Dining Week aims to bring more visitors to Edmonton’s Chinatown

An new event is focused on featuring the best restaurants in Edmonton’s Chinatown. The inaugural Chinatown Dining Week kicked off Saturday and runs until Jan. 28.

There are five restaurants participating in the week-long event: Asian Express Hot Pot, Cui Hua Gui Lin Noodle House, King Noodle House Pho Hoang, Taipan Cafe Restaurant, and Viphalay Laos and Thai Resturant. All of them will feature special menus.

READ MORE: Walking tours in Edmonton’s Chinatown aim to draw people to neighbourhood

Linda Hoang, whose parents own King Noodle House Pho Hoang, says the event is about showing what the neighbourhood has to offer.

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“Chinatown is a really great area in Edmonton, but unfortunately not a lot of people hang out there. They come for lunch and then they leave and then it’s kind of dead,” Hoang said.

“To us, it’s maybe an opportunity to attract more people to Chinatown, to come during dinner time which maybe is not as busy as lunch time and just kind of expose Edmontonians to all the great ethnic culinary gems that are in our city.”

Chinatown Dining Week was organized by volunteers — including food blogger Sharon Yeo — who have good relationships with the five participating restaurants.

“It’s all them. They’ve been working on it for a little while and actually they have a history of trying to attract more attention to Chinatown,” Hoang said.

READ MORE: Gateway to Edmonton’s Chinatown being moved to make room for Valley Line LRT

King Noodle House’s special menu is a two-course meal that features a platter of spring rolls, pork balls and a bowl of pho, which is a Vietnamese beef noodle soup.

“Normally, you can get these items separately and they’ll cost a little different but we’re kind of packaging it up,” Hoang said.

“The other restaurants are doing similar items, so they’ll either showcase their best features, most popular features or do some deals. The $15 deals attract some attention.”

Hoang says the hope is this will be the first of many Chinatown Dining Weeks.