Dragon Meat in Heaven

A hard day’s work had me hankering for the food that has always lifted my spirits, especially when, in our dear culinary gastropolis, every other place seems like an unappetizing tomb. But, even when entrees seem redundant, I’m always enlivened by the comestible stuff that had me serendipitously writing about it in the first place. So, turn away, or cover your eyes, lest you, like me, love absolutely everything there is to love about the food that has me eating first, and talking later, even in the good company of my cibo chum, Joey. That’s right, TAIJI Chinese Restaurant’s food had us eating without a whisper; without the uproarious laughter that always has us celebrating food everywhere. It was a long day, anchored by a meal in a deserted but very much appreciated place.

I went through the list in my mind just to make sure: Mando pop blaring? Check. Plasma television rotating a slideshow of entrees? Check. Portion of the menu in Chinese I couldn’t read but wished I could so I could order the stuff: Check.  Don’t worry, in the humble, warmly coloured space of TAIJI you still have admittance to all your favourites. Chow mein, sweet and sour pork, sesame chicken. And just before you come to a conclusion: stop right there. TAIJI is a civil restaurant. Sure, there are those Chinese Canadian favourites; but there are a lot more of those familiarities from red China, call me a running dog.

Joey couldn’t get his mind off of the curiosity that was egg drop soup, the Italian in him calling out for stracciatella, even if I tried to dismay him. I took the reins after that. There were more interesting things to eat. So I entertained my own guilty pleasures and chose a classic, Cantonese chow mein: a nest of fried wheat noodles topped and softened with a medley of bright vegetables and savoury meats in glistening sauce. If Joey could handle chopsticks as well as me, I reckon he would have beaten me to even more of it.

I’ll be damned if Joey’s stubbornness didn’t pay off, because I was pleasantly surprised by our egg drop soup. Crystalline and viscous, it was a textural pleasure with a clean broth, flavoured with an element of spiciness reminiscent of cumin.

Lastly, and much more to my indulgence, we were graced with fried green beans with minced pork. Traditionally cooked with tough, chewy, and pleasantly bitter long beans, our dish, an homage to the original, was a little more texturally delicate. Supple crumbs of ground pork peppered a plate of soft, tender green beans, juxtaposing the salty, savoury dynamic of the dish with refreshing vegetable balminess. With a little heat, and briny pickled vegetables, our tastebuds were firing synapses like fireworks. If Joey and I were any quieter, you would have heard little pops and bangs, but the happy sounds of our chams and chomps were paradoxically even louder.

Yup, there might be dragon meat in Heaven, but when you’re at TAIJI, who needs it?

Mon, Wed, Thurs: 12pm-9:30pm

Tue: Closed

Fri-Sun: 12pm-10pm

ANY PAYMENT

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Reliable

I’d spent the later part of a sick day turning over in my mind what I could do to get over the poorer judgments of overdrinking on St. Patrick’s day, and all I could think about was not going into any pub at all. Avoiding every kind of solid food, supping on nothing but a single bowl of soup broth, graval, and bay leaf tea. But deadlines are deadlines, and even if mine isn’t an iron stomach, I still had to go out there and eat. 

I did whatever I could to meet a happy compromise; go on internet forums, ask around for places that wouldn’t have me gagging, wondering what, if anything, I could put in my spent stomach, until Joey offered me the evident answer: soup. It was a fantastic idea. The problem was, or so the internet food community told me, that no place anywhere offered soup as a meal all its own, unless of course you considered pho. I did. But from that, an even further, foreign convention: Chinese soup. I really didn’t entertain it any further than that, however. In fact, I had Joey and I driving around and scoping out as many places as we could before I surrendered to the thought of eating at a place that lay underground, without a sign, and built on a foundation of having you boil your own food in soup broth. Yes, I was so hard pressed to find a place that I disdainfully decided to go to a place I had been avoiding for months. A place I would have avoided for a lifetime if not for my bad judgment that led me to looking for the hair of the dog. A place I know is the reincarnation of a place I chewed out years ago. But, as Joey optimistically said, ‘maybe it’d be better this time.’

Mushu All-You-Can-Eat Hot Pot had me at a moral impasse. I’d known what it had been, and had a good idea of what it still was. Its filled dining hall meant nothing to me the nights I passed by, but the residuals of a hangover and the urge for something soupy had me ready and willing to entertain its hidden bearings, or the ragtag crew of youngsters trying to run a hotpot restaurant without a sign.
I had no qualms with the plastic leaves wrapped around exposed pipes for decoration, the Mediterranean floor tiling, the cold temperature of the room. I was surprised by the prohibition of tea. Anything remotely close to being offered was hot water. But no tea. I couldn’t even buy it. Was Musha a cash grab? A cost cutter? Either way, I would have to come to terms with the experience of feeling like a Mongol in the dessert. But hey, what was lacked in hospitality was made up for in hot pot. I suppose.

It was an interesting menu. You could pay for complicated broths, or choose from the ones they offer for free. Pay for a little all-you-can-eat, or a lot, depending on the ingredients- anyway, I’ve never any scruples about denying myself seafood, especially if it saves me five dollars. And if you really read the menu close enough, you can get some interesting additions for free. The print’s small, but they’re there. There was even a sauce cart, so you could make your own little dipping concoction; and if you didn’t have any ideas, there was a courteous plaque on the wall giving you recipe suggestions. It was actually pretty intriguing.

A spicy Szechuan and savoury pork broth were our two options, with a whole slew of options ready to be lurched: taro, yam, cabbage, curd, chicken, beef, noodles, sausage, and fungus- our favourite.

Hot pot, it seems, no matter where you get it, is never a true misadventure, especially when you essentially cook for yourself, and pay people to shop for you. That said, there are things you’d probably never know to get yourself. Or, if you’re really raw, know where to get. We were dazzled by a sweet nameless sausage, boiled in our spicy Szechuan sauce, immortalizing the convention of Chinese cuisine’s sweet, salty, savoury, spicy philosophy. And when those bits of chili and barley coated the inside of curled sheets of tofu curd- let me tell you- I was glad my lack of discretion and jaded attitude had me settling on Musha after all.

