Just a heads-up: this place is right next door to another restaurant, and it's easy to walk into the wrong one--I actually made that mistake myself. Once inside, the decor has a beautiful, ancient Chinese feel. We ordered a spice level 2 for Sichuan-style fish and smoked bamboo shoots with pork, and while both dishes definitely had a kick, they were deliciously spicy. That Sichuan fish was literal perfection--so melt-in-your-mouth tender it was a dream with the steamed rice. But the real sleeper hit? The smoked bamboo shoots. The texture was incredible and the smoky flavor was so addictive we couldn't stop eating it! read more

Alvin Garden - Bamboo shoots with pork - Chinese Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

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First time trying this place with friends! Decor is pretty nice and clean. Felt a little fancier and majestic. Tried smoked pork fried rice, chow mein noodles, pork belly casserole dish, and pork wrap! The chow mein was not what I was expecting... the texture of the noodles were like instant noodles. The photo in the menu looked like Shanghai thick noodles. I really enjoyed the pork wrap! It was like Peking duck dish but not as expensive and quite tasty! The smoked meat rice was interesting and also very flavourful. read more

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I always drove by this place and finally came here for lunch! Food: 5/5 - flavourful and has good portions. You can choose how spicy you want. I loved the beef and broccoli with loads of meat. Soup comes with the lunch special. The pan fried dumplings are 4/5. The fried yogurt dough twist was sweet on the inside. Note: if you do a Instagram or Google review, the dough twist is $1. Why not? Service: 5/5 server was friendly Ambiance: 5/5 place was clean and tidy If you love Asian food with decent portions at a good value this is the place to go! read more

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Good value, good taste, can't complain... Especially the service is actually quite friendly which is a bit rare for a Chinese restaurant :) The interior decor is quite nice as well, with booth seating. read more

Alvin Garden - Ambience of booth seating - Chinese Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

It's been years since I've been back. I noticed they have renovated and it seems to have gotten bigger, with a more private area now. We walked in for dinner on a week night and it was quite busy. Luckily we were seated not too long after. We ordered the broiled fish in chilli soup, spicy sour shredded potatoes, and country style smoked pork. The portions were large and the food was fragrant, very authentic Hunan cuisine. The pricing was very fair. 10/10 would come again. read more

Alvin Garden - Water cooked fish - Chinese Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

Loved this place! Distinctly different from Cantonese and Szechuan styles of Chinese food. Yunan style uses more pickled things, and cumin and lamb also figure a little more prominently. As a somewhat jaded aficionado of Szechuan and Cantonese styles, this place was a revelation! All new flavour combinations for this tired old mouth. Good value, good flavour, and good portions with friendly and helpful service. Strongly recommended if you want to leap beyond wonton noodles with BBQ pork. Bring an appetite! read more

1st time to the restaurant. I was so impressed by the food. Definitely will go again.

There was no parking at the time I was there and once I was in, it took around 35 minutes before the first dish came in

A little hole in the wall but serves authentic Hunan style cuisine. I've been going over the years and the food has remained consistent. It's cheap, tastes good, and the portions are larger than average - what more can you ask for. Try it out if you're willing to try a different kind of Chinese cuisine! read more

Alvin Garden - Chinese Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

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Atmosphere: hole in the wall but the food is good. pricing: cheap Customer Service: very friendly. Food: be careful this food is spicy and it took me off guard, however, if you love spicy food this is the place. read more

You want spicy Hunan dishes? This restaurant serves up some pretty authentic Hunan food. The dishes are super spicy full of peppercorns and chilli peppers. Its rare to find any Hunan restaurants in Vancouver, so this place is very busy. I have to admit that they definitely could make the place look more inviting with some renovations. I would recommend ordering the basic dishes like shredded potato slices, cumin beef, and minced pork with green beans. Just be warn, even ordering mild could cause a burning flame sensation in your mouth. Please do order a bowl of rice and a drink to water down the spicy flavour. Unfortunately the service could use improvement. The waitress' needs to be more attentive to the customers. Overall, I only come here if I'm craving for really spicy Hunan food. read more

