December 14th, 2009 §
Skyland de Shanghai (上海新天地) across from Pacific Mall is my new favourite Shanghainese restaurant. The food here reminds me of Zhejiang (浙江) Province, the food of my childhood. Heck, it was the food of my parents’ childhoods. I had driven by this place many times and even heard it recommended to me, but for some reason, I never tried it. Dinner last night left me wondering, “Why didn’t I come here sooner?”
The interior is modern and well-lit. The tables are quite close together but the semi-circle dividers give an illusion of spaciousness.
The menu was varied with bright, bold pictures of mouthwatering dishes. We started with a “dessert” as an appetizer, gui hua tang ou (steamed lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice).
This steamed dessert was soft and sticky with sugary juices, and the sweet glutinous rice complemented the slightly crispier lotus root. I have always wondered what dessert in Chinese culture really is, but now I know why I had such a hard time figuring it out. For most families, there is no distinction between courses, everything is set on the table pretty much at once. Sure, you have bigger dishes and smaller dishes, hot dishes and cold dishes, but the distinction is not as clear as in Western tradition. For example, here is a dessert that looks deceptively like an appetizer. Who would have thought of lotus root being a dessert? It comes down to a fundamental difference in technology: Chinese chefs don’t bake. Baking is very much a Western technology, and Canton baked desserts have been influenced that way. Traditional Chinese desserts are made much in the same way that all dishes are made, on the stove.
Next up was ban li shao ji (chicken with chestnuts stew).
This was every good as bit as it looks. Braised chicken with chestnuts is a common family dish in the Shanghai area. It’s an exceedingly simple recipe – just soy bean paste and salt – but the chestnuts add something very subtle and unique to the sauce.
The highlight of the evening, however, was the Shanghai special hot pot.
In this pot contained an elaborate combination of: dan jiao (pork in egg wrapper dumplings), pork in tofu wrapper, Lion’s Head meatballs, fen si (vermicelli), fish balls, dried ham (salted and air-dried as opposed to smoked) and various Chinese vegetables. It was glorious.
Another unique dish was belly pork in a fermented beancurd sauce. Fermented beancurd (or dou fu ru) is not as strange as it might sound. It is not pungent at all, instead it is very flavourful.
Belly pork is pork that has a lot of fat, and it is usually cut in big chunks with the skin still on it. Although this is probably not a dieter’s dream, the skin, fat, and meat goes really well together, especially in a dish like this that would need to be cooked for a long time until a lot of fat has melted into the sauce.
On the side, we also had a bowl of bok choy fried rice.
For dessert, we had lan gua bing (fried pumpkin pancakes).
They are made with glutinous flour and covered in sesame seeds, fried until golden brown. These were melt-in-your-mouth good, the best I’ve ever had.
Service could have been more attentive but no worse than a typical Chinese restaurant of this size. The prices are very reasonable (although a little higher than some of the other restaurants in Scarborough). There are a lot of unique, home-grown Shanghai dishes on the menu that I have not seen elsewhere. I would definitely come back, and next time, I’m bringing more people so I can try more dishes.
Rating: 
September 8th, 2009 §
Ambassador Chinese Cuisine is practically a landmark in Richmond Hill. Every weekend, dozens of Chinese families flock to Ambassador for an age-old Chinese tradition: dim sum.
A group of friends and I joined the frenzy one rainy Sunday noon. Given my preference for northern Chinese food, I hadn’t been to a Cantonese-style dim sum place in a long time. I let my friends do most of the ordering since they had been here before, I just sat back and prepared to eat.
Crispy shrimp cigars were spring rolls shaped like straws, with a single shrimp in each. They were so cute! The spring rolls were crispy and golden. Perfection.
Pan-fried pork and shrimp dumplings were a little burnt, but the wrapper held strong. The filling was average, mostly pork and chives with some little dried shrimps.
Pan-friend bean curd rolls had a vegetarian filling in a bean curd wrapper. The bean curd tasted surprisingly fresh.
Dessert in the form of steamed egg custard rolls arrived too early in the meal, but were light, fluffy, and not too sweet.
Steamed shrimp dumplings in a translucent wrapper sprinkled with roe, stuffed with plump pieces of shrimp. So tender, so delicious.
Steamed shrimp and roe shao mai, in a surprisingly tough egg wrapper. Not as tender as the steamed shrimp dumplings.
Jellyfish and mango salad was cold and refreshing. The biggest surprise? The jellyfish did not taste like canned jellyfish.
Steamed pork rice noodle roll. It was soft and delicious, especially with the light house sauce. If I knew how to make rice noodle rolls, I’d make them every day.
Another dessert that arrived in the middle of the meal, tapioca jelly cups, each with a different ingredient in the centre. One had red bean, one had egg custard (?), and one had a cream-coloured filling that I didn’t get to taste.
Coconut tapioca dessert, with chunks of real coconut, honeydew, canteloupe, and of course, tapioca jelly. Anything with coconut tastes good to me, and honeydew is only my favourite melon, so of course, I loved this.
Another bean curd roll, this time with a savoury ground pork filling that included wood ear (mu er).
This was also a steamed pork dumpling, but the wrapper is made of tapioca as opposed to flour. The filling did not hold together very well though.
The last to come was also the one we were dreading the most: curry octopus. One of my friends had ordered this on a whim/dare. It was a bad decision. The octopus was hard to chew and the curry was more messy than it was flavourful.
Desserts came at the same time as entrees, service was mediocre, but what do you expect from such a large banquet hall? At least the bathrooms were clean. The prices are reasonable, and (I am told) the quality of food is consistent, which is the biggest draw for its loyal customers.
Rating:
July 29th, 2008 §
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 Chinatown. 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 Secrets. 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 Mandarin. 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: