♪ [Brandy Yanchyk] I'm a journalist, and I'm travelling across my home country, Canada.

On this journey, I'll be traveling by train on the Rocky Mountaineer.

I'll also be visiting the city of Richmond in British Columbia.

Richmond is home to the Vancouver International Airport, and is only 25 minutes from downtown Vancouver.

My next adventure begins in Richmond.

♪ ♪ I've come to Richmond, British Columbia.

And this place is so interesting, because over fifty percent of the population here identify as Chinese and the food is wonderful.

I'm with Michelle Ng, she owns Vancouver Foodie Tours, and she takes people out into Richmond so they can have a taste of these treats.

And I'm with Maston Ho.

He works at a bakery in Richmond.

Thank you for having us here.

Michelle, tell me why did you choose Richmond as a place you wanted me to visit?

Absolutely.

You know, Richmond is a really special place, Brandy in that we have some of the most authentic and delicious Asian cuisine that you can find in North America.

And so if you enjoy Asian cuisine, Richmond is the place to be.

Wow, and why is it something that you care about personally?

Yes, yeah.

Because, one, I'm Chinese.

I'm a big foodie.

And this is a place where my family loves coming for authentic, traditional Chinese pastries.

[Brandy] Beautiful.

So I am so excited personally to taste these.

Maston, tell me what we're looking at?

This is the pastry box with assorted pastry.

And this is the most signature one and it is called Wife Cake.

Yeah.

[Brandy] Wife cake?

[Maston] Yeah, wife cake.

And this is Mooncake.

[Brandy] Mooncake?

[Maston] Yeah, mooncake.

Oh, wonderful.

Okay, well, I can't wait to taste these.

Let's jump in.

What's the first one we're gonna taste?

Yeah, sure.

Try the wife cake first.

[Brandy] Well, I am a wife.

I deserve to eat this.

Okay, I'm going to grab this one.

You go ahead and grab yours.

And can you describe for me what's inside here?

[Maston] It's Winter Melon filling.

And then outside it's just egg wash and some different layers.

Yeah.

Okay and Michelle, have you had this before?

I have yes, yeah.

Okay.

You know, it's a very popular pastry.

Oh, let's jump in.

Mmmm...

It's like, very delicious.

It's not that sweet.

And there's like a jelly inside kinda.

[Maston] That's the winter melon.

[Brandy] It's a winter melon.

It's so good!

How many of these do you sell do you think?

[Maston] Every year we sell a lot.

Like mostly it's for people from Alberta and people from Seattle.

They just always come here.

Like, if they come, if they come to Richmond, they have to come to Kam Do and buy a wife cake.

[Michelle] I agree.

That's what my friends, my visiting friends and family say, too.

[Maston] Yeah, it's always the rule.

(laughs) The pastry's so fluffy.

[Maston] Yeah.

I'm just shocked that it's not sweet.

[Maston] It's not really sweet, yeah.

Yeah, it's so good.

[Maston] So we can eat every day.

(chuckles) [Brandy] Yah, I can eat one every day, maybe a whole box.

No, I am kidding.

Which one are we going to try here in this box?

[Maston] This is the pastry box and then we have different kinds of pastries, we have like taro and have like lotus seed with thousand years egg and we have a lot of different kinds of things here.

[Brandy] And red bean too?

And red bean, too.

And then today maybe we will try the walnut with date.

[Brandy] Let's do it.

Yep, sure, it's this one.

[Brandy] Okay.

[Maston] Yup.

I love how you have the sesame seeds on the top.

It's just wonderful.

[Maston] Yeah.

Mmm!

It's so good!

Again, not that sweet.

[Maston] Yeah.

It has this lovely paste and there's walnuts.

[Maston] It's walnuts, yeah.

[Michelle] And just the fluffiness and the smokiness of the pastry is...

There is smoky in here.

...so interesting.

Smoky taste.

It's surprising.

What do you think?

[Maston] It's the best thing.

(laughs) I eat this when I grow up.

[Brandy] And where did you grow up?

Uh, in Hong Kong.

[Brandy] You grew up in Hong Kong?

