Entries categorized as ‘Chinese’
There are few things I love to eat more than dumplings so when Sherman put the word out for a Shanghainese dinner at The City Temple of Shanghai Restaurant, it didn’t take long for me to respond and a few days later Elaine, Kim, Sherman and I (with some other non-blogging guests) sat down to a feast. I’ve been to City Temple a couple of times before on the recommendation of fellow Foodist Nancy Wu and I was looking forward to the pillowy soft dumpling goodness that comes out of this Main Street hole the wall. When he made the reservation, Sherman also ordered us a Peking duck, so we had that to look forward to as well.
We ordered 2 types of dumplings, the duck (which comes in two dishes – the skin and the meat) and several other delicious sounding things from the multicolored strips of menu tacked to the wall.
The duck (skin) was the first to arrive and I’m sad to say that it wasn’t amazing. Traditionally, it’s served with a crepe, green onion, cucumber and hoisin sauce and here was no different. The skin was crispy and salty and I enjoyed it on its own but the crepes were cold and a little chewy, not to mention unmatched to the portion sizes of duck skin, meaning that there were a few mouthfuls of dry crepe for every bite of duck deliciousness. The duck meat was served stir-fried with lettuce wraps and this one I found to be very tasty.
But enough about the duck! We were here for the dumplings and they came in spades. We got two orders each of both pan-fried and xiao long bao, my favorite. Good, flavourful broth served nice and hot – they’re not as good as Lin’s but I’d been too long without an XLB fix so I can’t complain at all. The potstickers, however, were better and here you have some photos of both sides of them.
After that there were some tan tan noodles, fried noodles, and fried pork with rice cake that paled in comparison to the first part of the meal. Tan tan are some of my favorite flavours but they could have been stronger here and the fried pork I could have done without entirely.
I’ve been wanting to compile a xiao long bao database for a while now and I think I need to get on that, so I can correctly position City Temple in the mix. I’m sure I’ll be back, maybe just not before I get back to Lin’s and Peaceful.
__________________________________
City Temple of Shanghai
3755 Main Street, Vancouver
Cash only.
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: Chinese, Vancouver, xiao long bao, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, xlb, Shanghainese, peking duck
Dim Sum at Jade Dynasty found us ordering the usual assortment of items; sui mai, har gaw, taro cake, etc. until someone noticed the sign on the wall advertising snake soup. I don’t think there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that we were going to order it, but I for one was wishing it wasn’t 11 in the morning.
It came dressed in ginger and garlic and onion, beautifully decorated with chrysanthemum petals but with all the spices in the soup, it could have been anything. In this case, snake tastes like chicken if the chicken is stewed in ginger and garlic.
The rest of the dim sum was passable, but the xiaolongbao were a bit limp which is what I judge everything by so I likely won’t be back in a hurry.
_______________________________________________
Jade Dynasty
137 Pender Street, Vancouver
Categories: Asian · Chinese · adventures in dining
Tagged: adventure, Chinatown, degan beley, dim sum, ethniceats.ca, snake, soup, Vancouver
I’ve been on a bit of a dumpling kick lately. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love xiaolongbao, or “soup dumplings” but since I’ve got a car it’s made roaming the golden city (Richmond) a whole lot easier.
Xiaolongbao are a magic kind of Shanghainese style dumpling made by cooling meaty gelatin and wrapping it around the pork filling inside the dumpling, becoming “soup” when the dumpling is cooked. They can be a bit tricky to eat without burning your tongue, but the risk is well worth it.
Dinesty has a great many dumplings on the coffee-book quality menu – a whole page, in fact. The xiaolongbao were ordered immediately, along with some pan-fried ones, and as man cannot live on dumplings alone, we also ordered the highly recommended ancient boil fish, pan-fried squid, and hand-cut noodles with seafood and pork.
And then we ordered dumplings for dessert. I told you I was on a kick.
The ancient boil fish soup (what a name!) was spicy and flavourful, but in a way that washed out the meat of the fish. All you got a hit of oil and pepper and the flavouring was pretty interesting, but I would have liked it to be a bit more balanced and I wouldn’t order it again. The noodles were better, offering chunks of seafood between the ropes of noodles, and the pan-fried squid was better still. As for the dumplings, they held together well and were nicely flavoured and are the menu item I’d go back for. I preferred the xialongbao to the pan-fried and the red bean dessert dumplings, but then I always do.
Here you can see the dumpling makers at work, preparing for the next day:
dumpling making from Degan Beley on Vimeo.
