The Art of Thin Rice Noodles

Lobster stir-fried with Chan's village rice noodles

Earlier this week we were treated to dinner at Dynasty Seafood Restaurant and one of the dishes we had was stir-fried lobster with Chan's village rice noodles, or 陈村粉.

When the dish arrived at the table, it looked impressive at first, but then we noticed the wide, thin rice noodles were clumped together which was a pity.

Perhaps a novice cook had attempted to make these noodles; they should be steamed for a few minutes first to warm them up, which makes it easier to separate without tearing.

The rice noodles clumped together

Then the lobster is cooked separately, and the leftover sauce left to cook the noodles, which needed to be folded with chopsticks, not chopped up with a wok spatula.

It's a pity ours were bunched together, and so not all the noodles were marinated in the sauce.

Nevertheless, it was probably my first time trying these rice noodles that were almost translucent and hopefully not the last!

Promoting Recycled Chopsticks at YVR

Come get your recycled chopstick coasters at YVR!

At YVR or Vancouver International Airport I was surprised but pleased to see a Vancouver business featured in the duty-free gift shop.

The company is called ChopValue which collects used bamboo chopsticks and washes them and repurposes them into all kinds of products from coasters to tables, and wall panelling. 

Need a cribbage board? Here's the one for you

It's the brainchild of Felix Bock, a German wood engineer who was in Vancouver pursuing a PhD in bamboo composites at the University of British Columbia. Living in the west coast city he became addicted to sushi and realised he was throwing away a lot of disposable chopsticks. 

He had wanted to tackle urban wood waste and thought recycling chopsticks would be a good start and founded ChopValue in 2016.

Today the company has recycled some 30 million chopsticks, each week processing some 350,000 chopsticks. Restaurants collect the used chopsticks which ChopValue collects and then processes them. The company works with clients to see how they can design specific furniture or other items for them out of the recycled chopsticks.

ChopValue explains what they do

But in the airport gift shop, ChopValue was selling sets of coasters and cribbage boards. The coasters explain each one is made of 75 recycled chopsticks, and 343 for the cribbage boards.

Still it's a neat way to not only promote what the company is doing, but also showing what recycled chopsticks look like.