John 3:16 Malaysian Delight: Affordable Malaysian restaurant in Richmond
John 3:16 Malaysian Delights is an authentic Malaysian restaurant that first opened in 2014. Since then, it has been quite popular for its simple winning combination of good food and good prices. They have 2 locations – one in Richmond and one on West Broadway in Vancouver.
I first came here with my family as a table of 6 adults, so we ordered a lot of dishes – almost the whole menu – because everything sounded so good 🤤. This review is based off of the Richmond location.
The vibe
I’ve only visited twice, but I found it to be very busy both times (even on weekday nights). The parking lot is almost always full but you can always find parking elsewhere. The entrance is a little janky and you kind of enter from the back of the restaurant instead of their front door.
Once inside, you will see that it’s not the largest restaurant. I would recommend you make a reservation if you have more than 4 people because they only have 1-2 tables that can fit larger groups. There are a couple of booth tables along the wall, but the rest would be wooden tables and chairs.
Food and drinks review
Here is everything we ordered for 6 people. We did have leftovers!
Malaysian iced coffee ($5)
Kelvin ordered this Malaysian iced coffee and it literally came in a giant jug – the ones you may see in German restaurants during Oktoberfest 😅. I’m not very familiar with coffee culture, but in Singapore, they use the word “kopi” instead of “coffee” and it usually is mixed with some condensed milk, making it sweeter.
Roti canai ($10)
One of Kelvin’s favourite Malaysian appetizers is the roti, which can also be found in Indian cuisine. It is a type of flatbread (lighter than naan) and here at John 3:16, it is served with some sugar and a curry sauce. You can also add chicken or beef meat to the curry sauce but the price of the roti canai will go from $10 to $14.
There are 2 pieces of roti on the plate, but they are big pieces and definitely enough to share between 2 people (probably enough to share with 4 people honestly). Compared to other roti we’ve tried at different restaurants, this one is probably the fluffiest one – so good!
Satay skewers – chicken or beef ($10)
I’m kind of picky when it comes to skewers. I need the meat to be juicy and seasoned really well or have a bomb sauce. Well lucky for me, John 3:16 delivers. I love both the chicken and beef skewers. Each order comes with 4 skewers (pretty big), a bit of peanut sauce, some cucumbers and onion (I don’t really get the onion but it’s ok 😅).
Both of them have juicy meat and have a bit of a sweet sauce on them that goes really well with the savoury peanut sauce on top. These skewers are also super easy to share. Between the chicken and beef, I have a hard time deciding which one tastes better. I wish they had some sort of combo skewer where it was 2 chicken and 2 beef.
Curry chicken puff ($7)
These curry chicken puffs come in an order of 2 and are like small pies. The baked pastry shell on the outside is quite thick and deep fried, and inside there is curry with some meat (maybe chicken) and potatoes). I found these to be a little dry just because of how thick the pastry shell is.
Hainanese chicken ($18-32)
You cannot leave here without trying their Hainanese chicken! There are 3 different options to order this dish. You can order is as a half chicken for $17, a whole chicken for $32, or order the “Hainanese chicken rice” for $15.
The main difference between these options is that for the first two (the half or whole chicken) you just get the chicken. But if you order the Hainanese chicken rice, it is served with rice and some veggie sides, so it’s more like an entrée for one person. If you plan to share the chicken with the whole table, it makes more sense to order the half or whole chicken, and just add a side of the oil rice.
Here in my photo, we ordered the half chicken. It was super delicious 😍! It had that jelly-like coat underneath the skin that I was looking for.
Sambal okra, green beans and eggplants ($18)
For our vegetable dish, we order this stir-fry medley of okra, green beans and eggplants. The sauce they use is a sambal sauce, so it is a little spicy since it’s kind of like a chili paste.
I personally love eggplants and green beans so I thought this dish was quite tasty and cooked with a lot of flavour. The okra wasn’t soggy and all the vegetables had a nice coating of the sauce.
Nasi lemak with chicken ($17)
One of the more interesting dishes we ordered was this nasi lemak. It can be considered a national dish of Malaysia. This one from John 3:16 has a bowl of rice, a big piece of fried chicken coated in a sambal sauce, a boiled egg (why is it placed like that on top of the eggs though 😂 looks like a 🍑), peanuts, little anchovies, and a crispy chip thing.
I don’t think the rice was cooked with coconut milk like it traditionally is, but the dish was fun to eat – a bite of the chicken, mix in some peanuts and anchovies with the rice, etc. We did find that it can get a bit too salty near the end because the anchovies are salty and the sambal sauce on the chicken is salty too, so I think if the rice was cooked in that coconut milk and was sweeter, it would have better balance.
Char koay teow ($14)
Probably my favourite Malaysian dish – the char koay teow! It is very similar to one of my favourite HK dishes that beef huo fun, except this one may be better because I prefer shrimp over beef.
Char koay teow is a stir-fry noodle dish using flat rice noodles. This one has shrimp, Chinese sausages and some fish cake with chives, garlic, beansprouts and dark soy sauce. You can choose your spiciness level for this dish and they give you a big portion in this bowl! Definitely enough to have leftovers for lunch the next day.
Kari laksa ($14)
Lastly, we must try the laksa, which is a spicy noodle soup dish with coconut milk and curry. This one is seafood based so it has shrimps, fish cake, and different types of tofu so suck up all that curry-coconut goodness. Again, pretty large servings since the bowl is big.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I truly love this restaurant because I think it is currently the best Malaysian restaurant in all of the Lower Mainland. It really makes me miss the food we had during our trip to Singapore!
Recommended: Read about my trip to Bali + Singapore in April 2023.
The must-gets at John 3:16 is the Hainanese chicken (they sell out before 8:30 pm even on weekdays 😭), the char koay teow, the satay skewers, and the roti canai. Some other dishes that were sold out when we came 8:30pm on a weekday included the green beans and the bak kut teh.
Portions and prices are super affordable. For 6 people and all this food, we spent less than $200 after tax and tip. Even between two people, you can spend around $70 and have enough food leftover for lunch or dinner the next day.
So the good food combined with big portions and affordable prices gives John 3:16 a 5 star rating in my books! I recommend coming here if you are craving Malaysian food, or to bring your picky Asian parents who only like Asian cuisine but also don’t wanna pay a hefty price tag for food. Even my mom gave her thumbs up!
Sincerely, Loewe