Yeah, I come here, like 10 years ago?

Yeah.

And then my family owned this business.

And then I just tried to help them.

[Brandy] That's wonderful.

And why did you choose to live in Richmond or what do you like about Richmond?

It's multicultural because it has the most populated Chinese here.

And then the food here is really good!

And then, yeah!

Just the food here.

That's why we stay here.

Yeah, it's a big draw.

Yeah?

Is it as good as Hong Kong?

[Maston] It's even better than Hong Kong.

What!

Like all the chefs from Hong Kong they get retired and then they just move here.

And then like all the top chef in Hong Kong, and they move here they do dim sum or like pastry like this.

Yeah, that's why some people will say is sometimes it's even better than Hong Kong.

[Brandy] Wow.

That is something to be said.

Oh, wow, I'm shocked.

I want to thank you so much for inviting me here.

Michelle, way to go.

This was a great stop on my trail through Richmond.

Glad to hear.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

[Maston] Thank you!

♪ gongs chiming [Brandy] I am so excited to be here at a barbecue restaurant in Richmond.

I love barbecue and I'm with Anson Leung and Michelle Ng.

Michelle is bringing me here because - why, Michelle?

Yes.

Well Brandy, you mentioned you love barbecue meats Chinese style.

And you know what there is really only one place for that and it is Hong Kong Barbecue Master in Richmond.

I just feel like you have to experience it.

Well it looks amazing.

Anson, tell me what the types of meat we're looking at here?

[Anson] Okay, so you see this red one.

This was the barbecue pork, slow cooked, nice tender has a nice layer of fat lean in between.

We always finish it caramelized in this, like wheat honey, which gives a nice glaze and also that nice texture and flavour.

Ah, roast pork here.

The belly of the, of the pig.

Also very nicely layered of fat and leanness, we like our fats, so that's why we like to have fats, most of our fats.

Nice crispy skin that we finish it off specially, we do have our own secrets how making, like crispy but everyone else does it crispy too.

But that's that.

This is the soy chicken, a nice tender, poached in soy.

So it's, you know, melt in your mouth kind of nice, lean, but also a little bit fatty chicken for you to serve please.

Wow.

Okay, which one should we start with?

Let's do a barbecue pork first.

[Brandy] Let's do it.

I love the colour.

It's all natural.

So we don't add any colours to it.

Mmm... it's so good, it's so sweet, and tender and juicy.

And what do you think of the taste, Michelle?

[Michelle] Yeah, it's fantastic.

You know, it's one of my family's favourite places to come.

And they're so consistent.

Just as I remembered it.

[Brandy] And there's not that much fat on it.

It's actually quite, uh because the way we roast it is because we slow cook it so that lots of that oil strip out.

So it gets very lean but moisturized at the same time.

So we don't - we never use high fire or anything just because that will just basically ruin the meat.

Always slow cook to the end.

And it's nice, juicy.

Keep all the moisture locked in.

[Brandy] You are making me want to eat everything.

Okay, what's the next one?

[Anson] Next one we'll have the roasted pork, also the belly of the pork.

Also very common amongst the barbecue shops around town.

But even in Hong Kong style, roasted pork is actually quite traditional because we usually buy this for our you know, just to go to the temple or to, to like say thanks to someone.

This is what we usually buy to go, to go see them yah.

It's delicious.

How would you describe it?

I think um, it's crispy top, nice layer of fat leanness.

So in essence, the bottom's marinated with this special salt, a little bit of like five spices.

So when you have it all together, it's a nice combination of harmony, where it's not too salty, it's not too, little bit sweet in the end, but it's overall it's a good mixture overall to make it not feel like it's overwhelming because it's so fatty.

But it's - I think it's, it's a nice texture has a nice texture to it.

It's something quite special I think a lot of people do enjoy it.

[Brandy] Mmm, it is crispy!

And... why is it called HK B.B.Q?

Anson] HK basically stands for Hong Kong.

So it's a Hong Kong style barbecue.

So you can get this style of barbecue in southern China, but specifically in Hong Kong, so we want to be more specific about it.