______________________________________________________
Dinesty
160-8111 Ackroyd Road, Richmond
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: Chinese, dim sum, dining, dumpling, review, richmond, squid, Vancouver, video, xiaolongbao, xlb, yam cha
Chinatown got a little bit cooler last night. With the exception of the Alibi Room on one end and Campagnolo on the other, the dining and drinking establishments are not exactly what you’d call sexy. But former Chambar bartender Tanis Ling’s Chinatown brasserie, Bao Bei opened officially last night. A quirky, cute decor backed up by serious bartending talent and a large, creative menu, it’s a gem set to shine as bright as it’s brand new neon sign.
I tried the pineapple skewer with chili lime salt, spicy wontons in chili sauce, shao bing (sesame bun with braised pork), clamshell mantou short rib dumplings, pot stickers, duck congee, and even managed to sample some of the tea eggs, crispy daikon cake, avocado ice cream and mango pudding from our neighbours. We wanted badly to try the fried bananas but frankly it would have just been disgusting to still be eating at that point.
To wash it down we had an Asian-inspired margarita with tangerine peel salted rim, a Sichuan pepper infused bloody mary, an enormous pina colada, the popular “Health Tonic” with beet and pear juice and my favorite of the list, Madame Chiang with gin, Fernet Branca and grapefruit juice. There were also a couple of “Tanis” specialties including a nameless one I loved with orange blossom water, Lillet, gin and basil.
Sipping on a pina colada, complete with umbrella, amongst the mis-matched collection of Chinese art and ephemera felt a little out of place and I was surprised at the “traditional” cocktails on the menu. The Asian influence was obvious in several of them, but with a menu so solidly Chinese and a room that pulled off the concept of “Chinese brasserie” endearingly, I thought there would be bigger leaps. That may be coming soon, however, judging by the appearance of a candied kumquat and an unfamiliar dried bitter citrus fruit.
The place was packed last night, a trend that will likely continue with The Keefer opening soon and the Chinatown revitalization project forging ahead.
____________________________________
Bao Bei
163 Keefer Street, Vancouver
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: bar, brasserie, Chinatown, degan beley, dine out, dining, ethniceats.ca, restaurant, Vancouver
Photo Credit: ecstaticist.
So I’ve dedicded to start a new project for dining in 2010. The tagline of this site is “Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver” and so instead of of traipsing around Vancouver’s culinary delights in the random way I have been for the last (almost) 2 years, I am going to present my finds country by country.
I still have a bit of a backlog of reviews, so I may post those interspersed with the project and if I feel really keen, I may even post some recipes.
First stop on the grand tour: North America. Got any favorites you’d like to recommend?
Categories: African · Asian · Australian · Belgian · Cambodian · Caribbean · Chinese · Cuban · Dutch · Eastern European · El Salvadoran · Ethiopian · Filipino · French · German · Greek · Himalayan · Indian · Indonesian · Irish · Italian · Jamaican · Japanese · Korean · Latin · Lebanese · Malaysian · Mexican · Nepalese · News · Persian · Romanian · Scandinavian · Singaporean · Spanish · Srilankan · Taiwanese · Thai · Tunisian · Vancouver52 · Vietnamese
Tagged: restaurant, cuisine, Vancouver, culture, travel, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, world, dining, dine out, project, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver
September 9, 2009 · 1 Comment
Every country has some form of dumpling and meat on a stick shows up all over the world too, from Indonesian satay to American county fair corndogs. Why? Because somewhere along the line we discovered that putting a piece of meat on a stick was a handy way of cooking and eating our protein. And also because it tastes good.
Yesterday saw us sampling Vietnamese brochettes and sugar cane, today we go to the Richmond Night Market and have siu mai and lamb skewers.
Meat on a stick is made for festivals and fairs and night markets. What better way to wander around and eat than to have your meal handily presented on a bit of wood? You have a handle. You have a utensil. You’re golden.
Unsurprisingly, there are several kinds of meats-on-sticks to be had at the Richmond Night Market - the street meat epicentre - as well as a new item that showed up this year, the trendy “potato-spiral on a stick“. I don’t think it will last, but you never know. It sure looked popular.
In terms of meat, there is sausage on a stick, siu mai and whole grills full of lamb, beef and pork skewers. While there is nothing wrong with smokey, charcoal-grilled meat, especially cooked outdoors so you can smell the meat cooking a block away, I usually pass it up in favour of the many more interesting things on offer. The siu mai are flavourful and fatty dumplings, 4 to a stick that are a perennial favorite and the BBQ squid, rubbery and tentacly and saucy, is an absolute must.
