Craig LaBan [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Apr 7, 2021
Craig LaBan, restaurant critic and “Drink” Columnist of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article about RiceVan.
Craig LaBan has been the resident restaurant critic and drink columnist for the Inquirer since 1998. He is the winner of multiple national awards from the James Beard Foundation and the Association of Food Journalists.
Nora Zhou and Xiang Robert Li are big fans of Emei, the Szechuan stalwart in Chinatown they used to visit frequently for spicy chicken, cold sesame noodles, whole fish, and a sleek ambience that was renovated just months before the pandemic.
“It has a nice ‘service-scape,’” says Li, the head of Temple University’s Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management. “They have good service, good interior design that looks nice. And spicy food is kind of my favorite.”
But their family’s regular shopping and restaurant trips from Lower Merion to Chinatown have been far more limited during the past year due to time constraints and concerns over of the virus.
Fortunately, a new food delivery company targeting Philadelphia’s suburbs called RiceVan launched in May 2020 by Emei owner Dan Tsao is bringing the taste of Chinatown to them. The white van that rolled up to their Wynnewood home last week brought boxes filled with beef and bamboo stew, rice noodles with diced beef in Szechuan sauce, braised cabbage with century eggs, bags of frozen Shanghai dumplings, fresh green plums, YiBeiNimilk tea and crunchy guoba rice snacks.