Sha-lin Noodles

My dad's been telling me about this place for a while, and though I've heard of it and seen it, I never thought to go in.  I was sort of reluctant to try it, but my dad said give it a shot, so I agreed.  Either I was really hungry, or the food was pretty good.  We started off with a cold plate of what might have been beef.  My mom makes this stuff all the time, so it had a real home-made taste to it.  I'll have to remember not to order this next time because I could get this at home.

Haha, my dad thinking the exact same thing as me.  It wasn't bad.  No, it was actually quite good, but when I go out to eat, I want to eat stuff that I don't usually eat at home.....

...like this.  Lamb stew/soup.  My parents never cook lamb, and I've never tried it myself except when I eat out.  They say that when it's cold, you should eat lamb, but I have no idea if that's true or not.  Anyway, you want a gamey soup, this is it.  It tastes like lamb, mixed with some veg.  I'd probably order this again on a cold day.  It's soup, so it'll warm you up.  Not sure how lamb is supposed to get your body temperature up, just because it's lamb.

Green onion pancake, you can never go wrong with this.  What drives me up the wall are places that under cook it, the dough is still raw in the middle, or they don't use enough oil, or it's just not seasoned right and needs salt.  This place was none of those - it was done right and tasted great.  It didn't seem to match everything else we had, but I still liked it.

Zha Jiang Mien, I have no idea how to say this in English, so just trust me when I say it tastes good and you should try it.  No weird meats in it, in fact I'm pretty sure it was pork.

Would I go back?  Well, the food that I tried at Sha Lin wasn't particularly exciting, just like this post, but it tasted good, so yeah, I'd probably, if I were in the area and I was hungry.


 

Sun Sui Wa - Richmond

You know a blog is in decline when posts come up only every few months and the only pictures that are posted are from a crappy phone cam, haha!  But I promised a friend I would get back into it so here we are.  My buddy Eric was in town and we hit a couple of places like Le Crocodile, and The Keg, but I've reviewed those places already and this time around, I only had my phone cam so I'm not going to repost.  We still have to go to Bishop's one of these days, but that will have to wait till his next visit.

So the night before Eric went back, he tells me he has a craving for seafood.  I was thinking ok, let's go to Alleluiah and he can have the baked seafood on rice but he had other things in mind.  We ended up at Sun Sui Wa, a place that evidently has no late night combos of baked seafood on rice that comes with a cream soup and ice lemon tea.  I let Eric do the ordering and we started off with this scallop and mushroom soup (at least I think there were mushrooms in it).  I guess they were using dried scallops to make it, so the first thing I thought of was how I was going to replicate this and my mind drifted to the Chinese medicine shops in Chinatown that sell dried scallops.  I figure dried scallops, enoki mushrooms and cornstarch?  Anyway, it tasted good.

Eric ordered Alaskan King Crab steamed with garlic and green onions.  It was a medium sized one apparently, but there was enough to feed about ten people and there were only three of us this night.  I have to tell you, I don't eat much Alaskan King Crab, maybe a few times a decade.  It sure is a step up from dungeness crab, which is already a treat so when Eric ordered this, I couldn't stop grinning.  The three of us stuffed ourselves to the point where we actually had about a quarter of the dish left.  The crab was steamed perfectly and the meat came out from the shell without much effort.  Surprisingly, the garlic didn't overwhelm the flavour of the crab.  Since we had leftovers, when the staff were packing it all up, I made sure that they didn't pour out the drippings.  It's packed full of flavour that you could easily make a crab bisque with it, or dump it into pasta, or cook veggies with it.  It would be criminal not to.

On top of ordering crab, Ercic also ordered scallops steamed in a similar sauce of garlic and green onions.  The three of us were on sensory overload from the crab already and the scallops came half-way through.  Surprisingly, we were still able to enjoy the scallops.  Again, steamed perfectly, not rubbery at all.

Another shot of the crab.  I know we had veggies at some point in the evening, but I guess I was so distracted by the seafood, I must have neglected to take a picture of it.  The food at Sun Sui Wa was pretty good, as was the service.  The staff was always there to make sure we had clean plates, the dishes came quick and they were always friendly.  You know it's a better than average Chinese restaurant when they give you the wet wipes before and after your meal, haha!

Alaskan King Crab at Lucky Tao

God, this should have been posted bak in April or something, haha!  I have really been neglecting this blog since I started that other hobby, but anyways, let's see if I can get back into it.

Alaskan King Crab was in season a few months back and all the Chinese restaurants were having their deals on.  The one we chose to try was Lucky Tao.  I haven't had Alaskan King Crab for ages and to be honest, I can't tell the diff between good quality and bad since I hardly ever have it.  Take dungeness crab meat, throw it in a pool of garlic butter and I doubt I could tell it from Alaskan.  But anyway, here we are at Lucky Tao.

