The biggest bowl of rice noodles in Richmond Public Market lasted about three months.
Jiawei Big Bowl Rice Noodle has closed at Richmond Public Market, and the signs at unit 2110 now read Pho 7 Vietnamese Kitchen.
We walked past in the middle of September and the changeover was already done.
Jiawei opened in the food court in the week of June 15 with Northeastern Chinese rice noodle bowls in tomato broth, pickled fish and pepper pork tripe.
Its whole pitch was volume.
The name promised a big bowl and the bowl was genuinely big, which is not a sentence you get to write about most stalls that advertise size.
The tomato broth had real tang to it rather than the watery version a food court usually settles for, the rice noodles were soft and slippery, and the thin beef held its shape in the soup instead of disappearing.
A combo let you add a side and a drink to any bowl for a few dollars more, and that was the value the stall was built on.
It also kept some of the previous tenant’s pho on the menu, brisket and rare beef bowls included, and the board bragged that the brisket was prime cut from Costco.
That previous tenant was Hight Dragon, the Vietnamese stall that held the unit before Jiawei took it over.
Which makes the new sign a loop closing.
Pho 7 Vietnamese Kitchen, written on the sign as 七河小馆, serves the same category of food the unit did two tenants ago.
The menu boards run through ten signature bowls of pho, from rare beef to a Hue style spicy beef noodle soup, alongside Hainanese chicken rice, lemongrass pork chop plates, banh mi and Vietnamese coffee.
There is a limited time special posted at the counter pairing a rare beef pho with a Vietnamese coffee for $11.99.
Whether the same operators are behind it is not clear, and nothing on the stall says either way.
What is clear is that this one unit has changed hands twice since June, and the middle tenant lasted about three months.
That stands out here more than it would elsewhere, because Richmond Public Market turns over less than the city’s other food courts and plazas.
Food court leases are short and food court margins are thin, which is why stalls can appear and vanish between two visits to the same building.
Jiawei joins other recently closed Richmond food spots like Manzo Itamae, Banh Mi Tres Bon, and Shine Valley Continental Centre.
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Address: Unit 2110, Richmond Public Market, Richmond, BC
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