If you compare this to mainland China, it's a little bit more still south of China like Guangzhou or Shenzhen.

They also do barbecue but it's a little bit different from how we do in Hong Kong.

Did you grow up here in Richmond or do you have family that's from Hong Kong?

Where did the recipe come from?

Well, actually, I grew up.

I was born and raised here in Vancouver, but my dad was actually from Hong Kong.

He was born and raised in Hong Kong.

I started cooking when he was a very small age when it's 14 just to basically support the family.

And then when he was around 21, that's when he really started getting into barbecue and ever since he's always been been doing barbecue.

Wow.

Okay, well let's jump into the next one.

What's this one?

This is the soy chicken, has a nice light green scallion sauce to put over as a special homemade sauce.

But yeah, it should be nice and tender.

Super, it should just slip right through your mouth.

Mmm.

Shouldn't cause any resistance.

[Anson] I think this is a lot of the people's favourites because it's really easy to eat, right?

You're not.

You're not too intimidated by the type of meat it is because some people don't like duck.

And chicken... Everyone likes chicken.

Right?

So... [Brandy] This is delicious.

[Anson] I'm glad you enjoy it.

Is it steamed?

Or did you boil it?

[Anson] We boil it.

This is also very, very tender choy sum.

It's one of the most common Asian vegetables we eat at home.

Yeah, we usually don't like to overcook it.

Because we like to have that little crunch that like nice crunch when you bite into it.

So usually in Chinese cooking, a lot of the vegetables are actually like chow where they have it in a wok, because you don't actually overcook it to, quite much, they give it that nice flavour, a nice crunch, texture is very important.

Well, I'm so happy that I asked Michelle to come and help me taste these dishes because they are wonderful!

Thank you very much.

And I would definitely come back here...

Please.

...Over and over again and order all of these with my family and friends because it's, it's wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for treating us.

No problem, I'm very happy for you guys to come visit us.

Very honoured.

[Brandy] Richmond is wonderful.

(restaurant chatter) ♪ [Brandy] Just six kilometers or four miles away, I find myself surrounded by nature in Richmond.

I've come to Terra Nova Rural Park in Richmond, British Columbia.

And I'm so excited to be here because this place is famous for its bird migration.

In fact, it's a bird migration superhighway, and I'm with Liron Gertsman.

He's a lifelong bird enthusiast and a photographer.

Tell me why do so many birds come to Richmond?

Well, like you said, we are on a bird migration superhighway.

And this route is actually known as the Pacific Flyway.

So every year there are millions of birds that are migrating through here, heading south in the fall and north in the spring, as well as many that nest here and spend the winter here.

You take photos of birds, tell me a little bit about some of your favourite photos you've taken?

Yeah, well, we have so many incredible bird photography opportunities in this area.

And my favourite things to photograph are just the incredible bird spectacles that make this place so special.

And one of those is the annual bald eagle gathering.

So we've got literally tens of thousands up to thirty, forty thousand bald eagles that spend the fall, late fall salmon run in the greater Fraser River Delta region, which includes Richmond, British Columbia, and photographing those bald eagles as they gather to feast on the salmon every single year is a highlight.

It's something I've been doing for over a decade now.

Another thing I love to photograph are big flocks of birds and the snow goose that bird that migrates from Siberia, up in Russia down this coast in the fall form some of the biggest flocks of birds you can see in this area, and on some days, there'll be flocks that are ten thousand strong in the marshland and farmland in this region.

And I got this photo that I really love of like thousands of snow geese all taking to the air at the same time.

And I call it "The Blast-off."

Wow.

Well, I want to go and explore here.

And hopefully I'll see some of these birds you're talking about.

And I just want to thank you for all your knowledge.

It's been fantastic!

Yeah.

Thanks for coming out.

Let's go birding!

Yeah!

Wow, there's two birds there already.

Yeah.

So what we're looking at here is a great blue heron.

And a little duck there called a mallard, one of the common duck species here and I'll just put them in the scope for you to take a real close up look at and this great blue heron here is a young bird.

It's a juvenile and you can tell because the top of its head is kind of dark and the adult herons tend to be a little bit lighter up there and kind of have a light top to the head.