Musha (Xu Yuan Xuan) All-You-Can-Eat-Hot Pot
Unit 5 2 king street north
Waterloo, ON,
n2j 2w7

(519) 722-3612

Mon-Sun 1030am-1130pm
 
Any payment

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Coming Home

You’d think that the bowl of congee would otherwise be my White Whale. Well, guess again, that’s the Chinese bakery, but that’s another culinary critter altogether. It was the kid from Hong Kong though, and his ‘earth-to’ over a bowl of congee that made me really fall in love with everything Chinese food. Go further back, and it was that same Hong Kong kid and a chalky cup of Hong Kong tea that woke me up to a whole other world of culinary sentience. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with a cuisine I’ve no doubt mastered in another life, and have been trying to return to in this one.

Happy Valley’s Congee & Bar’s lights were a marvel when I first saw them glowing and abandoned months ago in that poor plaza that burned down in 2010. Since its opening a month or two ago, I’ve wondered why it hasn’t been crammed with homesick out of town kids looking for a little simulacrum of the eating houses they miss in Hong Kong, Richmond Hill, Markham, wherever. It certainly was an egg in my beer, reminding me of all the pilgrimages I’ve taken to the culinary suburbs of Canada’s Rose Capital just for some sludgy tea and deep fried devils. It was almost too good to be true. Too good in fact, that the cynic in me was disqualifying it before even eating there; not getting my hopes up, thinking that what it had was already here, thinking it couldn’t last too long, despite its namesake in Hong Kong. I’ve watched enough police dramas and rom-coms to know better anyway. Still, something in my heart of hearts nagged me to pay homage to that emulsified porridge of fat and white rice that inspired my gastronomic vocation, if not career. So I’m paying my dues to the dish, and the dining hall of clinical Chinese cosmopolitanism that houses it. I’m talking wooden booths, flood lights, television screens, hearths, sleek browns and blacks coupled with plastic cookware and the homeliest Cantonese food I’ve come to know and love in my limited adventures of eating.

Happy Valley’s a remarkable place; of course, its menu’s a pastiche of Chinese soul food, and dim sum, but it also operates as a substitute to the banal bars and the typical fare we expect to eat when we go to them. Happy Valley’s a fantastic change of pace for these parts. If I’m not giddy about the boldly inexpensive alcohol, I certainly am about the even cheaper snacks you can grab if you’re adventurous enough. Have you ever paired a Hong Kong Tea with a pint of beer? You can there. I know, because I did it. I’ll never need any whiskey espresso bar again; why would I when I can get a pint of crisp beer with oaty finish for 2.66 and a one dollar cup of the most on-the-mark Hong Kong tea I’ve ever had in town: malty in aroma, bitter and sweet in flavor, chalky and mouth coating in consistency. I saw my future as a retired expat reading the Hong Kong Economic Times: flip-flops, relaxed flower print shirt, comb-over. All this while taking turns between fanning myself, turning pages, and having a sip.

And that was just the start. Deep fried devils, chicken feet, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, dumplings, barbecued pork steamed buns, condensed milk sandwiched between slices of toast, all on the cheap. It was a dream come true. So much so, I stayed after everyone left. If it really was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up. Our deep fried dough gleamed in the light, flakey, and chewy, the consistency was a treat all its own, better when dipped in my congee, bathing over every kind of ingredient: century eggs, meat, seafood, decked to the nines with white pepper and chili paste. The chicken feet, sweet and swimming in a garlic black bean sauce with a delightful caramel undernote- a fatty textural pleasure, especially when paired with beer. And the sticky rice, as expected, was embalmed by the vegetative earthiness of the leaves wrapped around it, aromatically reminiscent of tea. All the trinkets of meat and nuts made it that much more satisfying.  

The dumplings- named after Chiuchow city- were another chewy Epicureanism. Packaged with stuffings like pork, spring onions, and peanuts, the pungent overpowering aroma was a memory of my serendipitous culinary youth. The barbecued pork steamed buns too. All too familiar, the sweet, smoky savouriness was good to eat when the things were hot or cold. Happy Valley certainly had it all- for me at least: familiarity, food, congee. It was, like that kid from Hong Kong said years ago about a good bowl of congee, like coming home.

HAPPY VALLEY CONGEE & BAR
140 University Avenue W
Waterloo, ON N2L
(226) 647-8818
 
SUN-WED 1130 am-12am
THURS-SAT 1130am-130am
 
ANY PAYMENT

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The Fallout

Joey and I were looking for something a little novel and dangerous. It had been a while since our last hankering for anything South East Asian, and Mango King’s washed out, faded, regal sign and frosted windows seemed just divey enough to satiate all our unprincipled peptic passions. There we were, imagining our good time: dilapidated tables, peeling paint, stained ceilings, steam rising from the kitchen, clucking voices floating to our ears. Boy were we wrong. An unfortunately clean, conventional dining hall greeted us. Contrived decoration embellished the room with pastoral landscape paintings, sleek tables and chairs, lumbered trims, faux rock splash backs, a bar with an array of alcohol, a chandelier, and clashing multi-coloured buttercup light fixtures. The only danger may have been the commonplace spread that made it so inviting to so many gregarious eaters. Not Joey and I, though. We were looking for lunch on the cheap, and boy did we find it, with lunch specials that were even cheaper. That may be Mango King’s only selling point, because beyond its more than affordable pricings lay a menu burdened with a miscellany of Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese cuisine. There was nothing really spectacular about any of it, except for maybe the crab meat fish maw soup, which is a fancy word for fish lungs (or bladder depending on how you look at it). But I’m saying this all too hermeneutically, with a little too much perspective. I’ll slow down. 

Lunch specials are always a good thing, because you’re usually spoiled with a huge portion and a little something else. Mango King is no exception. Mine was the beef pad thai with tom yum soup and spring roll. Having spent a good deal of my youth working in the Thai restaurant, I’ve come to expect a little sternness with shelling out a decent lunch combination, so I expected some finesse; and while my order was a visually appealing spread of nuclear orange noodles on an enormously satired white plate- perfect for the haute cuisine world, I couldn’t help but be grossly disappointed with my food.

The tom yum, a spiritless bowl of sweet, sour, salty soup any kid could make at home, stocked with four boring button mushrooms, half a cherry tomato and the stalks- not the leaves- of cilantro had me a little heartbroken, but half expecting it.

The spring roll, though nicely coloured with a crispy exterior, was a muck of gluey insides that I thought could have used a little more time in the fryer. And the dipping sauce, a mere syrup with vinegar, could have had a little more punch.

But the pad thai, the star of the dish, was the biggest disappointment. An unappealing glowing orange mound of piled noodles with unhelpful smatterings of peanuts and cilantro leaves contributed to the dish’s very bland flavour. What little taste that did exist slowly disappeared the more I ate, and the incensed aroma that plumed off of it reminded me of the mysterious smoky character we associate with all that Chinese-Canadian food. Still, all it did was turn me off. Any vibrant, bright taste elements I usually associated with Thai Viet cuisine weren’t there. Unfortunately, a place that now defines itself as Thai Viet Chinese cuisine can’t differentiate from the multitude of dishes it offers, which is a shame, because everything seemed to have tasted the same. 

I ordered an appetizer of chicken wings afterwards for the sake of experiment. They were nothing more than another commonplace dish of deep fried chicken wings with an obligatory serving of overly sweet chili sauce. Nothing magical, nothing new, stuff all too familiar. So much for novelty. So much for danger. 

Mango King 
2480 Homer Watson Blvd 
Kitchener, ON 
N2P 2R5 

(519) 896-8188 

MON-THU 11:00am - 10:00pm 
FRI-SAT 11:00am - 11:00pm 
SUN 11:00am - 10:00pm 

ANY PAYMENT 

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Touch the Lion

I’d be remiss if during my days of culinary ethnography I didn’t at least once wax nostalgic about a place so dear to me if only because it was dear, at one point in time, to my dear Old Master. Yes, its eaters made it famous; there was a time when even Bolo Yeung himself would occupy its dining room with none-other than the Iron Fist. And there are still times when my dear brother and I visit, romancing the newspaper clippings proudly mounted on its lobby’s walls, honouring our Old Master, connecting us with him if only in the span of a lunch hour, and lamenting the fact that though we once did thousands of kicks under the moonlight as children, we don’t anymore. Life, huh? But no matter what it’s like, at least there’s food. 

Lai Lai Chinese Restaurant’s reputation obviously precedes it. And beyond its retrofitted, home exterior, beyond the stone lions guarding its doors, there’s good reason. To me, it lives as an extensive historical bricolage of the Chinese food offered in Kitchener-Waterloo for so long. Absorbed in a space of fish tanks, pastel pink walls, hanging dragons, a Buddhist library, and the passionate colours of Red China, there’s a dining room abuzz with familiar customers, some never tiring of typical Chinese Canadian fare, others always happy to have the most estranged eats. 

Lai Lai certainly has one of the most extensive menus I’ve seen too, and though I’m often jawing about how these dynamics can work against a place, Lai Lai’s has refused to pay it any mind for a long, long time. There are lunch specials, dinner menus, options that can take, so I’ve been told, up to half a day to prepare for the customer who so desires. Intense stuff.

To this day, we’re not yet that adventurous, but nothing stops us from a good communal ordering of the most sentimental food. Me, hoarding the most inexpensive bowl of braised beef noodle soup all to myself, and my company waiting on dumplings, fried eggplant in special sauce, and curried beef, ready, despite my own self-indulgence, to share every bit with me.

My soup was a joyful return to the warm spicey aromas I had spent years trying to cook all by my lonesome. Anise suffused in a sweet and savoury broth drowned soft noodles that entangled chewy cubes of stewed beef and crisp bok choy. Our fried eggplant carried the sweet and savoury motif with a little saltiness. Caramelized eggplant gave way in our mouths, crispiness juxtaposing the smooth pulp of the eggplant’s soft flesh. Our curried beef was a simple, familiar flavour of sambar powder stir-fried alongside crisp green bell peppers and onions. Lastly, our boiled dumplings were a chewy treat of roped wonton’s stewed in a savoury broth, exploding with pork and ginger, and accompanied by a vinegared dipping sauce of sesame oil and chili peppers.
But what we were and always are most excited about is Lai Lai’s special gelatin desserts; complimentary thimbles of gelatin flavoured with whatever the house could come up with: coconut, taro, red bean, the list goes on. They were as good as we remembered them, and Lai Lai’s still the paradise it always was in our minds.

Lai Lai's Chinese Restaurant
175 West Avenue
Kitchener, ON
Canada N2G 1R9
Tel:  (519) 579-3031


Monday & Sunday   11:30 am -  9:00 pm
Tuesday -Saturday  11:30 am - 10:00 pm
Holiday                   4:00 pm -  9:00 pm

Any payment

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100TH POST!!! CAMERON SEAFOOD RESTAURANT!!!

