Meishan Restaurant

Meishan Restaurant @ #1018 4500 Kingsway in Crystal Mall

Crystal Mall is right next to Metrotown. It's the Asian version of Metrotown, with a decided focus on food. There must be at least 20 different restaurants, in addition to numerous bakeries and vegetable and fruit stands. The mall itself has an interesting annular/donut-shaped layout, with an open circular court in the center:

There are restaurants and shops selling rice cookers and Hello Kitty merchandise all along the length of the inner mall, and the second floor houses a very nice 100% Asian food court with stalls specializing in food from all sorts of regions - Yunnan, Shandong, Taiwan, Wenzhou, etc.

But it's this restaurant facing the court that was the goal of our visit today at lunch:

This was our fourth time coming here. It's really far, so we don't come here often, but we find the food particularly good and authentic, so we make a beeline for this place when we're craving a certain type of authentic Chinese food. They're our favorite source for this one dish of sliced fish in boiling oil that we usually get whenever we go.

It's a tiny place seating max 30:

I don't think I've ever heard a word of English spoken in this restaurant by the visitors or staff, except maybe "Hello." When we place an order, the waitress doesn't even bother looking at me or speaking in English. She just ignores me and speaks directly to Kweepo in Mandarin. That's the way it is.

Though my initial reaction is for it to rub me the wrong way, I rethink this reaction quickly, because, in fact, the whole reason I come to this place is because it's so steeped in the native culture. I want to eat at a restaurant where the staff don't have to worry about catering to westerners, in both manners and cooking. For good or ill, it's precisely this attitude of staking a fence of Chinese culture and language around the area, to the exclusion of the encroaching English culture, that gives this area its appeal as a source of authentic Chinese cooking. It suggests to me the catch 22 that a certain hermeticity of culture is required for authenticity, but that hermeticity makes it hard for outsiders who seek that authenticity to enter the milieu. This is why I so appreciate restaurants like Lucky Noodle and Peaceful that act as the pioneers bridging the two cultures by catering openly to both languages and permitting people on the other side of the divide like me to learn about the food, instead of just catering to their own in an exclusionary way.

The sign outside evokes the notion of offering dishes from every region of China ("North, South, West, East, it's all there!") but the menu inside, of which you can see two representative pages below, contradicts this somewhat by stating "Tianjin and Szechuan Restaurant". I think they offer a menu that is a balanced selection of the Mandarin staples, with an emphasis on the staples of the aforesaid two regions. Indeed, the spicy food here is quite spicy. The fish in boiling oil can be scorchingly intense if you order it spicy, as the heat is amplified by the hot oil.

And yes, it's that dish that we came for here today, so we got it yet again. We can't seem to get enough of the:

Sliced Fish with Assorted Vegetables in Boiled Oil ($11.99)

We're not up to the level of native Szechuanese in terms of being trained for spiciness, so we ordered the mild version, and in fact it was just the right spiciness level.

It's a great dish. The broth is great, though of course it's very oily and not very healthy. You don't drink it, so it doesn't matter. The fish is big and tender. Eating it with rice helps tune down the spiciness. The downside is that when you first see the dish, it looks like a huge helping of fish, but in fact the fish is mostly covering a huge serving of veggies. You run out of the fish pretty soon, and you're left with a bowl full of tasteless veggies. This is precisely the sort of thing I was thinking of in my last post on Lucky Noodle when I complained about tasteless veggies in fish-in-broth dishes and insufficient fish to cover you throughout the duration of the dish. In view of this, the price too high, especially considering they offer lunch specials for $5.99. However, while it lasts it's a wonderful dish, the best of its kind I've had. I've sampled the same dish at some other places, but this one's the best.

Kweepo got the above. I got the following. I wanted to try something I'd never had there before, but not something boring like Tan Tan noodles or fried rice. So I got this noodle dish, which seemed like something I've never tried before.