And the mallard next to it is a male mallard duck in a type of plumage we call eclipse plumage.

Beautiful.

Wow.

That's fun.

We've been here two minutes.

And we saw two birds already.

[Liron] Oh, yeah, it's an amazing birding hotspot.

Brandy, we've got a nice bird here.

This is a beautiful little hummingbird.

And this species is an Anna's Hummingbird.

[Liron] And this is a really interesting bird here, because they've actually increased in recent years as a result of climate change.

This isn't a bird that used to be found here.

But in the last ten, twenty years or so they've moved north and can now be found here all year round.

It's interesting, because he's not moving.

Does he see us?

Yes, yeah, he definitely sees us and he's probably very aware that we are here.

But birds like this hummingbird and a lot of other birds in city urban areas really don't have a lot of fear of people.

They don't have much to be afraid of.

Because they're used to people coming around and we don't pose any threat to this little hummingbird.

[Brandy] Wonderful.

Let's see what else we can see.

Yeah, let's go for it.

Liron, what is that?

Here we've got a pied-billed grebe and it actually looks like there's a couple of them.

And it kind of looks like a duck...

There you go.

Kind of looks like a duck.

But it's actually not a duck.

It's not related to ducks.

It's more closely related to loons than it is to duck and this pied-billed grebe is diving here in this pond going after little fish and aquatic invertebrates that it's finding beneath the surface.

[Brandy] And it's so interesting because there's the BC Bird Trail now, right?

So people are coming to British Columbia, if they're birders because they know that there's this established bird trail.

[Liron] Absolutely.

There's a collection of hotspots here that you can visit and come out here and try to see some birds for yourself.

Thank you for inviting me here, and for teaching me about all the different birds that I can see.

I've just found it fascinating.

Oh, yeah, birding is so much fun.

Thank you.

(Diesel rumbling) To start my next journey, I travel around 20 kilometers or 12 miles to the Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I'm on the Rocky Mountaineer train doing the “First Passage to the West ” journey.

It goes from Vancouver to Banff.

It has an overnight in Kamloops.

And it's organized this way so you have all daylight rides, and you do not miss a second of the spectacular scenery.

(Wow...) This journey between British Columbia and Alberta takes two days and runs from mid-April to mid-October.

Rocky Mountaineer is a luxury train that has glass-dome coaches that allow you to see the beautiful scenery.

Their GoldLeaf Service also has an outdoor viewing platform.

The train travels 50 kilometers an hour or 30 miles per hour on average - and slows down at special viewpoints.

A huge part of this train journey and my favourite part is the culinary experience.

The food is freshly prepared every day on the train.

And the menu is inspired by the regions the train travels through.

I'm in the galley here on the Rocky Mountaineer train, I'm with the chef Kaelhub Cudmore.

Caleb, tell me a little bit about how you got into this wonderful world of cooking on a train?

Of course.

So I come from a background of remote wild cooking and like beautiful parts of the world.

And like top luxury property.

So this opportunity came up.

And I really feel like I was just the perfect match to cook in this kind of inhospitable environment.

Well, it's moving.

It's luxurious.

It's across Canada.

It must be a bit exciting?

It is, it's super exciting and super exciting to be in like stunning, beautiful places where we get to look outside of the windows and really feel inspired by the areas we are going through.

It's amazing actually.

[Brandy] Well, firstly, I want to thank you because the food is delicious.

And I love food.

And I know it takes a lot of love and hard work to make it happen.

Can you give me a sense of how unique it would be to cook in a galley like this on a train in this small space?

[Kaelhub] Well, I mean, think of it just like this.

We're rocking back and forth.

Imagine doing that with knives in your hand and a hot pots of water and things boiling and steaming and oven doors opening and people rushing through.

I mean, we're nice and calm right now.

But during a service, it's a little bit more hectic in here.

So it's about that just big energy and tight spaces.

Oh, wow.

Okay, so tell me what you're going to teach me how to cook today?

[Kaelhub] So what we're going to do today is we're going to go through a dish that I really love coming from the west coast.