Richmond Night Market is on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights until the end of September and then you’ll have to wait until next year.
__________________________________________
Richmond Night Market
Richmond, behind IKEA.
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: degan, degan beley, dim sum, ethniceats.ca, market, meat on a stick, richmond, richmond night market, siu mai, skewers, summer
I like going on adventures, even if they are small adventures; the kind where maybe nothing overly exciting happens, but you go somewhere new and eat something new and have fun doing it. So a friend and I ended up in Richmond at Shanghai Wonderful a couple of weeks ago. He’d already been to Shanghai River and so we decided to do a little compare and contrast on the xiao long bao, soup dumplings. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Shanghai soup dumplings and I even made a little video of how to eat them properly.
First you pick them up delicately from the steamer, so as not to rip the packet en route to your mouth. Then you tear a little hole in it and slurp out some of the juice before putting the whole dumpling in your mouth. Just tucking in without caution can result in you getting “soup” all over the place or burning your mouth. Consider yourself warned.
The XLB at Shanghai Wonderful were soupy and hot but could have done with some more attention in the flavour department as they were not very fragrant or flavourful.
I was informed that they weren’t as good as Shanghai River and in fact I don’t even think they’re as good as Lin’s, so it was a good thing that we also ordered an entire fish (yellow fish in red sauce which reminded me a little too much of Dr. Seuss) and half a duck. There were also noodles. Needless to say, there were a lot of leftovers.
I quite like unassuming Shanghai-style cafes that can pump out anything from 10 pages of menu and make it taste delicious and Shanghai Wonderful is one of the better ones. Next time I’ll bring even more people so we can order even more food. Groan.
_______________________________________________
Shanghai Wonderful
8380 Lansdowne Road #110, Richmond
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: degan, duck, dumpling, ethnic eats, ethniceats.ca, fish, noodles, restaurant, rice, richmond, smoked duck, soup dumplings, tea, xiaolongbao
Someone asked me the other day where I would take foodie guests to eat in Vancouver and even though I did have guests in the summer, I still gave it a good think before deciding to post my top 5 here. To some extent it would depend on the guest (tastes, sense of culinary adventure, favoured cuisines, etc.), your relationship to them (romantic, family, big group, etc) and time of year (patio, view), but here’s a short list:
1. Hapa Izakaya
1479 Robson St, Vancouver
Hapa is first because I take everyone to Hapa. Sexy, modern, exotic and delicious with an inexpensive and varied menu, it does a fantastic job of showcasing Vancouver’s Asian cuisine and satisfying a wide swath of people.
Fresh fish, decadent ebi mayo, cold sake in bamboo carafes. Very reasonably priced. No resos between 6 and 8.
2. Boneta
1 West Cordova, Vancouver
Boneta’s tag line is “Boneta loves you” but I just want to squeeze them and tell them I love them right back. How can you not love Boneta? Fresh, flirty and fabulous, it manages to be somehow luxurious and casual at the same time. By which I mean that you can eat the best carpaccio (bison! with quail egg!) in the neighbourhood and not have to dress up for it, and you can likewise sip a glass of bubbly at the table next to Jennifer Beals and feel absolutely at home. The staff work hard to maintain this balance and I think that the emphasis on creating a welcoming environment is very Vancouver. That and it’s filled with local art, locally harvested products and minor local celebrities.
3. The Refinery
1115 Granville Street, Vancouver
Having recently celebrated their official grand opening, I suspect that the once quiet room at The Refinery is now going to be packed, but with good reason. Amazing cocktails like Lauren Mote‘s prize-winning Charred Bourbon Sour (in house “house” bitters, bourbon, lemon, egg white, charred american oak and caramelized coconut syrup), lots of B.C. wines and locally sourced product wherever possible.
The staff is incredble, the room is gorgeous and icing on this delicious cake is that the place is head-to-toe sustainable. Ocean-wise fish and on-site filtered water, organic and (where possible) homemade juices in the cocktails, recycled wood tables and wood fixtures and even a bike storage locker. The only thing that would make it more quintessentially Vancouver would be yoga on the roof.
4. Raincity Grill
1193 Denman Street, Vancouver
I haven’t actually been to Raincity Grill yet, but it’s a local favorite of many friends and foodists and I think has to be included on this list because of its dedication to West Coast cuisine and locally sourced food.
I used to frequent Aurora for that reason, RIP.