Rice Noodle & Minced Pork in sour soup ($5.99)

This was really delicious. Also a little bit oily, but not excessively so. Not too spicy. The noodles very tender, almost to the point of melting in your mouth. The broth excellent and full of flavor. The small bits of veggies crunchy and with a great pickled flavor rather than the tasteless flavor of unpickled veggies. The only minor complaint would be that I wish the pieces of pork and veggie were bigger so you could taste each piece more, but very minor complaint. This was absolutely great and I'd get it again at the drop of a hat.

We also bought a bucket of rice and a coke. All together, the meal came out to about $25. If we'd stuck with the lunch special it would have been much cheaper. This would be a great place to come to for an affordable lunch if they were closer to me, as they have a fairly large lunch special menu, with more than 20 items between $5.99 and $7.99.

They have a number of cured meat dishes in the vein of the cured meat dishes at the Hunan Lucky Noodle restaurant, so I'm curious to come back and try these some time. This restaurant was also the first place I tried shredded potato in vinegar, and as I recall it's the best I've had so far.

After lunch we went upstairs to the food court and marveled at all the different types of Chinese food on display. We wished we weren't full already! The very definition of gourmandise. We'd go on eating different types of Chinese food all day if we could fit them all in our stomachs.

Even though I was full, when I saw the photo of this, I just had to get one to try later on:

It's a sort of crepe wrapped around a Chinese donut. I ate one of these in Beijing on the last day of my most recent trip there two years ago, and so I just had to re-experience that taste. I could see the lady preparing it, and she was doing it the same way I recall they did it in Beijing:

It's a shame we couldn't eat this on the spot, because it looked so amazing, but we were full. So we took it home. I just now took it out of the bag, and though it's gotten kind of soggy after a few hours and probably doesn't taste as good as it would just freshly cooked, an initial bite suggests that it's quite good nonetheless. It looks quite good:

The crispy deep-fried donut inside is wrapped by a soft crepe slathered in some kind of brown sauce. There's also an egg cracked into there, giving it a more substantial flavor. Would be great for a hearty breakfast or even lunch. I believe the green herb is cilantro.

Strangely, this was actually a fresh juice stall, not a food stall. The sign apparently only applies to this particular dish. Otherwise all they sell is juice drinks. Apparently Mr. Zhang is a restaurant located on Victoria Drive. I suppose this juice stall has worked out some arrangement with the restaurant. A cunning synergy, this,  offering just this particular dish at a bubble tea place, at the same time attracting customers to the juice as well as advertising the restaurant. Take-out menus for Mr. Zhang were laid out on the counter.

Usually a juice stand has fruits of various kinds to make their drinks with, right? But then I saw the following amid all the fruits:

Wait a minute. Bitter melon? You mean you offer freshly made bitter melon juice? I've never heard of this before. MUST TRY IMMEDIATELY.

Then we noticed this sign advertising the juice:

Bitter melon is, for some reason, alternately known as balsam pear. I would never have known what they were talking about if I hadn't recognized the Chinese characters 苦瓜 and made the connection with the melon on display.

If they make it, it can't be that bad, right? In fact, it's not that bad. I drank it all.

We got the apple + bitter melon combo. It's a very interesting taste. When you take a sip, the first thing you taste as the drink enters your mouth is the sweetness of the apple. Then, a moment later, as you swallow, you begin to taste the bitterness of the bitter melon. Then a moment later, it hits you full force: the pungent bitterness that is the hallmark of the bitter melon. The bitterness really lingers, too. Nevertheless, you get used to it after a while. I was really digging it by the end.

Return visit to Lucky Noodle (Hunan)

The other day I paid a return visit to Lucky Noodle on Broadway, the Hunan restaurant about which I wrote on September 4. This time I got one of the lunch specials. It was amazing, so I just had to mention it here.

This is what I got:

Boiled Sliced Fish with Pickled Veggie in Spicy Sauce ($7.95)

Look at that huge portion. They even bring out the burner to keep the pot boiling for a few minutes when it reaches your table. I would never have expected such fanciness from a cheap lunch special.