We're using Lois Lake steelhead salmon, we're going to sear that and do a very simple presentation that really just honours the product that we're using, and really helps us just absorb it and not have too many kinds of complex flavours.

[Brandy] And I think when you are dreaming about eating in British Columbia, you're thinking about salmon?

[Kaelhub] One hundred percent.

It's absolutely quintessential and something that you just you have to serve it.

You have to show it off, right?

Like, we should be talking smack about the salmon?

Yes, because it's in the rivers.

It's here.

[Kaelhub] It's everywhere.

It's in the river we've been going up and down all day, right?

[Brandy] I love it.

Okay, I'm getting hungry.

Let's get in here.

Perfect, okay.

So, first thing we're gonna do because we serve our salmon skin-on, so we want to make sure to get a nice kind of crispy sear on that salmon.

So little bit of canola oil.

We're using Canadian canola oil, cooks at a nice high heat.

This is kind of chunky sea salt.

[Brandy] Sea salt?

[Kaelhub] Again, from the ocean the salmon's from.

[Brandy] Yummy.

[Kaelhub] Again, we don't want to overcomplicate and draw inspiration from where we are right?

So the fish's from the sea.

We should be using sea salt.

Love it, love it, love it.

I could do this!

You can do that.

Salt and pepper, I can do that.

This is the thing.

This is one of the reasons I want to show you this because it's actually quite simple.

This is something that we can all do.

I think there's a lot of mystery behind cooking but there doesn't need to be.

I'm not the cook at my house is all I'm gonna say.

So I'm watching, I'm watching.

Okay, and now we're starting to get a little bit of hot in there we can see the oil bubbling up.

We don't want to get too hot.

We want to bring the temperature of the fish up as we sear the skin.

So let it sit in there.

That will take a little bit of time.

How long are you going to cook this for?

We're gonna cook this for about six minutes.

Six minutes, just on this side or do you flip it?

We're gonna flip it, we're gonna sear this side, once it gets crispy; that will be about four minutes.

Okay.

And then we'll flip it over and finish the other side pretty fast.

Oh.

We want to serve it medium rare and that really highlights that beautiful texture and you can, you can see the kind of veins of like delicious fish fat in there.

We want to make sure to preserve that a little bit and not lose it all right?

Medium rare?

Medium rare, that, and if you cook it any further, you start getting dry fish.

I'm going to steam some asparagus right as we're doing.

[Brandy] Ooh, I love asparagus.

So with the salmon, we're gonna serve a little brown butter and lemon gnocchi.

So, gnocchi is essentially like a potato and flour dumpling.

Italian origin.

Yum.

Super light, little pillowy clouds are great for different like light flavours like fish.

And we're also going to be serving this with the asparagus, some light greens and that brown butter will kind of round out the depth of flavour.

I love that when you look at the menu, you see the local places involved in the descriptions like Shuswap pork chop.

Yeah, it's incredible.

And I love having that on the menu because it really gives the guests the opportunity to ask the questions and start the dialogue with our wonderful host team that knows all the stories of food to ask where it's coming from.

What does that mean?

What does it mean for the train?

What does it mean to the areas we're going through, it and Canada as a whole?

Yeah, Canada is massive.

It's the second largest country in the world.

And being on a train is a great way to see it.

And honestly sitting there drinking wine, eating food, I think it's a wonderful holiday.

It's absolutely amazing.

It's the best way to see the country, I can't imagine a more incredible way.

[Brandy] You could canoe but then you wouldn't get the food.

You wouldn't get the food and it's a lot more work.

I mean, I like canoeing, but I'm gonna flip the salmon.

So you see where, we can see on the edge it's starting to get nice and crispy there.

That's telling us we are starting to lose a little bit of the fat.

So now we want to flip it over.

And we can see we got that beautiful sear on it.

I'm just gonna let it go.

We're gonna take it right off the heat now.

And just let it settle down and hangout.

[Brandy] And this is just salt and pepper?

[Kaelhub] Just salt, pepper.

And right away we're gonna get some gnocchi.

[Brandy] Mmmm.

So, is this already boiled?

