PaiGu

trü has been in London since late 2004, but it’s presence has only been felt in more recent years. I’d been to trü before for recruiting events, and had always been impressed by the quality of the finger food and attentive service. However, now that I have gone for dinner, it turns out that it was all a big tease.

When I walked into the restaurant, I was ignored for the first few minutes. After my party of four was seated, I asked about the soup of the day, and our server mumbled something awkwardly after a few seconds and ran away. “What just happened?” I asked my friend. “He seems new, but shouldn’t he have been given some training?”
A new server appeared without introducing herself to answer my soup question. I was confused, was she here to answer the soup question or was she going to be our server? This confusion lasted throughout the meal; our table seemed to have two servers, but neither of them were to be found for most of the night.

My friends were more satisfied with their entrees than mine, for good reason. My Five Mushroom Risotto was undercooked and over salty. Risotto isn’t easy to do well, but if they had wanted me to wait longer, they could have warned me so when I placed my order, and I would have gladly waited¹. The mushrooms were good, but including “three onion” in the name for having leeks, shallots, and chives was overkill. (My pictures came out blurry because I was using a friend’s camera and it couldn’t focus for some reason.)

The Duo of Duck is considered to be one of their specialties. The skin was crispy and the sweet potato puree was delicious. Unfortunately, the duck breast was not tender, which takes away most of the novelty of eating duck as opposed to chicken.

The Casarece pasta was probably the most successful dish, also the easiest. The beef tenderloin was somewhat tender and well-done. The pasta itself was a little soft for home-made pasta, but you could hardly notice it with the inclusion of mushrooms and vegetables. In reality, the Cambazolla cream made the dish, and I think the beef actually interfered with the taste of the cream sauce; I would have preferred this as a vegetarian dish.

It took eons for the server to notice us when we were ready to settle the bill. In the meantime, I checked out their bathroom, which unfortunately reminded me of bathrooms in common bars. Not at all in the vein of “New York posh,” supposedly the inspiration for the rest of the restaurant. If trü aspires to be part of the creme de la creme of restaurants in London, it has a long way to go.

Rating:

1. When I’ve ordered risotto at other places, I have always been warned of the wait time. [↩]

Chilli Secrets, or Ban Mu Yuan (半畝園) as it is known in Chinese, is a newly-opened restaurant that has already garnered quite a reputation among the chili-loving crowd of The Other Chinatown¹. Located on Leslie St. just north of Hwy 7, it is in a small plaza surrounded by industry parks. My father, who works in the area, says they have an excellent lunch special and so are quite popular with the Chinese who work nearby. But what about their dinner?
I’ve been there several times now. I was there when they first opened, then three times after that. And still, I hesitated to write a review. Why? Well, for one thing, they were new and young and gaining popularity, but could they keep it up? Consistency is a huge problem with these restaurants. Sometimes the first time you go, it’ll be the most amazing thing you’ve ever had, and the second time, it’ll be ordinary and bland, and you’re left wondering, What the hell happened?
This was the case for one of their competitors, Ba Shu Ren Jia, located in Markham. They were very popular and known for their authentic taste – it was rumoured that their chef brought over the chilies and sauces and oils that they used from China himself. Word-of-mouth traveled fast, and when the local mainland Chinese heard there was an authentic Sichuan restaurant in their midst, they flocked to it like no tomorrow. The line-ups were outrageous, sometimes around the block, with at least an hour wait. A normal patron would probably find another restaurant, but virtually no one in this line was planning to leave. They, like us, were dying to try something that had the true taste of mainland China, not the poor imitations you find in Chinese restaurants that have been here for over ten years and were modifying their taste to suit the predominantly Hong Kong Chinese population. People flocked from all over the GTA to this newly opened all-Mandarin-speaking restaurant (we, ourselves, drove all the way from Mississauga). At the peak of their popularity, their chef suddenly went on vacation, or got scouted elsewhere, or something. Either way, the authentic and delicious taste of Sichuan left with him, and the dishes afterward lacked a certain je ne sais pas that made them the good kind of mouth-numbingly spicy.
I’ve been searching high and low for another restaurant that could deliver that kind of straight-from-China kick, and finally found it in Chilli Secrets². At first, I was afraid to review this place for fear that it wouldn’t be able to keep the taste after it became popular. But by the fourth time, I decided I had to review this place. It’s actually managed to consistently deliver the kind of ma la (numbing and hot) that makes me salivate and yearn and beg for more.

On Saturday, my friend and I visited early in the evening to beat the dinner rush. Our waitress was a Cantonese-speaker but like everyone else who worked there, she was obligated to know a little Mandarin³. The clientele here is slightly more varied than some restaurants in Markham and Scarborough; while most speak Mandarin, some speak Cantonese or another dialect, and there is the occasional non-Chinese-speaking person or two (although usually accompanying a Chinese party). Like many Asian restaurants in the area, Chilli Secrets has done away with the simple, plain (and often dirty) family-restaurant feel of typical Chinese restaurants (actually spending money on interior decoration seems to be a trend in Chinese restaurants these days, especially in The Other Chinatown), and has also put their staff through some sort of customer service training.

My friend and I ordered a leng pan (appetizer) of spicy pork belly slices, an entree of spicy fried beef, and a fried rice dish of chicken and pineapple.
The spicy pork belly slices is one of my favourite dishes. It’s actually quite a large dish considering that it is an appetizer. The pork belly slices are sliced very thinly and drenched in spicy oil. The slices themselves are not marinated, so it doesn’t feel too overwhelming.


