of seafood from the seafood market section. They have a variety of fish and shellfish to choose from.

Once you choose your shellfish of choice, the fishmonger will prepare your fish and bag it up before he puts it into a bucket to be sent down to the chefs via a trolley system surrounded by nets.

Buy and get your seafood prepared

At the counter you can pay for your seafood and the cooking fee to prepare it. The cooking fee for shellfish is $5/lb, oysters are $1 each, and $5 for canner lobster pieces. If you don’t want to go through the process of choosing your own shellfish, they offer sampler sets with a variety of shellfish to satisfy your seafood cravings. They also have options to add sides to your meal.

Once you choose your shellfish or sampler of choice, you move on to choose your sauce or cooking method. I like this because you can customize the flavour to your liking.

When we were there, we were invited to try some of the seafood they offered. There are the clams and oyster with the Thai sauce. If you’re not a fan of spicy food, this is not the style for you because it definitely packed a punch. So I would stick to the black bean or garlic butter if you are eating with kids.

Thai Seafood

★★★

You could tell the shellfish was cooked well because they were still soft and tender. I would gladly have this again some time.

Seafood market

Now I’ve mentioned how you can get whole fish and shellfish here but if you’re not a fan of eating shellfish or fish whole, they have a section with them prepared for you already.

Frozen area

After the seafood area comes the meat and frozen food area. They had lots of fridges and freezers stocked with meat and poultry from around the world. They even had frozen abalone from Australia! Needless to say, you won’t have to worry about not being able to find what you are looking for.

And for all of you vegetarians out there, they had not one, not two but five fridges stocked full of eggs to choose from! There were preserved eggs, duck eggs, quail eggs, chicken eggs, and free-range eggs. At this point I was surprised they didn’t have ostrich eggs!

Health

Then for all the health nuts out there, they had a grain and seed grinding station. Here you can choose your seed and/or grain of choice for them to make into a powder so you can make a health drink at home. This is very popular in Asia and is something that’s hard to come by elsewhere.

I believe the T&T at Metrotown has a pharmacy area but it isn’t very big. Here, they have expanded the Pharmacy  to make sure that you can get your prescriptions filled while you shop.

Bread

Then of course, they have a bread section. On the right they have European and American bread companies for you to choose from and on the left they will have Asian breads baked fresh from their bakery.

Kitchen and sushi bar

Moving onto the Kitchen section. As with the T&T supermarkets in the Metro Vancouver area, this location has a kitchen and sushi bar. If you are having a larger party, you can choose to order larger platters of food in advance to take home with you.

So what’s different about the kitchen at this location? Well, let me tell you.

This Kitchen offers a variety of Taiwanese food items including glutinous rice sticks, dumplings, appetizers and steamed buns. As if that isn’t enough to draw you in, they also have people making custom-ordered Taiwanese crepes. I haven’t had these since I lived in Taiwan a couple of years ago so I was excited to learn that they offered these here!

Another thing that is new in the Kitchen area is the self-serve hot food bar. This is the first T&T location to offer you eight varieties of soup and/or congee to choose from to have with your meal.

Similarly to wholefoods, all the food here is charged by the weight of the food in your container and everything is priced at a reasonable of $1.59/100g.

Street food

You would think that the Kitchen section would be enough in terms of food but nope there’s more! They also have a street food section where you can order Asian street foods. Being here made me feel so nostalgic of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Here you can find steamed rice rolls, 3 cup chicken, sausage rolls, yam puffs, pineapple buns, donut sticks and more!

So how did the street food fare?

3 cup chicken

★★★★

This was mother deer’s favourite out of the three street food dishes we tried. She said that the chicken was cooked just right because it was crispy on the outside but still soft on the inside. We both enjoyed how there wasn’t too much seasoning on the outside layer because sometimes we find that it can be too salty when we have it at restaurants.

Ground meat on rice

★★

This was okay but nothing too memorable. I found the meat to be on the dry side but the sauce helped save it slightly since it added moisture. This didn’t remind me of the meat on rice dishes I had in Taiwan. I would skip this one next time.

Yam puff

★★★★

This little ball of delight is fried until crispy golden perfection. You would think that it would be soft like a donut but nope, it’s actually chewy because the dough is made out of glutinous rice flour. I guess it’s similar to having a fried mochi ball. The ones I had at the night market in Taiwan weren’t filled with anything but these ones were filled with a taro paste. We couldn’t really taste the taro flavour because we were too focused on the chewiness of it! We would definitely get this again sometime.

Skincare

Overall, I would say that this T&T supermarket location offers a larger range of products from the Asian market. You can see that with the food options, beauty products and home goods they offer. They even have diapers imported from Japan for those who prefer the Merries brand.

I have mentioned that the street food here made me feel nostalgic but the thing that got to me the most out of everything was the bottled version of Vitasoy milk! I haven’t seen these since I was little!

Checkout aisle

At the end our tour, we were shown the checkout counters where they had both self-check out stations and regular check-out lanes. I believe that this is the first T&T in the metro Vancouver area to have self-check out. Having your produce already bar-coded at the weigh station definitely helps streamline this. Gone are the days that you have to type in every fruit and vegetable you decide to buy!

Similar to Walmart and Superstore, this T&T location has other smaller stores surrounding their marketplace.

Starbucks

This Starbucks location is located just to the side of the main entrance so it’s hard to miss. An interesting fact is that this is the first time that T&T has had a Starbucks location within its store. They really are trying to cover all their bases!

And as if there wasn’t enough excitement already, Hui Lau Shan is coming to T&T! If you haven’t been to Hong Kong before you might have no idea what I’m talking about but, Hui Lau Shan is a popular dessert chain there. They serve traditional Hong Kong style desserts usually pairing a fruit of some sort with either ice cream, mochi, or tapioca.

I really hope that everyone enjoyed this post and found it informative. I don’t get to ramble on about grocery stores very often so I was happy to have the opportunity to write this post.

Disclaimer: I was invited to a media preview event of T&T supermarket Lansdowne location. I was not paid to create this post or attend the event. As always, all opinions are honest and my own.