Its reputation is legendary; its food for the most ambitious of palettes (and wallets). It’s had reinventions, came from humble beginnings, and now boasts a wait time of at least half an hour on a Sunday morning, having cornered the market on dim sum in Kitchener-Waterloo after years of, I can only assume, hard work and culinary dedication. It’s been showboated as ‘fine’ Chinese food, but that may be a title that’s too beguiling; an absurdity in the genre of Chinese cuisine as far as this gastronomer is concerned, especially in a place that builds its identity and success on a dining spirit of loud, happy eating. Yes, there are eons of calm respite associated with the teashops that birthed the later tradition of dim sum, and maybe some days you can pretend you’re on a journey to seek out a gold-branded staff or compliant rod or whatever and come to this place for some reprieve, but the huzzah of voices and cosmopolitan space will make you realize that Cameron Chinese Seafood Restaurant isn’t that place. It is undeniably better. So, if and when you’re feeling a little regal, or a poor student willing to give all of your pennies for the pleasure of food that touches that culinary point of your heart, seek out Cameron Chinese Seafood Restaurant. It may not wish to remind you of its humble past, especially for new visitors, but I happily will, because when I was young and discovering food, Cameron Seafood, which I’ve visited only once in the last five years, was a tottering little restaurant with white thin metal siding and an exterior like a plywood lodge with plastic plants, a large mounted fish on the wall, and throwaway table cloths. Of course, I’m not the only one to remember this. Cameron seafood has a sea of devote followers that know the ropes: what to get, when to ask for tea, and how to order from a slip that has no prices displayed, only dishes. A practice that takes many Sunday mornings to master, unless you have the courage to ask what each item costs, of course. Whether you choose to lose face or not is up to you. After a long dim sum hiatus, I certainly didn’t.

The space made my own penurious person feel undeserving, what with its rich brown walls of alternating wood and mirror paneling, white tableware, emblazoned chopsticks, glass tablecloths, and crystal chandeliers hanging above. That’s right, like some fancy phoenix rising out of the ashes. No old creaky floors here. Not anymore. Alas.

Though I could appreciate the candor of a dining room that mimicked the fancy ones of big cities, at times I felt it was a little much, and that no matter what, the food’s messy attitude reminded me that no one can tame dim sum. Tea will over-pour, dumplings will slip through plastic chopsticks, soup will slurp, sauces will spill. I saw it happen all around me, and I started to miss those throwaway table clothes. Posh was done out by my pangs for a more humble past. But, at least the food didn’t change, and if it did, it was for the better.

On average, four items off the dim sum menu will cost you a good twenty dollars, and there’s a spending limit of at least ten dollars per person. Thus, if you have a big appetite, bring a big wallet; otherwise, drink a shake or something before hand, and get ready for some of the best Cantonese in the city.

My company and I, two humble cooks, bombarded our table with Chinese broccoli, steamed buns, deep fried shrimp dumplings and sesame balls.


Obviously, I will do the courtesy of describing each dish, but in this case, my words do little justice. The food should certainly be tasted beyond the page. I say this with earnest, because for the food to have been so satisfying in such a busy place is spectacular. The broccoli, a plate of soothing greens steamed to a crisp and drizzled with an oyster sauce that was mildly sweet reminded me of the culinary panic of cooking vegetables to submissive edibles of formless mush. It was at Cameron where they were saved, albeit a little salty at times because of the sauce.

The deep fried shrimp dumplings came hot. Impatient, I absentmindedly burned the roof of my mouth biting into a crunchy wonton cloud that came on presumably burnt, only to subside as something nutty and roasted due to the sesame oil dressed pieces of buoyant, juicy shrimp. Accompanying the dish was a redolent dipping sauce that I likened to a sweet red wine vinegar.

To balance our salty and savoury spread we chose two sweet dishes. Guilty pleasures if anything. Our smooth and airy steamed buns were filled with a lucent caramel coloured lotus paste, thick and clabbered with a flavour that brings the simplest comparison to mind: it was like biting into some kind of curiously steamed peanut butter sandwich.

We were most impressed with our fried sesame balls. Coated with sesame and laden with egg curd, each ball was a rich combination of crispy exterior and chewy interior, with a honeyed sweetness that permeated throughout. These treats could have easily stood without the curd, because it was the gluttonous shell that made eating each ball so entertaining, each one playfully sticking to our teeth. You read about things like these, but you only fully understand them when you try them out for yourself.

If I have one ache, it may only be the fact that customers are charged for a pot of tea so bland and generic that they’d be better off asking for a pot of hot water, or ‘white tea,’ so called by the poor, rural equivocating neighbours of China’s north. Otherwise, Cameron Seafood may be a place too ambitious to review, the food is that good. Either that, or I’ve been intimidated by everyone beguiling me to review it.
Cameron Seafood Restaurant
19 Cameron St. S., Kitchener
519-576-3030
Open 7 Days a Week 11:00am – 10:30pm.

ANY PAYMENT

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O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Today, I mourned the loss of a brother. Don’t worry, no one died. Unless, of course, you consider my spirit. Can you even anthropomorphize a spirit? Anyway, these are hardly culinary questions that need answering. Although at times, food can do a good job of putting our hearts at ease.

Some days, I get really down on myself. Some days, I get really hungry. And some days, I remember that if I don’t eat, I can get really down on myself. Today was starting to be one of those days. Remembering the terrible news of my dear brother’s decision to move out of town and in with the love of his life made me desperate to fill the emptiness that hung where my own heart once was. Yes, dear listeners, even one thousand crescent kicks under the still moon the night before weren’t nearly enough to quell the feeling that I had been left alone, platonically sojourned in a city where a close comrade and I had drank tea, learned kung fu, and eaten copious amounts of bad Chinese food. Those were my salad days.

And if I can aggrandize this story of brotherhood any further I will mention that I intended to eat my pain away with the worst, most dangerous Chinese-Canadian food I could find. Fortunately for me, a pang of recollection prevented me from ordering the stuff I know sits so heavily in my stomach and not so happily in my heart. And like that, I was called, as if by the Buddha himself, to a place I had been years before, where my dear brother once tried vegetarianism, and your dear narrator came to be comforted by him, all while stuck in an abyss of graduate work. It was then, after some tea and pickled cabbage when I realized that no matter what the world was like at least there was food; and that no matter how hard things may be to take, when everything’s all said and done, the world is still there. And, if we’re lucky enough, the places we go to eat are still there too, offering sanctuary like temples in some kung fu flick.