The place was pretty crowded and considering we had a reservation, we still had to wait quite some time well past our reservation time.  The staff worked hurriedly, with no time for idle chit-chat or smiles.

Out waiter brought out a crab to show us that the meat was indeed real, and not pre-frozen.  I had my doubts originally because the tanks were filled to the brim, overcrowded even, with Alaskan King Crabs, yet everyone was ordering Alaskan King Crab.  Then I saw a delivery of live crab brought in unceremoniously through the center of the restaurant and saw that yes, they just had a steady supply crabs.....I know, that sounds weird.

The first course was the legs, all opened up for us and served in this buttery garlic sauce.  There were way too many of us, so I onyl had about two legs.  Garlic and butter is always a good combo, especially when added to just about any seafood, so yeah, it tasted good.  Not sure if it tasted $15.95 per pound good, but it tasted good.  Funny thing was, I swear I didn't get a pound's worth of crab, haha!

The set meal allowed for a side dish so we chose deep fried prawns in seasoning salt.  It was pretty tasty and the prawns were of a decent size.  Good thing everyone else was holding out for the next crab dish so I got most of the prawns, haha!

Some sort of meat and veg, not worth mentioning.

Next was the fried rice served in the crab head.  I honestly didn't detect much crab meat here, and the fried rice was a bit substandard.  And *uck!  What did they do with that gooey stuff some people call crab brains or Kani Miso?  Oh, if they threw it out, what a waste it would be.

No idea what this was....some sort of jello pallet cleanser.  The only reason I ate so much of it was because after our meal, I was still really, really hungry.  It worked out to about $45 per person, and I felt a bit scammed because I was still hungry at the end! 

Would I go back?  Well, probably not.  The service ended up being really good, two older gentlement were our primary servers and they were pretty nice.  But damn, Alaskan King Crab is pretty expensive for me, so on that alone, I would probably not go back.  The food tasted good overall and the service was decent, but to leave with $45 less in my wallet, and still be hungry is the biggest sin.

Dim Sum at Bing Sheng

I went with my parents to visit my Grandma's place a while ago and from her place, we walked to Bing Sheng.  We've been here before and I'm usually pretty hungry when I go, and pretty full and happy when I leave. 

Chicken knees, haha!  I've got a couple of friends that get creeped out by this sort of thing, but I love the stuff.  Would be better on a hot summer night accompanied by an ice-cold beer or some sake, but it's nice for breakfast as well, haha!

The congee was piping hot, and stayed hot for along time, probably because of the stone pot.  It also didn't seperate and get all watery half-way through your meal like some places I know. 

The hagow are crammed with shrimp and the skin is thin enough that if you're not careful, the whole thing will grenade on you.

Steamed pork ribs were built up with butternut squash filler, which isn't that bad.  I was tempted to order a bowl of rice and just dump the leftover drippings into it, but I refrained.

The siumai were also on the large side, and packed pork and shrimp.

Have I mentioned I love egg tarts?

Teppan Kitchen and Lung Kee Congee and Noodles

My parents were telling me about this new place called Saboten that specializes in Japanese tonkatsu that I had to check out.  They warned me that the line ups were huge at this place, since it just opened so I figured it couldn't hurt to have a look.  Once I saw the line, I said to myself, screw it, I'll wait till the fad is over, just like Beard Papa.  It was unreal watching all the lemmings line up to try this place, and though I was hungry, I had no intention of waiting an hour to try tonkatsu served on a styrofoam plate.

Instead, my folks and I tried Teppan Kitchen, which had absolutely nobody standing by it waiting to place an order.  Haha, I don't know if it was out of pity or curiosity that drove me to try it, but looking at the lone chef standing behind the counter staring at the mile-long line up for Saboten, I thought, "kawaisou". 

Anyway, I walked over and my stomach started to grumble at the sight of the plastic food in the display.  I'm always a sucker for the 3D menus so I told my dad that I was trying this place.

My mom's teeth were still reeling from the dentist so she settled for Lung Kee's congee instead of semi cooked meat on an iron pan. 

Seafood congee and radish cakes.  Not my favourite items on the menu, but I tried them anyway and decided that they were on par with standard food court offerings.

When our meals were ready, I was surprised by the presentation.  The meals were actually served on the iron skillets, and they had the paper shield to protect the customer from oil spatter.  The miso soup came in a styrofoam containter, and that was to be expected, but the little wooden spork was a nice touch.

My dad ordered the salmon and I ordered the beef which came semi-raw and the residual heat from the skillet was cooking the rest.  Of course, I gobbled it up while it still had a pulse, wouldn't want to overcook the beef.  Both dishes tasted surprisingly good.  We didn't need to add any extra sauce, though it was available if one felt the need to drown their rice in sauce and make porridge. 

Gotta love the spork.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with Teppan Kitchen, and I'd probably eat there again.  As for Lung Kee, probably not unless I was sick because everyone knows that congee is the best medicine for any kind of illness, haha!