And of course, it comes with a free glass of house made soy drink. Never been a fan of soy milk, but this soy milk is truly delicious and will make a believer of soy skeptics. I really admire that they make their own soy drink. I've never heard of a Chinese restaurant doing that. It's a clear indication of the dedication to quality of this restaurant. They achieve a rare balance: quality and authenticity combined with affordability.

Anyway, back to the ... soup? It's not really a soup, more like a hot pot, but whatever.

This dish was quite spicy and the rice and soy milk helped a lot to cool down my mouth. This is a great place if you like heat!

Every element of this dish was perfect: the broth, the fish, the pickled veggies, the spiciness level, the temperature of the broth. The broth was really flavorful, the fish was fresh and tender and plentiful, and the pickled veggies were really delicious and adding a lot to the flavor of the whole. Normally in this sort of soup you'd find soggy vegetables that have no taste at all. The meal would be an unexciting slog through a mass of vegetable-shaped flavorless matter and tasteless broth, with only the meat having any taste. Here every bite of veggie adds a bit of pleasant pickled sourness to round off the flavor of the broth and the natural flavor of the fish. It makes a big difference including not regular veggies but pickled veggies. I'd even go so far as to say it makes the dish.

A sampling of the contents:

Have you ever tried using chopsticks with your left hand? Give it a try for a laugh. It's incredibly hard. It took me about a minute to grab that veggie up there and take a photo of it with chopsticks in left hand and camera in right hand.

That's the pickled veggie on the bottom. Not sure what kind of veggie it is, but it was very crunchy, like a cross between celery and cabbage. The crunch also enlivened the mouthfeel of the soup nicely by complementing the velvety softness of the fish. I was particularly intrigued by the green pepper pictured above. I'd never seen such a pepper before.

The cook here is a virtuoso at the use of a variety of kinds of capsicum to achieve different permutations of spiciness. I was able to identify no less than three types of pepper contributing to the very balanced spiciness of the broth:

The middle one is some kind of fresh chopped red pepper, the right one is some kind of dried pepper, and the one on the left the waitress informed me to be something identified on their menu as "sour pepper". Their item #33 is Stir Fried Beef with Sour Pepper. I don't know under what name this pepper is widely known in English, or what it tastes like by itself. I was too scared to take a bite out of it because my mouth was already on fire enough and I didn't have any soy milk left. The dried pepper is obviously just there for flavoring, but the chopped bits of red pepper were quite good with the fish and veggies, adding a tiny little extra kick of pleasant pepper flavor and heat to each bite.

With tip and tax added, the whole meal came out to $10 even. Pretty decent price for such a generous portion, and the food was very satiating. It's important to be satiated. You can be full without being satiated. You can be satisfied but not really satiated. The sign of a good meal is if you feel satiated - like your every taste bud is thanking you for what just happened, and your body is floating in a pleasant ether of blissful, appreciative digestion.

This meal was just as good as my first meal at Lucky Noodle. I have much more to explore on their big menu. Often I find it hard to decide whether I should gamble exploring a new restaurant or just go to a place like this that's reliable and try something new. For example before eating here I had stepped into another place on Kingsway called Wonton Mein Saga so I could have a new place to write about but immediately stepped out upon smelling the interior. It had that 'cheap Cantonese restaurant' smell and I immediately had a bad feeling about the place so I stepped out and just went to Lucky Noodle. Sometimes it's better to play it safe.

Pondok Indonesia Restaurant

Pondok Indonesia @ 950 West Broadway

www.pondokindonesia.com

I love nothing more than sampling authentic fare from around the world. Vancouver is great for that. There are so many authentic restaurants of different persuasions that you just don't find in most other cities. Seriously people, we're spoiled here. Despite that, Indonesian food is just one type of food I never expected to find here. It just seemed too minor. Imagine my delight to find this place a year or so ago.

I checked out a few of the reviews floating around out there, and I was shocked at the intensity of some of the negative reviews. I wasn't expecting that at all. I've been here about four times now over the years, and I've enjoyed every visit, for the most part, though there have been ups and downs. Some reviewers seem intent on writing as many negative things as possible. I find such reviews totally unhelpful. I'd rather read an objective review that points out the good and the bad, not someone slamming a place for the fun of it because they've hit a groove.

