July 29th, 2008 § § permalink
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.
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July 15th, 2008 § § permalink
Ding Tai Fung has become surprisingly famous considering its unassuming location at First Markham Place, and for good reason. The dim sum here is the most authentic I’ve ever had, and lucky for me, it is Shanghai-style as opposed to Cantonese-style. That means, no carts rolling around and plenty of xiao long bao for all!
Pai gu may have been my favourite dish at home as a child, but xiao long bao were hands down my favourite thing to order when we were eating out. I grew up in Nanjing, which is not far from Shanghai and certainly influenced by Shanghai cuisine. We always went out to eat steamed buns (filled and unfilled) and steamed dumplings because they were cheap and extremely time-consuming to make at home (there were no such things as frozen buns and dumplings in those days so we’d have to make it from scratch). Not to mention, I spent a summer in Shanghai with my grandparents and I made sure to eat enough xiao long bao to last me until the next time I returned to China.
There is an art to eating xiao long bao, one that I don’t care to exercise unless I’m in China. What is this art and why don’t I exercise it? The proper way to eat xiao long bao is to gently lift it out of the long zi (bamboo basket), dip it in vinegar (optional – but if you are a native of the JiangSu province, you will not skip the vinegar), and eat it in one bite so that no soup leaks out. The xiao long bao wrapper is very thin and delicate, and it sticks to surfaces, so it’s easy to break if you set it down. And letting the soup leak out is a blasphemy for all Chinese, so be sure the xiao long bao goes straight from the basket to your mouth if you are eating with “real Chinese.”
The reason I tend not to follow this technique when I eat is because the soup is so hot that I’ll often burn my mouth if I eat the xiao long bao in one bite. However, I am not going to let the soup leak out either, so I’ll put the xiao long bao down in a small bowl or on a soup soon, and then I bite a small hole in the wrapper and suck out the soup before I eat the xiao long bao. Still tastes delicious!
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July 10th, 2008 § § permalink
Zen Gardens is the first vegetarian restaurant I’ve been to, and it made a surprisingly excellent first impression on my taste buds. Located on Dundas a block east of Wellington, the small, unassuming Asian restaurant is serenely decorated, with bamboo on the walls and tea sets on display.
My friend and I took a long time to decide what to order, since everything on the menu was quite new and different to us. Kung Po Soy Chicken or Thai (Soy) Steak? Enoki Mushroom Balls or Curry Fried Rice?
We ended up settling on ordering one dim sum and one entree each. She ordered the BBQ pork-stuffed bun, a classic dim sum item, except the pork was of course a soy substitute, and I ordered a sticky rice wrap (zong zi). I used to love sticky rice wraps when I was a kid, especially the ones filled with aged sausage and marinated pork (called “savoury” sticky rice wraps, as opposed to the “sweet” variety where the filling is usually red bean paste), but I can’t often find authentic sticky rice wraps here in Canada. Most of the time, they are the Vietnamese or Cantonese variety, both of which have different fillings that I tend not to like as much. I could spend a whole day talking about zong zi, but suffice to say, they are not easy to prepare, take a long time to cook, and thus, good zong zi in Canada are an endangered species.
I was a little skeptical of the dim sum menu to begin with, which only included three items and seemed out of place in this Asian zen restaurant filled with non-Asian customers. To me, dim sum conjured an image of a banquet hall filled with the ever-increasing volume of Asians fighting over the bill in Cantonese as waitresses whizzed by with trolleys of steamed goodies stacked five-feet high. Not to mention dim sum without real meat? Blasphemy!
Out of place though it was, the dim sum was surprisingly authentic, which made me curious as to who the chefs were. My friend’s BBQ-pork bun came out fantastic, with a perfectly soft and fragrant bun (the bun is actually where the skill-level of the chef is deduced) that I never in a million years thought I’d find in London. The filling was sweet and saucy, and although not real pork, tasted incredibly similar.
My zong zi was also incredibly authentic. It had a savoury mushroom filling, but the real treat was the sticky rice, which was cooked to perfection. Because zong zi is cooked very slowly, a lot of things can go wrong in the cooking process, and the most difficult aspect is determining when it is done. I really wish they could introduce a sweet variation as well, with the red bean paste, because then I’d be back here every day! But if they were to make that from scratch, it would be much more time-consuming than making the savoury version.
For the entree, I ordered a curry vegetable dish and my friend ordered a fried rice (what kind exactly I forget). Both our dishes had a surprising taste, the kind of surprise that makes your eyes go wide with delight as your taste buds start to react to the first spoonful. For her, it was the sweet pineapple, for me it was the curry sauce.
I didn’t expect my dish to come out looking like it did. I thought it would be a curry vegetable stir-fry or something, but it came out looking more like a stew, in a heavy pot with a thick sauce. The sauce was an absolute delight, and I have no idea what kind of curry they used. It wasn’t quite like any curry sauce I’ve ever had, and I’ve had many. There was no hint of your typical Thai ingredients in the curry (coconut, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, bay leaves, lime juice), so it was strictly its own brand of Chinese curry. It tasted closely like Japanese curry but less thick, more spicy, and more orange-coloured rather than brown. The mushrooms made it especially savoury, and I loved the subtle spicy taste that developed over time as I consumed more of the dish. One of the ingredients that also surprised me was okra, something I’ve never had before but found quite interesting. Now that I’ve looked it up, I guess it was used as a thickening agent in the stew. The other ingredients were potato, soy chunks, soy meatballs, and carrots, which all complimented each other well. Maybe it’s because there was no real meat, maybe it was because the potatoes were cut in small chunks, but either way, the meal did not feel heavy at all.
Our server was attentive and accommodating, and the atmosphere was quiet and very serene, perfect for conversation. The dessert menu was disappointingly short, so we decided to go elsewhere for dessert, but the tea menu was was quite varied and extensive.
The whole experience was a pleasant surprise, and I made it a point to meet the chef(s) after our meal. It turned out they were Cantonese, although the chef that came out to greet us spoke Mandarin, so I thanked him in my native tongue and he grinned from ear to ear.
Will I be back? Most definitely!
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