Alvin Garden - Chinese Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

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Eight treasure chicken is delicious with lots of flavour. I have been here 1/2 dozen times and I do not think I complained once. Soup dumplings are good. Pan fried dumplings are good. Good good good read more

Yet another lazy Saturday night when we decided to order delivery for dinner. My boyfriend and I decided to try this place through Fantuan as we were craving spicy food. We got the boiled beef and signature cauliflower, both medium spicy. The spiciness level was perfect, and the beef had good flavour in addition to the spice and numbness. The cauliflower was a miss, didn't find it to be special. Both dishes were extremely oily, which helped keep the dishes piping hot while we were eating (pro and con?). It would be interesting to try other dishes from here, but I think we will explore other options in the area first. read more

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit here, though the waitresses don't speak very good English. They were friendly and service was really fast, I couldn't believe how popular the place was until I turned my head around and realized that within 1/2 hour of opening half the restaurant already filled! The dishes we ordered were pan fried spicy chicken, which I warn you. It's delicious but if you don't like picking through small bones and tasting a TON of red peppers? don't order it. Otherwise, It's an amazing experience. Their green beans with minced pork was very good too, Be ready to wolf down a lot of rice when you order from this place because it is satisfyingly spicy! :D read more

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tough one to rate b/c it's a flat out 4 stars if you love burning hot, and 3 stars if you're not. And the rare occasion where the restaurant doesn't underrate its hotness, or quite conservative. If you want 3 stars medium hot, it actually is that hot! Ordered their famous duck with beer braised, and while tasty, I didn't particularly find it that tender. Nor was I a fan of the chef's way of cutting this in a seemingly diagonal way b/c it really was a lot of twisting and turning w/ the chopsticks. Btw, I liked the sushi-style chopsticks, a lot more hygienic if you know what i mean, but i digress. 2nd up the list was the snapper fish w/ chili sauce, all boneless and super soft, no chew or flakiness. Again lots of minced red chillis all around, and naturally, oil too so was careful to weed it out when adding to the rice. Both dishes come with this pepper-like caper which isn't meant to be eaten as it does leave a discomforting after-taste. Been told that this is the Hunan's province's signature ingredient. Above average decor, in between a hole in the wall and fine dining. Some parking in the back, where I think it's a bit dodgy, so luckily managed to find the few spots around the corner on Nelson. Staff friendly, useful, spoke good English. Won some awards, though not lately. read more

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This Szechuan restaurant is known for its chilly dishes. We went there for the first time and ordered deep fried chicken and pork intestine in chilli pepper. To complement the experience, we also ordered braised pork belly marinated with preserved vegetables. The food is delicious especially if you enjoy hot food. The prices are reasonable. The ambience is moderate. Plenty of seating available. read more

Alvin Garden - Chinese Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

Food 3.5/5 (do some research, dont trust the pictures on the menu) Price $$ (ordered 4 dishes, less than 80$ with tips and taxes included) Service 3/5 (okay) Environment 2/5 read more

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Also going by the name "Xiang", Alvin Garden is one of those Chinese restaurants where you go in, it's packed, and no one (from the customer's to the staff) are speaking English. It's the only restaurant in the city that focuses on Hu Nan style Chinese food. You can't get away from spicy food here. My favorites are the pickled chilli and beef, the sliced spicy potato, and the fish soup. The service is quick, the price is cheap. Highly, HIGHLY recommend going to this place with a large group so that you can try as many dishes as possible. read more

the Bloody Beetroots wouldn't be able to handle the bloody spice at this place. a coworker once said, "when u step into a chinese place and see ONE white person, u know it's authentic." and white (and right) he was! signature dish i usually order is 'Shui Zhu Yu" (water boiled fish). my friend opted for medium spicy but i was quick to interrupt, 'shao la (small spicy) please.' trust me, small spicy is all u wanna handle hahaha. i've had nicer fish in richmond but t'was still a good pot o' fish. we also got fried lamb with cumin and the minced pork with stringbeans. both dishes were nicely flavored - the lamb tasted quite nice. i like this place more than the crystal mall szechuan resto. i'll probably return and try other dishes before the winter's over. richmond also seems to be cheaper by a dollar or two - no biggie. the waitresses seem understaffed as they sometimes forget requests. sorta funny more than anything unless u seriously wanna drop a star for the poor slaved girls. read more

Nice Food But Not Really Up There. Greedy For Tips!! Wanted to test this Authentic Hunan fare. Here is our Observation Food Quality : Food is not really Authentic as per most of the comment and earlier reviewers. Sort of a mix between Hunan and Sichuan mix. Good amount of spice. We would rate food as good and needs still few types of twill to become excellent Food Quantity: No Questions. Portions are huge as any other Chinese eatery Service: Service is OK but 2 disappointing events They will get your bill while you are in mid of eating They force you to pay tip. Wow Shocking. I was thinking that Tipping is always depending on Satisfaction of the consumer but not a forced event. Hmmmmmm!!! read more

LEGIT HUNAN RIGHT HERE. This is my favourite Hunan restaurant in all of Van. But be warned, their version of medium spicy is...REALLY SPICY. And I mean it. Unless you like eating with sweat beading down your face, stick with mild. All the dishes here are really yummy!! Go for their signature dishes: braised pork, beef with pickled green chilli, cauliflower, you won't regret it! The only gripe I have with them is that their rice is inconsistent. And dry ish. Once we got a pot of "dirty" looking rice, it had brown/yellow spots in it! read more

We've been coming to this place for years now because the food is amazing despite the service and the slightly expensive pricing. There is a minimum fee if you want to pay credit I think it's $50. On the wall there are certificates of their best dishes from competitions they've entered I recommend you order those. The service is below average but it is passable. read more

I love this place If you want authentic Hunan very spicy food then this is the place outside China to go to I read that people complain it's too salty or greasy on some dishes but that's how it's suppose to be and in China it's exactly how it's prepared This Chinese food is from the human and Szcheun region where the food is extremely spicy so be prepared as it's not the typical cantonese style food we are use to in Vancouver If you come here you have to try the boiled fish in oil with chillies or the spicy cabbage with chilli This is definitely very spicy so if you can not handle the spice order your dishes non spicy read more

Recently came back here for dinner and found they expanded (doubles in size). Also, they have English speaking servers now which is lovely. Very authentic Chinese food and reasonable prices. You know it is good Chinese food at a Chinese restaurant when most of the patrons are Chinese. Love this place read more

Hunan spice! Medium spice was more than enough for me! Very delicious! Smoked Tea Duck is my fav! Accepts credit/debit! read more

Food is good. But it was not clear that you can only use VISA or MasterCard when your order is over $50 even there's a VISA/MasterCard sign on the the entrance door. Also, you have to be clear about ordering lunch specials or they will give you the regular priced menu item. Beef and broccoli was $15 when Beef and broccoli with rice was $10. read more

This place has been referred to me for years by my favorite and trustworthy foodie. I'm glad I finally went! Not sure if it was our caucasian faces in the middle of an all-asian crowd that attracted them but some other patrons visited our table and said "you must like spicy!" That scared us about how spicy things were going to be - so we ordered the Hunan dishes medium-hot just in case. It turned out just fine. Kung pao prawns with peanuts are deep with layers of different pepper flavour. The pork and ginger soup has a wonderful range of different flavours too for such a simple brothy soup. The tea smoked duck is profoundly intense in its flavours. The skin and fat are super smoky and contrasts the sweet and five-spice base in the duck. Pleasant service. Bring a group. The portions are big and you will want to try many dishes. read more

I've been looking for a Hunan restaurant for a long time since my favorite one closed in Richmond. I picked up take out for dinner this evening and it was fantastic. Spicy and flavorful! We ordered the house daily soup (pork and wild mushrooms). It was perfect for this rainy night. We also had the spicy pork & string beans, spicy cauliflower, pork and tree mushrooms. Portions were big. They ask you how spicy you prefer and we ordered hot. It's a burn your tongue kind of hot but I loved it. Can't wait to visit again. read more