I won’t keep you in anymore suspense; I’m speaking pretty tongue in cheek at this point anyway. Just let me say this, everything I write is true and comes from what little heart I have left. Tenterhooks, my friends, tenterhooks.

If you’re feeling a little bit of spiritual abandon, or looking, like I did today, for some connection to a more nostalgic past, it might suit your poor spirit to visit Lotus Tea House, a vegetarian restaurant with an already stellar following. It has a quaint townhouse location and, of all things, a retrofitted Buddhist temple, as anachronistic as that sounds. Why bore you with any other trivialities? What with the urbaneness of wicker chairs and somewhat unaccommodating wooden tables (if you’re a group of four), pacifying classical music, creaky wooden floors, salmon coloured, stucco walls, and botany pictures- I must be heartbroken, because I am being far too harsh in this instance.

What makes the Lotus Tea House matchless in quality is the knowledge it offers the masses; shelves where diners can read books about the Buddha, and even donate any Buddhist teachings themselves if they so choose. Upstairs there’s an empty room with a lone Buddha statue where you can even bow three times, if YOU so choose. And of course, there’s its fait accompli: its originally brewed teas. Pots that run the price of, at most, 4.95. Well worth it, if not for the novelty of having a tea that doesn’t steep dried goods, but boils everything together fresh. So I am told, so I have seen. I’ve never looked in the kitchen though. But, the proof in this case is in the pot, because there are instances of whole oranges, mashed up almonds, even apples left in clear glass pots. Of course, there are dried leaf teas if the heart so chooses. I myself am a staunch disqualifier of tea almost anywhere, my old master teaching my dear brother and I about tea when we were young kung fu adherents (he never believed in drinking cold water, only boiling oolongs), so I like to push my snobbery onto the world. Anyway, the tea certainly is unique, and warrants mindful drinking, the almond tea, for example, will gelatinize if you let it sit long enough.

I was intrigued by the icy cold fruit tea: iced tea I assumed to be rhetorically done up on the menu and underwhelmed by in person. I was wrong. It was the best iced tea I’ve ever had in town. It had pieces of fruit, apples, oranges, pineapple, elevating the Ceylon brew to something ambrosial (yeah, I’ve used the word before; but this time, I mean it). And it wasn’t just put there to humour an aesthetic seeking drinker. The lemon undertone I’d usually expect was replaced by an awesome orange citric sweetness, a syrupy pineapple pungency, mixed so well that the beverage had its own frothy head! Never have I come across anything like it.

Healthy Soy Bean was the next item to order; boiled soy bean with a dash of sea salt. In my mind I envisioned it as a block of mere tofu smothered in salt, something I hoped for, my Philippine grandmother lovingly feeding it to me for breakfast in my youth. Alas, I was met with a plate of Edamame beans, that dull, popular Japanese appetizer. Nutty, salty, clean. I can’t complain more than that.

My entree was an exciting array of cranberries, cashew nuts, tofu and vegetable stir-fry, paired with a simple soup and bowl of bean sprouts with a simple spicy, savoury sauce. The soup itself was a humble thing. Its broth, a quiet familiar vegetable flavor, with the odd tomato skin floating about, something I have come to know in the culinary world as always out of place.

I was underwhelmed by my stir-fry. A serving set around a dome of light and aromatically nutty rice, I was disappointed by what I saw in front of me. There was nothing wrong with the portion, there was a substantial amount of food, but I couldn’t hold truck with the lack of cranberries and cashews. I wonder why so many places do this? Highlight dishes with unique ingredient ideas and then give dishes a sparse sprinkling. The combination of sweet cranberries and savoury cashews would have given perfect balance to the already salty and starchy nut sauce that coated the stir-fry. I thought that maybe Lotus Tea House could have been the prodigal son that escaped the banality of Chinese food, but the features of the dish were absolutely overwhelmed with so much traditional flavor. I threw my puritan caution to the wind. I was tired, I was heartbroken, I mashed my rice with my stir-fry, I didn’t care to keep it separate, I turned it to mush, I ate furiously, the waiters couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t care. I blamed it on those one thousand crescent kicks, I blamed it on my broken heart, I was still trying desperately to fill a void. Was it my lost brother I was crying over? Or my food? I didn’t even know anymore.

The Lotus Teahouse

79 Regina St. North

Waterloo, Ont. N2J 3A7

Monday: 11:00 am – 3 pm

Tuesday to Thursday: 11 am – 7 pm

Friday & Saturday 11 am – 8 pm

Sunday Closed

CASH, VISA, OR DEBIT.

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Some Dives Just Aren't Cool

*CLOSED (Thank Buddha)- but potentially re-opened down bridgeport E., Waterloo)
Now this place was a dive. Pink, pastel paint, checkered tiles, wallpaper from decades ago curling off walls, tables with limbs like chess pieces, over-produced novelty photographs of exotic animals hung in gold frames (of which my company contended reminded him of his parents’ basement), water stained ceilings, menus made out of construction paper, some options crossed out when whatever cooks decided they just didn’t feel like cooking them anymore. How on earth do I ever end up in these places? This is what I’m asking myself in retrospect.

So, what’s a dive, dear readers? I throw the term around a lot, and I know I owe a solid explanation, because I eat at a lot of places and a lot of them don’t care much for atmosphere which in an ironic twist of fate creates a kind of fun atmosphere, assuming you like to pretend you’re in a movie and are planning to maybe knock off a bank or leave a horse head in someone’s bed. Anyway, to me, and for the sake of all future reviews punched out by my fingers, a dive is a restaurant with a poor, neglected appearance simply because the particular proprietors, I firmly believe, depend on the quality of their food to carry the reputation of the restaurant, not the way it looks. In the popular discourse of our restaurants the omerta is as such: good looking place means good eating experience; therein lies the paradox, my eating compatriots, because some people in attempt to rearticulate that old code of honour seek out dives believing that they are as legitimate if not more than those places hiding behind fancy appearances. A poor appeal to a perceived nostalgic past, I reckon. There are tons of cultural anthropological, gastronomical reasons for why else they are the way they are but I’ll leave it at that.

All You Can Eat Hot Pot has been around for about a year’s time, albeit, a rather neglected one; at least, that was the impression I got when I entered the place. I asked for a takeout menu and was apologized to, the lone cook there offering up what single menu they did have, the same menu I asked for again when I returned to actually eat a week later but was refused. Instead I was directed to the paint chipped wall and the menus taped against it; it was there that my company and I, a fellow cook and comrade in culinary arms, chose from an array of casseroles, noodles, and appetizers. And, of course, there was the all-you-can-eat hot pot, running from 14.99 and up, depending on what meat and soup broth you chose to have with it. Though a sucker for a deal, I convinced my party and I to try the inexpensive and seemingly appetizing options on the menu. From baked eel cakes to lamb on rice, it was a plethora of potentially pleasurable eating. Yes, my theory that dives always serve the most enjoyable food was bearing out yet again. It was me, my compadre, and the two lone cooks. No one else.

We chose what we were told was the most sold dish: braised spare ribs with noodles, and to that added appetizers of salt and peppered chicken, eel cakes, and the intriguingly named Taiwanese sausage. Good portioned items for a good price; though we ended up getting the appetizers after we received our noodle entrees. To that we added a strangely brewed and fruity red tea on the verge of slimy (a symptom of over-brewed and old tea) and a dirty jug of water. This place was a dive alright. I was getting excited. Though we had our noodles in front of us we patiently waited, at least, for the first appetizer: the salt and peppered chicken. Pieces of chicken coated in a light dusting of flour, salt and pepper, deep fried and slathered with a sweet sauce I couldn’t place, the dish lacked the adroitness of conscious cooking. That is, it seemed like the two kids who cooked our food didn’t know, nor care how good food could be. They needed mentorship I thought, they needed passion. The chicken was fried to a point of being dry.

When the eel cakes arrived my friend guessed it was ketchup used for sauce, perhaps a play on the dish of fish and chips? The eel, deep fried in a tempura cake had a crisp bite that at first was reminiscent of the rind flavor of a melon, immediately overpowered by the salty fishiness of the fresh eel. An interesting medley, and if there was any point to the ketchup it was to cut through the at times off-putting fishiness.

The Taiwanese sausage, at first glance having the appearance of thick strips of bacon, had a fatty tenderness accompanying any well prepared pork. My only qualm with the dish was the sauce- another flavor I couldn’t place accompanied by an unwelcomed fruitiness.

	Ugh. Udon.

Our noodle dishes were nothing special. The ribs’ dry outer appearance suggested that they were in fact brewed with a beef broth for a long, long time, which was well respected among my company and I, and the meat itself was rather tender. The noodles used were, surprisingly, udon, something I hate to see in a Chinese dish and feel cheated against whenever I get them, the commodity being a cheap substitute for good Chinese wheat noodles. As my colleague and I debated the certainty of the broth, whether it was made from scratch or a mere facsimile (I chose the latter, my friend chose the former, suggesting the cloudiness and the flecks of beef supported its authenticity), we both agreed that there was some flavor, aside from its typical beefiness, trying to get through, and that because it was an over-stewed, oversaturated concoction, whatever it was just couldn’t get through.

It was while gazing into the abyss of that broth when I noticed a small fleck of what I thought was spice, but much to my balk, alas, was a small insect. We had a conundrum on our hands. We sympathized for the small mistake and didn’t want to make the place feel bad about something that happens from time to time, debating the best way to handle the situation until finally my friend, in his experience as a cook expressed that he would like to know any mistake so as to know better next time; I agreed.

After getting the attention of the cook and telling him the situation, he asked if we wanted him to take it out. Another bowl would have been a better gesture, but I dismissed his own complacency by telling him that it was alright, and to just be mindful for next time because some customers may not be so understanding. I continued eating, buggy soup and all, keeping my readership in heart. But if the soup bug debacle wasn’t bad enough, when reaching for my second eel cake I couldn’t help but notice, in the light of the afternoon, the small white sheen that came off a hair baked into the cake. I picked it up and pulled it out, calling the cook back. I felt for this place because it seemed to me that it was slowly disappearing, though I couldn’t know for sure how busy it may be, especially as an all-you-can-eat hot pot place, but there was always the possibility that those cooking here just didn’t care.

To my vexation the cook was unfazed, and seemed inconvenienced for having had to come and defend his meal, assuring me that it wasn’t a hair but something from clothes. With no more than a tired apology and no attempt to offer a replacement or a free meal, I decided I couldn’t finish. The place clearly didn’t care. We wondered how much farther down this rabbit hole we could have possibly gone, especially if we chose the hot pot. We didn’t bother to find out. Two strikes were enough. With stomachs half full, and like civilized culinaires, we left with grace leaving no tip but still paying for our meals. It was 18 dollars I’d never see again, which is fitting for a place I’ll never go to again either. So much for dives.

All You Can Eat Hot Pot

Mon-Fri 2 -1030
Sat-Sun 12- 1030
255 King St. Waterloo

Cash only

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The Ill Shing Leung

	My brother in culinary arms.

Eating with Shing Leung always means spending a whole mess of money; but I can't complain, because he's my brother in eating arms and if not for him, I would have never learned to eat, or known what it meant to eat with other people. What it meant to roast coffee beans with a heat gun, stuff a giant nameless fish with noodles, or learn to squat on the curb over a sewage drain with a bowl of pho and thus prevent a potentially bigger mess. Eating alone can be a very lonely thing, so says Gille Deleuze, or so I heard my professor tell me once because I was too lazy to find the text. Regardless of all that, I've spent a small fortune eating with my comrade for the past five years and earning, what I think is, a rare and privileged education in gastronomy.