5. Dim Sum…somewhere
Doesn’t really matter where, but you need to go for dim sum if you’re visiting Vancouver. Har gow…siu mai, these are common words in the food-loving Vancouverite’s vocabulary and with so many quality asian restaurants, in my mind it’s a requisite stop. Happy Valley is a good choice, or Dai Tung or any of the fine establishments in Richmond. The Richmond Night Market is also a perfectly acceptable substitute and has the added benefit of being able to buy miles and miles of crap merchandise for your guests to take home with them.
What do you think? Where would you take an out of town guest?
Categories: Asian · Chinese · Japanese
Tagged: carpaccio, cocktails, culture, dai tung, dim sum, downtown, ebi mayo, english bay, fish, gastown, har gow, local, restaurants, richmond night market, sake, sustainable, Vancouver, west end
The menu reads, “the benefits of eating congee are irrefutable” and sitting in the busy restaurant listening to the din of happy diners competing with the low throb of my hangover, I prayed that that would prove true.
Congee is a sort of Asian hot rice soup, very similar to cream of wheat or porridge, that is often filled with meats or fish. I’ve heard that it’s an acquired taste, but raised on cream of wheat and porridge with sausage and other savories in it, I take to it naturally and seek it out whenever I need some comfort.
The house special congee, an easy favorite, is a bowl of creamy rice broth with toasted peanuts and green onion on top and filled with huge prawns, mushooms and pieces of fish, squid, and scallops. For $7 you are practically guaranteed to be full and also so warm and taken care of after. If you live nearby, you might want to go home for a nap. As it was, I think I nodded off a bit on the bus.
Some day I’d like to try the more exotic congees on offer; ostrich meat congee, and Chinese parsley and sea bass congee but I wasn’t about to risk my hangover on something exotic. The house special fixed me up just fine.
___________________________________________
Congee Noodle House
141 East Broadway, Vancouver
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: congee, prawn, rice, soup, squid
Ethnic Eats is back in force and today welcomes Travis Smith, our first guest writer, who recently made a foray to Richmond to Shanghai River. He writes regularly at Unvarnished.
I had two pick up two people at the airport, 3 hours apart, and thought to myself — why waste a trip over the bridge? So I made a reservation at Shanghai River in Richmond, whose Xiao Long Bao are said to be the best around… but more on that later.
I was quickly reminded of Richmond’s broad roads with narrow or no sidewalks, and getting parking at the restaurant itself proved a bit tricky. Impossible tip: Turn into the parking garage driveway just before you see the restaurant sign because by the time you see it, you’re past the entrance.
Shanghai River presents a typical Chinese dining room experience: large round tables with crisp white tablecloths, waiters in plain shirts and solid ties with one blue-shirted manager supervising the bill-paying procedure. Reservations are recommended, and many of the menu options were built for groups of 4,6,8 or 10.
But we were just a group of three, which was oh-so-sad because their glossy coffee-table-book-style menu promised such deliciousness on offer if only we had had more people to share with. The menu itself was a fabulous work — but sadly, several of the menu items were not available when we asked; perhaps because we dined late, or perhaps because it’s really hard to change a bound book when food items become hard to procure.
We appetized ourselves with Xiao Long Bao (their most popular item) and three deep fried shrimp paste balls on a crab claw. The bao are superb — a flavourful clear broth and loosely bound pork filling in a tender dumpling wrap that is a true test of chopstick finesse. You must nibble a hole and suck out the piping hot soup, then pop the dumpling in your mouth, all without tearing the delicate dough. I wish there was a second batch.
The shrimp balls were the only sour note of the evening, literally and figuratively. Imagine eating deep fried silly putty (come on, you know you’ve wanted to) that, because of the extruding claw, looks like an alien creature hatching. It was too hot, burning my mouth (OK, fine, that could have been partially my fault), and tasting powerfully of … nothing in particular. I found myself wondering if I could remove the batter and play squash with the balls instead.
The lamb rack was stellar if not too Chinese, and the surprise of the evening was “fish fillet in seaweed,” which turned out to be oh-so-lightly tempura’d and came with straight Worcestershire sauce that was a wonderful accompaniment.
The service started out slow, got better, and then dwindled at the end, but I prefer that to an overly attentive waitstaff when you’re trying to pick through so many menu items, or when you’re in no hurry to leave. Still, this isn’t a dash-in, dash-out place. If possible, ask for a table with a view of the kitchen — the dumpling makers are visible from some of the dining room behind a floor-to-ceiling glass window that makes for fun watching.
______________________________________________
Shanghai River Restaurant
110 – 7831 Westminster Hwy. Richmond, BC
Categories: Chinese
Tagged: Chinese, dumplings, richmond, xiao long bao
Subscribe to the RSS feed so you don't miss a single bite.
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants
