I’m a little obsessed with shaved ice. No, not snow cones in paper cups with mysterious blue syrups. I’m talking heaps of ice topped with freshly cut papaya, mango, custard apples, dragonfruit, mushmelon, a little fruit syrup and a little sweetened plain yogurt. That’s the Vietnamese-style shaved ice that I remember from Ho Chi Minh City.
Sometimes I’m craving the sweet and savoury version with green lentils, kidney beans, adzuki beans, white beans, coconut jelly, and basil seeds. But most often I want the top version with herb grass jelly and fresh lychee added—that is heaven. Yet nowhere in Montreal sells this. There’s Bubble Tea Lounge on Ste-Catherine ear Guy that does a version with green tea ice with milk and ice cream, and there’s Nos Thés on St-Mathieu that’s had it on their menu all summer but never actually have it. I can make a passable version at home when I buy the herb grass jelly in a can from an Asian grocer and cut up some cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, mango, strawberries and papaya. Throw some cassis syrup or grenadine over top and it’s almost okay. But it’s just not the same. It’s not Vietnam.
So when I went to Vancouver last month and found out Id be staying Richmond for a wedding, I nearly clicked my heels together with joy (note: I’m not good at clicking my heels together. Jumping and me haven’t gotten along since I started biking and my quads mutinied). Richmond is the Asian capital of BC. It’s where you go for the best dimsum. It’s where you apply for a job as a food blogger to cover a different restaurant every night. There’s a T&T supermarket right next to a Japanese one, next to a hot pot restaurant next to a Korean BBQ spot. And they’re all in strip malls. Really, it’s the last part that makes it legit. Torontonians, it’s like Markham, but better. And most, most, most importantly, there’s a night market.
Oh night markets—home of everything Asian and cheap and delicious. It’s not just food—there are often electronics and clothes and souvenirs and home decor and everything you could imagine—but…it is mostly food. Why would you go if you weren’t hungry? I love that in Taiwanese a typical greeting is “Have you eaten?” Asia gets it right. No “how are you?” Lets cut straight to the point. So my quest for shaved ice started at the Richmond Night Market. 
There were a handful of places serving it. But all serving the non-Vietnamese style with condensed milk and ice cream. In Asia it’s an advantage to get a heaping bowl of ice rather than filler (ice cream, condensed milk), because ice isn’t cheap…and it’s so hot. And a large amount of ice looks like you’re really getting your money’s worth, which—if the ice is made from clean water in Asia—you are. I even bargained my way into a shaved ice I actually wanted:
Me: Can I not have the ice cream and condensed milk (I asked in English!!!!! It’s never been so easy to order shaved ice! Not even in Flushing, NY.)
Vendor: Yeah, ok.
Me: Could I get red bean paste too? (I love Japanese red bean paste…it doesn’t really go with mango…but what doesn’t go with mango, really?)
Vendor: I guess I can do that. It’ll be extra, though.
Me: Could it be the same price because I’m skipping the ice cream and milk? (Asian markets are all about bargaining. This isn’t the case in an Asian market in Canada if you’re not Asian. It’s also not necessarily the case in Asia if you’re not Asian…)
Vendor: Hmm…Yeah, ok. One heaping plastic bowl of shaved ice later:
Yay!
The thing about shaved ice is that if you have the syrup it’s super sweet. But if you don’t have the ice cream and milk and too, too much syrup, it’s mostly just refreshing and light. There’s more ice than fruit, even. I sat on tiny plastic chairs in Ho Chi Minh City on the side of the road at 10:30pm with a bunch of Saigonese enjoying just a little fruit with a lot of ice. That was the only problem with the night market—there was nowhere to sit. It wasn’t relaxing. It was busy and packed, and there had even been a 15-minute line to get in. AND there was admission.
Nowhere in Asia that I know of charges admission. Maybe if it’s ridiculously touristy. The Richmond Market was more of a carnival than an Asian night market. And there was no whole grilled fish. The advantage it has over any other night market I’ve been to, though, was the diversity. There were Japanese soy milk puddings and takoyaki octopus balls. There were Thai noodles and shakes (smoothies made of ice, fruit and sugar), Taiwanese deep-fried shrimp, and Korean ribs. There were even these fun and strange deep-fried corn fritters stuffed with ice cream that looked like bananas.
There were the shrimp balls that came in spheres and cubes and other shapes and colours that no fish calls its own. So I left satisfied, but disappointed I couldn’t show my brother what Asia had really been like. He didn’t mind. But the weekend wasn’t over. A couple days later I planned a run down to some of the strip malls. I’d done research into which one had the best food court. There was one with three bubble tea places and some shaved ice stalls. I introduced my brother to lychee bubbles in his passionfruit bubble tea. And told him about the wonders of purple taro tea with milk and tapioca boba (the actual word for the dark spheres we usually call bubbles).
And I got more ice. I found Cherry Fruit Juice & Icy Bar and dove right in. 
This time there was a counter of topping options, from almond jelly and neon green coconut strands to watermelon, tapioca balls, coconut milk, sweetened sweet potato chunks and my all-time favourite herb grass jelly (which tastes like next to nothing if it’s from a can, but tastes bitter and deep if it’s fresh. This was canned, of course, but it’s still supposed to be almost sort of good for you. Probably not when it’s doused in syrup, though). I got 8 selections, skipping the ice cream-topped mango “icy.”. Jellies and fruit and fruit jellies and beans and seeds and my very favourite cooked taro. It’s creamy and a little sweet and very starchy and…mmm…That plus fresh mango and strawberries (I never ate strawberries in Asia because the water they’re washed in isn’t clean) was a treat. And it was giant. I’d run down to the strip mall, but I walked back with my ice to my hotel. I didn’t notice the 30 minutes fly by. My last day in Richmond I took my mom to the giant grocery stores to show her the amazing fruits and vegetables she’d never seen before. Longan and fresh durian. Bitter melon and winter melon and white-lined cucumbers and squash. And Thai pumpkin and morning glory. Rambutan. Passionfruit that didn’t come in the powder form for bubble tea. But there was no ice at the food court. My mom got a mango bubble tea with boba (she forgot to ask for less sugar, but I think she got over it), and I got Japanese daifuku—steamed rice cakes a little bigger than a toonie and 3/4″ high stuffed with sweet red bean paste (like I’d gotten on top of my shaved ice. Actually, some Japanese shaved ice variations come with mochi—the rice cakes that aren’t stuffed with sweet bean—cut up on top.) And we walked back to the hotel, stopping to watch the giant $50 geoduck clams swimming in the tanks. So Montreal, who’s going to build the first shaved ice dessert shop here? It’s money in the bag! Ice is free in Canada. Any idiot could make it work. I’ll consult. I’m probably a step above an idiot, most of the time. At least I know good shaved ice. And now, hopefully, so do you.
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