Sometimes, when I got the guts, I like to hitch a ride on a bus and take my sorry ass to the big stinky city of Toronto and from there take a subway and go make big trouble in little China, which is my affectionate name for Richmond Hill and Markham, amalgamated in my mind into one place of strip malls consisting of Asian restaurants and grocery stores- and maybe some dental offices, but nothing else.

No way. Okay, gross exaggeration.

There are other kinds of restaurants- but seriously, nothing else. I believe they stay afloat by depending on the inhabitants of both townships to work outside the cities, commute back home, and eat- and buy real estate.

Last weekend was a special treat, because while I haven't been to the Hill in a long, long time, the ill Shing Leung and I decided to have a chow down at Guu Izakaya: a favoured Japanese tapas bar (yeah, tapas, that's right- not that Asian food culture doesn't already manifest the idea of small dishes at a communal feast, but in order to get the ignorant Westerner/hipster to come they need the label of ‘tapas’ so it sounds friggin' trendy, but whatever). I was scared. I'm not cool enough for the bodies that meander through the streets with Neon Trees playing behind them wherever they go; instead I look like (my own fault) a sailor on shore leave: hat on head, bags around shoulders, books on food and porn theory in my hands (still to this day). But that's okay, I've come to terms with it.

I came late, but lucky for me Shing put us on a waiting list so we had the pleasure of our company until, unbeknown to us, we were allowed in and blitzed by the hyper-greetings of the entire staff that worked there, shouting "welcome" in unison (in Japanese). From the front door we were circumnavigated in a room that had a stone wall permeated by small squares of light (and electric ceiling lights) to the front bar where we were seated on the heaviest blocks of wood which were actually used for stools. Aw yes, the experience reminded me of my time working off the shores of Okinawa: big wooden tables on the floor where strangers were forced to eat together and dim lighting combined with the huzzah of voices, more or less happy to be eating, much like the mess hall of a barge. To the point, Guu was a total theatre for whatever Orientalizing mouths dared venture and pretend to see what Japan was really like: not overworked salaryman getting smashed and cooks crying back and forth for the sake of getting food out, but cooks who are happy to sing out what order number is called and do cool Night of Fire dance moves between dishes and around deep fryers so eaters wouldn't be concerned with the tapas’ sizes and prices. Just sayin'. Just sayin' the next afternoon Shingzy and I went to a ramen shop in J-Town (another novelty of Markham with Japanese-Italian food, the typical overpriced Japanese grocery store, and what not) and were not greeted the same way. We were greeted, yes, but quietly and humbly with the same "welcome" phrase in Japanese. The shop wasn't fancy and formal, but humble and popular among people on Chowhound with nice chewy ramen that I suspected wasn't anything to be overly praised because it resembled the stuff of instant noodles, but I digress.

			Click the pic for a video of the real, loud thing. ダブルラブ～

But Guu is popular for a reason, and I must humbly admit I was blown away by the food. Specials and all. All kinds of sake, all kinds of beer, novelty soda for earthquake victims in Japan and of course tea- that I was charged for. Phhh. Whatever. For an Asian place to charge for generic tea always seems like a disservice, or so my comrade and I think- unless of course its prepared cold. We don't know why exactly, there's something faulty in our logic there, but I think if we were to really think about it, our heads would implode.

We did the obvious: order tapas and see how full we could get. Considering the size, the price was fair, running from between 5 and 10 dollars; we tried fare like maguro carpaccio drenched in a ponzu sauce that permeated through each piece leaving the slightest fishy taste, aestheticized by fish eggs (forget about using "roe" here, it was what it was), and tuna marinated in a delightful soy, wasabi (reminiscent of the mustard of Dijon) and sesame sauce. We paid for pickled vegetables: sweet coloured radish, mild sesame cucumber and the like. We were probably the only ones who ordered the stuff. We were also adventurous enough- though to call us adventurous here especially with our history may seem a moot point- to try raw shrimp, propped up against each other heads pointed up in the shape of a fountain, like a group of synchronized singers ready to dive into the soy sauce accompanying them. Cool and slimy. I wasn't a fan, but Shing assured me that was the nature of the little sea beasts. That slimy, fuzzy feeling you get when putting the things in your mouth is more or less the way they are anywhere else. I didn't have the perspective to say otherwise. And before calling it a night and heading off to a burger joint to fill our stomachs we opted for the closest, fast food-esque item: deep fried chicken skin, a more aggrandized form of pork rinds, but still crispy and buttery nonetheless. It became one of our favourites, paired well no doubt with beer. But before that still we actually encouraged each other to try an entree off the menu before the rinds came. Like the old man I am, I cried out for a bowl of Japanese hot pot and rice (having never fully mastered my own and thinking the dish could give me some perspective) and Shing, like the Chinese-Italian wannabe he is, romantically asked for a bowl of carbonara "esco" udon with kimchi. The flavours were surprising, when I was reluctantly trying the kimchi in the dish I was impressed by the rich, sharp smoky flavour within that resembled the carbonaras I usually make myself. Using udon was pleasant fusion, and I only hoped that I could someday do something similar.

My hot pot was everything I imagined it would be: hearty with a deep barley noted broth, combined of course with the usual kombu presence. It was especially comforting considering how much we both yearned to be full. The vegetables, hard egg and strange processed fish pieces were what I needed.

After a staggering 80 dollars and trip to the bathroom, equipped with mouth wash and rustic stone bowled sinks watched over by the voice of Ou Yang Fei Fei singing Love Is Over, we were up and on our way to catching the subway, but not before urging Shing to go Karaoke to the song before we left. I couldn't believe it was playing; more importantly I couldn't believe I actually knew what the hell was playing. I did know one thing though, Guu certainly knows how to work a crowd and pander to an audience who likes to romanticize the East with bubble economy love ballads. Shoot, I wouldn't have been surprised if they served coffee and put gold leaf in the brew, but the people get what they pay for, even if it’s unrecognized, but very much appreciated by this eater, Japanese love ballads.