The spicy beef dish was completely different from what I expected. When the menu said “fried,” I assumed stir-fried, not deep-fried! And the beef was wrapped in batter! How very unexpected. It had a distinct aftertaste of Sichuan peppercorns, but was not initially spicy. This is probably one of the less successful dishes I’ve ordered. I think I’ll stick to pi jiu ya guo (beer duck pot) next time.


Finally, we had a chicken and pineapple fried rice that was surprisingly thoughtful and delicious. Usually, I expect fried rice to be one of the least interesting dishes – there’s oil, there’s MSG, there’s frozen peas and carrots, and there’s rice. What is there to say? But this, this fried rice came in a pineapple. It had pineapple and raisins and carrots, and it didn’t taste like MSG. I especially loved the raisins.

Other dishes I’ve had here that are also winners include jellyfish salad, and fried hot and sour potatoes. Unfortunately, this place does not do the well-known Sichuan dishes (the dishes that made the cuisine famous) as well as some other places I’ve been, such as gong bao ji ding (gong bao chicken with Chinese red lantern chilis) and fu qi fei pian (two fish filet in spicy sauce). For that, I still recommend Hot Spicy Spicy at Finch and Leslie.

Rating:

1. The Other Chinatown refers to the large Chinese population living in the northern GTA suburbs, such as Richmond Hill and Markham. [↩]
2. Yes, they spelled chili wrong in their name. No, I don’t think it was intentional. [↩]
3. Don’t worry, the chefs are mainland! [↩]

soft and soundless steps
they meet on a windless field
of floating flames

Until I started writing this recipe, I did not know what these were. I’ve used them before, oh, plenty of times. They’re great for stir-fries, easy to work with, and an easy, tasteless way to add some veggies to your dish.

Turns out, they’re not veggies. They’re fruits! Melons, in fact. I’d always had a sneaking suspicion they were related to melons (the green and the crisp and the seed gave it away), but I never really bothered to confirm it.

Chayote are apparently native to Costa Rica and a popular ingredient in Mexico, although I was introduced to them in a Chinese supermarket. Known as 佛手瓜 (Fu Shou Gua) to me, I’ve used them in stir-fries alongside the likes of chicken, soybeans, and firm marinated tofu. Since they’re related to cucumber, you can imagine that they soften easily, so you shouldn’t cook them too long if you want to retain their crisp character. They don’t have much flavour to them (less so than cucumber), and they’re fairly good at retaining water.

Anyway. Long story short. I’ve been meaning to make something with the rest of my beef chunks, which I had already slow-cooked with some salt, star anise, and dried chilli peppers. I also needed to make some “street food” for Blog Party #33, which I’ve been undecided about the entire week.
Suddenly, inspiration hit.
You know in some Chinese buns, they’ll have pulled pork or beef that’s heavily marinated? Well…

I decided to pull apart the beef chunks into “strings”, and stir-fry it with chayote and onion. The result was a great mish-mash of savoury pulled beef and soft chayote. The best part was that both components were moist (beef looses its moisture quite easily) and packed with flavour.
The street-food element is that it would be a great stuffing for a pita. In fact, it could easily be turned into a main with the addition of any number of carbs: steamed Chinese buns, white rice, or even something made from potato (polenta or mashed).
I’m trying to cut down my carb-intake though (I’ve grown up eating rice with every meal so believe me, this is a lot harder than it sounds), so I had to think of something else.
I also had to make this into an appetizer in order to qualify for the Blog Party. So…

Ta da!
I had been chewing on a stick of cucumber while I was debating (yes, I chew on sticks of cucumber), and realized that the cucumber tasted pretty good with the beef-chayote dish. So the end result was a cucumber-based appetizer with some beef, chayote, and onion. I topped it off with a small piece of red pepper to give it some colour.

The verdict: the makeover of the “street-food” beef and chayote stuffing into an elegant little appetizer is all sorts of genius. Cucumber and chayote naturally marry well since they’re members of the same family (which I did not know at the time! Hence, genius), but they also contrast each other since the chayote is soft and full of flavour, while the cucumber is on the outside, adding a fresh crisp to every bite. The beef is moist and well-marinated in typical Asian fashion, with an aroma of sesame decadence and a subtle spicy undertone. This is probably the healthiest street-food-turned-appetizer ever!

The name of this dish is another brand of genius in itself (thank you, thank you very much). Since cucumber and chayote are in the same family, they are “The Green Sisters.” The love feud is between them and the beef, whose passion is ignited by the spicy undertones and the red pepper topping, much like the tip of a flame.

We recommend that this appetizer be consumed with Amazake¹, a low-alcohol Japanese drink made from fermented rice.

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1. From Wikipedia: “Amazake can be used as a dessert, snack, natural sweetening agent, baby food, salad dressing or smoothie. The traditional drink (prepared by combining amazake and water, heated to a simmer, and often topped with a pinch of finely grated ginger) was popular with street vendors, and it is still served at inns and teahouses. Many Shinto shrines provide or sell this in the New Year. In the 20th century, an instant version became available.
   Amazake is believed to be very nutritious, with no additives, preservatives, added sugars or salts. Outside of Japan, it is often sold in health food shops.” [↩]