The sign went up in June 2024.
On September 1, steam FINALLY came up from behind it.
Hei Hei Rice Roll finally soft opened its stall in the Crystal Mall food court in Burnaby, in the unit that used to be Kagusa.
That is twenty-seven months after the signage first appeared, and it closes a gap we first wrote about in 2024.
Last week I saw two staff prepping inside, and the Hei Hei team told us they were gearing up to open but wanted a quieter start, so we held the date.
With the popularity of Hei Hei, that was never going to last.
People found it anyway.
I got there just before noon on day one and there was already a small line at the counter.
The stall runs an open kitchen, so while you wait you watch staff pull the wide steaming trays out of the cabinet in a cloud of steam and roll your order in front of you.
Hei Hei’s whole pitch is stone-ground rice batter, and the stall says so on the signage: 纯制米造 and 石磨肠粉, pure rice, stone-milled.
A poster on the side of the stall lays out the four steps, selecting the rice, soaking, grinding, steaming.
Not everything on the menu is on yet.
The menu board lists rice rolls R1 through R21, but the team is still ramping up, so expect some of them to be unavailable in the first weeks.
The classics are there: beef, pork and shrimp, black truffle, char siu, and the rest of the lineup Richmond regulars know, with extra fillings at $1.50 or $2 each.
I ordered the beef, pork and shrimp roll and watched them make it.
Ten minutes later it was in my hands.
Fans of Hei Hei know how good these are, and the Burnaby stall delivers on the taste.
Soft and stretchy, the sheet gives and then pulls back instead of tearing, with whole shrimp and loose beef tucked inside, and the whole thing is hella satisfying.
They also handed over free chili oil on the side, which is the move if you want the extra hit.
The two year delay had its reasons.
As we reported last week, the build-out came first, then the owner’s wife had a baby, then the owner ran into health problems of his own.
Richmond’s version, at the Richmond Public Market has been around since 2021, and it’s the one with the 40 minute waits.
Burnaby’s took only ten if you go a bit early. Go now, before word gets around.
Hei Hei Crystal Mall joins a run of recent openings around Burnaby and the North Road strip like One Cafe at Crystal Mall, Hungry Tiger Grill, and Alfa Tea.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: Crystal Mall food court, 4500 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC
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