And yet, that was only one of the many charming food adventures that weekend. We told ghost stories, argued about Bourdain and Brittany Murphy and did it all again the next day at places like Sam's Congee, a joint packed with family and popular, yet temperate congee, deep fried devils and free tea and J-Town, where we paid for our cold malted chas (I’m bein’ fancy- that just means tea).

Yes devoted readers, I can honestly say that if I ever forget why I go out to eat visiting Shing Leung will always certainly remind me.

Guu Izakaya

398 Church street

Toronto, O.N. M5B 2A2

TEL: 416-977-0999

Mon - Thu 17:00-24:00

Fri - Sun 16:00-24:00 

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The Egg Roll King

There was a fire in my belly and the only way to put it out was to douse all those clean eating experiences I had these past weeks with something a little more familiar and pacifying. As far as I was concerned, I had too much energy, and I was a long way off my centre of eating the way I hedonistically love to. I needed something that didn't make me a pushy, health conscious eater. I had to stop this before my poor palette tasted nothing but whey protein and supplement drinks. I needed The Itis. That's right, my dining comrades. We've all experienced it. The cure-all for a stressful day, for a very hungry stomach. Those high calorie meals that lead us to a general feeling of lethargy and well-being. But a good ‘bad for you’ meal.

We all have our own little kinds of sanctuaries in the big bad (I say 'bad' here in the 'cool' bad way) gastropolis of Kitchener-Waterloo, the places wherein we like to divulge our own calorie smashing urges: fast food joints, pubs, buffets, you name it.

For this Bon Vivant of bad, there’s only one kind of place I dare venture. A Place where authenticity is a cryptic word for a more glorified, gourmandizing past. Places where phonetic mis-spellings on a menu still enchant even the most familiar eaters and any thoughts had about the fashion of fusion food are thrown to the wind, because when it comes down to it, in this kind of place everything is bastardized even if a little, but still damn delicious. You all know it too. For some of you (and me), it’s a place you humbly admit is a guilty pleasure. So familiar and inviting it seems that this particular place has been around since time was time, and only the most gastronomically dogmatic try to suppress it. But our Western urges for salty, sweet and savoury keep calling us back. What exactly am I talking about? The Chinese-Canadian eatery, of course.

	Cool shake, bro!

Egg Roll King Restaurant seems a fitting name for a place that dare try to include all walks of Chinese food for Canadiana. Even going so far as to offer up food that is terribly un-Chinese, like French fries, or poutine. Now, I could make this a game of Six Degrees and specifically say that Egg Roll King labels itself as a Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant, but that poutine was created in Quebec and that those who originally occupied Quebec were from France and that the French, for a time, occupied Vietnam, influencing its culinary tradition, bringing us greats like Vietnamese coffee, and that therefore poutine, by some act of post-colonial Providence could be considered Vietnamese, but I don’t want to grasp at straws. I just want to praise a place that I consider to be an echelon of democratic eating. Where Canadian food, Chinese food, American food and Vietnamese food all come together not in some elaborate act of fusion cooking, but to live and be eaten side by side in complete culinary harmony. And you may wonder, dear readers, “Why would anyone do that?” Well, my only explanation, which came to me while watching the some odd 20 junior high school students that charged in as soon as the clock struck 3 and started ordering spring rolls and French fries, was that, as history often teaches us, a King gives the people what the people want. For years I myself had wondered the same, thinking the items so unfitting of the style of food offered at these kinds of restaurants must have been jokes, or covers for some other kinds of operations, but it was in that moment that I realized that Egg Roll King just does good business, and apparently has the best and most inexpensive egg rolls in town. Unfortunately, I wasn’t astute enough to try one. For an instant, I hoped that maybe, just maybe, one of those kids would ask for the shark fin soup- something I would have loved to have tried myself, if not for the price. And, yes, I’m probably romanticizing the dish in a place plastered with yellow and lime green walls, plastic grape vines along the ceiling, Buddhist shrines and other ornate trinkets; not to mention plasma televisions tuned into MTV and Teen Mom 2 marathons, but said soup is a rare commodity in these parts. And yes, I could go to a “fancy” restaurant and maybe order it, but that it is side by side on a menu with things like chicken wings and Moo Goo Guy Pan did my heart good, because Egg Roll King offered something for every foodie, student and all-around-eater. It offered me a strawberry shake (that’s right), and a heaping plate of Cantonese rainbow pork corralled in a field of fried rice. Perhaps an unconventional combination, but no less satisfying. Now, I didn’t see how it was prepared, but it had the sweet mellow flavor of fresh strawberries that one assumes will overpower the tongue with an indescribable kind of sweetness when biting into them; but it didn’t. If any sweetness seemed too overbearing, it was immediately subdued by the cool grittiness of the shake’s blended ice. And if there was anything artificial about it, I couldn’t tell.

	One of many manifestations of The Itis.

My rainbow pork, one of the chef’s specialties, was presented to me with the vivacity of a man whose upbeat spirit showed that he believed in his own food. He gasped along playfully with me as I dazzled in the rich, blooming red of the sweet and sour sauce that covered copious amounts of chewy pork, fried in an egg batter and stir-fried with vegetables whose juices deluged as soon as I bit into them and tamed the sweet, somewhat spicy flavor of my pork. What more can I say for such familiar, yet un-appreciated and satisfying flavours? If I didn’t know it was The Itis in me, I’d have thought I was in heaven.

Egg Roll King
85 courtland ave. east
Kitchener, ON N2G 2T6

Monday: 11am - 11pm
Tuesday: 11am - 11pm
Wednesday: 11am - 11pm
Thursday: 11am - 11pm
Friday: 11am - 12pm
Saturday: 11am - 12pm
Sunday: CLOSE

Payment: cash credit, debit.

Bill: Rainbow Pork: 9.95
Side of fried rice: 1.95
Strawberry smoothie: 4.00
Total: 17.97

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