We went here for lunch. Recommended by a friend and it was definitely a very good choice. I would have to apologize for not knowing the actual name of the dishes. I didn't do the ordering :p The first dish that came out was one of their more popular dishes. Almost every one in the restaurant had it on their table. It's the fish in a big spicy soup base. You can choose 1-5 spicy levels and we got the mild which is like 1-2. It was still a bit a spicy for people that can't handle the heat. But it was delicious! The fish was super soft! We also ordered the ginger and chicken soup. The soup is mostly ginger tasting. So if you are not a ginger person it may not appeal to you. But I like the soup quite a bit. It was actually refreshing. We also had a shredded beef dish with preserved vegetable. I'm not too sure what kind of vegetable it is but it went well with the beef. That dish went pretty fast at our table. The deep fried bun with condense milk was standard. Nothing really special about it. The chive and pork dumpling is made very nicely. The skin was not too thick perfect bite size. Since we had so much meat dishes we thought we should get our dose of vegetables. The cabbage and red pepper dish was actually one of my favorites. I normally don't like cabbage but this one was tasty. I would like to go back there and try this big bucket of cauliflower that I've seen on almost every one else's table! read more

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The depth of flavour in the dishes is outstanding! This is the first time eating dinner here and we're sorry that we didn't know about this place sooner. The price is a bit high, but the quality of the food makes it worth it. The dishes we had -- one of which had a chilli pepper broth -- was not too spicy. All of the dishes on the menu (which has excellent photos) look soooo yummy! And the best thing is that the food more than matches the expectations of the photos. We will be back many times, I'm sure. TIP: Come early for dinner. The place is not too big and you can expect a line-up if you arrive later.. read more

I love the spicy pork feet in a bucket which is unique here. Dumplings and green beans with pork were good too. The beef noodle soup was well done with chewy noodles and delicious broth. The food came out pretty quick and the price was reasonable. read more

This restaurant was closed by Fraser Health for a week in July 2014 for various reasons. http://www.healthspace.ca/fha/foodclosure read more

Came here on a busy Sunday evening with my cousin and his parents, we saw the usual lineups when we drove by a few times before, so we decided to reserve a table. I kid you not, here's what happened: I asked for a reservation at 6 for a table of 5, the manager said "sorry, we can only do reservations for a group of 6." So I'm like: "uh... okay, we have 6?", to which the manager replied: "Okay, great, see you at 6!". This might explain their inefficiency, but the restaurant itself is actually quite small, and they are quite understaffed. The food was definitely spicy and there were a few things they ran out of that we really wanted to try. For a group of 5 we ordered 7 dishes (their sizes/portions were modestly small) and it came to around 120 dollars. Their service was slow but understandable due to the staffing, but their Hunan-style cuisine lacked flavor, sure it was spicy enough, but perhaps they could've put slightly more salt/pepper/soy sauce in their woks. read more

This is the ultimate lifesaver for spicy food lovers. Its Hunan-style dishes are tasty and original -- even competitive with the best Hunan restaurants, such as South Memory (望湘园) back in China. Strongly recommend for spicy addicts. read more

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I drop by this place every once in a while when we drive up to Whistler. It has been wonderful. The food is authentic and the staff is welcoming. If I have something bad to say, the bathroom there is subpar, and had a malfunction a couple of times when we were there. read more

i want to by lunch with my firend. We have 2 people order 2 dishes. We payed for $42 with out tips. This dishes is lager we didn't finished all. Last years I went one time with my school mates. They love spicy food . Here u can decide with how spicy do u want. I try 2 times i like it. read more

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Food is good. But actually i have pretty high standard for my hometown food, i would say they are not that "local" as i expected. read more

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I really appreciate the authenticity of the food. All food tastes very good. But if you are not a spicy person, you may not enjoy it. Even the dishes that we think are non-spicy turns out to be spicy. We asked for mild, it was already spicy enough for us. read more

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@Rae K. We did try the duck...was good. Not sure why they chose an name like Alvin Garden! Xiang was a better and more marketable name! I'd go back again. read more

Been going here for a few years. The quality of the good in general but was not as good it was initially. There are a few staple dishes that I always order. The cauliflower dish, The smoke pork with garlic bolts and the free range chicken. The food here is quite spicy so be prepared. read more