How does it work?

[Kaelhub] Yeah, so this is already par-cooked.

And the butter has already been browned, so we don't need to give it too much.

We're just really kind of giving it a nice sear and colour on the outside.

[Brandy] Yum, yum, yum.

We'll let that sizzle up.

With the asparagus.

We have the ends of the asparagus.

We don't want to waste anything.

[Brandy] We don't waste.

[Kaelhub] So I made a nice little purée with the asparagus.

So what we're gonna do, we're gonna go at one dollop right there.

Okay, this is how to make the plate fancy.

Yeah.

You got this, I know you can do this.

I'm really scared.

I have absolute confidence in you.

Okay... [Kaelhub] Are you gonna do one there?

[Brandy] Is that too much?

{Kaelhub] No.

Twice that much, twice that much.

[Brandy] Twice?

[Kaelhub] Yep.

There we go.

Perfect.

[Brandy] Wow.

[kaelhub] OK, let me show you the next move.

[Brandy] Okay.

[Kaelhub] We're just gonna take this we're gonna kind of push it to the edge.

And we're just gonna smear it around here.

And we're not even gonna worry about being too fancy so to speak.

Think it's gonna look fancy, but it's gonna get a little bit rustic with it.

[Brandy] Okay.

[Kaelhub] Let it do its thing.

[Brandy] Yes.

[Kaelhub] We're gonna take our gnocchi... and we are gonna put these guys right in the middle here.

[Brandy] Ooooh!

[Kaelhub] So we have some baby kale and arugula mix here, and we'll get our asparagus up and around.

And we're just gonna let that salmon right in the centre of the plate.

That nice crispy skin-side-up.

Like that!?

Just like that.

Wow.

Nice bright fresh plate.

For fun we will use a little bit of micro green.

Oh, let me do it.

Let me do it!

Want to do the micro-green?

Yeah.

Want to do it just round the outside.

Just the outside, like this.

Yeah, we'll keep it in the rim.

In the rim, okay.

We'll keep it in the rim.

I'm gonna have a dinner party and try to do something fancy like this.

Okay, just like this?

There we go, just like that!

Okay.

And we're going to tuck it in a little bit neatly.

Okay.

And that's it.

That is beautiful.

That is our Lois Lake steelhead salmon with Beurre Noisette brown butter gnocchi, steamed asparagus and an asparagus spinach purée.

[Brandy] Can we taste it?

[Kaelhub] Of course we can.

[Brandy] Let's share it!

Mmm ,mmm, mmm.

Okay, cheers.

Cheers!

Cheers!

Thank you.

Mmm, mmm.

Not bad!

It's delicious.

I absolutely love the gnocchi with this.

The salmon is so beautiful.

It's very light.

It is, it's fresh.

It does not taste like salmon I'm used to.

It's really light.

I'm gonna eat it all!

[Kaelhub] Yeah!

I'm gonna have some more too.

[Brandy] Oh you better get in here before I eat it all.

Mmm.

I'm definitely going to steal some of your tricks with the plating with the cooking and then I'm going to order salmon 'cause it's wonderful.

It's a beautiful fish.

It's so fresh here.

It's amazing, it really is.

It's the place to eat it, it's the right food for where we are and it really expresses the land that we are traveling through.

Thank you for inviting me into the galley.

I know you are very, very busy chef feeding all these people?

How many people you feeding?

Today we have just under a thousand on the trip.

And I am surprised you gave me a second of your time.

Thank you very much.

You're very welcome.

Okay, I'm eating this right now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

♪ On the second day of our trip, we cross the border between British Columbia into Alberta, where we will reach our final destination of Banff National Park.

This part of the journey is incredible, as we are able to see the Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies.

They are North America's largest mountain range.

They stretch approximately 4,800 kilometers or 3,000 miles from British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, through into the United States and down to New Mexico.

I've heard stories that people save their whole lives to come and see the Canadian Rocky Mountains by train and some even come on their honeymoon and I get it because every time you look out the window, it's like another painting of a scene that is just so beautiful.

Nature is wonderful.

And I get to travel in style.

♪ ♪