I say don't believe the negative reviews. Judge for yourself. Give the place a visit. They're one of the few Indonesian places in Vancouver, so it's worth supporting them. And seriously, it is nowhere near as bad as some of these people say.

They sure seem like they need the support. Every time I go there the place is empty. It's weird because they have this massive space that could easily seat a hundred people. This was the view when I went for lunch the other day (though admittedly I had a late lunch

around 2):

I think part of the problem might be their unusual location. Rather than being at street level, they are on the second floor of a curious commercial space. You can't just wander into this place when you're out looking for lunch. You have to specifically have it as your destination.

The layout of this restaurant is rather strange, with this large stage for a band or karaoke singer placed right in the middle of the space. I was seated next to the karaoke stage:

I don't quite understand what they were aiming for with this place. It seems they were striving to combine a casual party venue with a restaurant. I wonder how successful they've been at getting the place booked for such events. On one of my visits, a woman was crooning into the microphone along with some Thai pop, which made for some authentic ambiance. This time I was the only person in the entire room apart from the waitress.

Anyway, as for the food...

Prior to going for lunch the other day, I had only been to Pondok for dinner. And every time I had gotten the same thing: Rice Table 2. Rice Table 2 consists of four items:

- 4 pieces of Tahu Sayur Isi (deep fried tofu stuffed with vegetables served with a light peanut sauce)

- Ikan Akar Kuning (red snapper fillets lightly pan fried and simmered in ginger turmeric sauce)

- Rendang Sapi (spicy beef stew simmered in Indonesian herbs & coconut milk)

- Orak Arik (a traditional dish of shredded cabbage and carrots stir fried with eggs & herbs)

This was the first thing I had at Pondok, and I absolutely loved it. The stuffed tofu in particular was a revelation, and the fish was fresh and deliciously spiced. It really was great food.

One downside was that the prices were too high. I couldn't convince myself to order anything else on the menu than this rice place because it didn't feel like I would have been getting my money's worth to pay so much for a single item. Many of the other items of the menu didn't interest me because they were either too seafood-y or purely vegetarian.

This time I went for lunch. The lunch menu can be seen online here.

Rather than the lunch special being a pre-determined 'set', the menu is broken down into starters, soups & noodles, entrees, vegetarian entrees, and rice tables, just like a regular menu.

The entrees are a fairly reasonable price for lunch, ranging from $7 to $8. One entree is entirely sufficient to fill you up, so you don't really need to order an appy.

Which is good, because the starters I found to be overpriced. $4.50 for two fried lumpia rolls is really too much. And $8 for four chicken skewers is WAY too much. That's the same price as an entree. And their so-called rice tables, which are really sampler platters, are way over-priced. Nobody is going to order a "lunch special" that costs $14.50. That's no longer a lunch special!

The waitress was friendly and attentive. She refilled my water frequently. She gladly answered my question about the spices used in one of my dishes.

Despite the price being too high, I decided to order the lumpia because I wanted to taste how they made it to compare it with the lumpia I've had at Philippine restaurants around Vancouver.

Lumpia Istimewa ($4.50, Indonesian style spring rolls stuffed with minced chicken, shrimp & bamboo shoot served with a light peanut sauce)

FYI, apparently "istimewa" means "special". I wonder what makes these special.

I must say these were quite good. The peanut sauce is indeed quite light and delicate, just the way I like it. I don't like it when it just tastes like peanut butter.

The interior of the lumpia:

This tasted like no other spring roll I've ever had. No rice noodles, no tofu, no lettuce, mostly just minced chicken. Very simple. The minced chicken inside was very good.

If anyone reading this is from the region, is there much difference between Philippine and Indonesian lumpia?

For my main I got the following:

Rendang Sapi, Orak Arik & Rice ($8, spicy beef prepared with Indonesian herbs and coconut milk; stir fried cabbage, carrots and eggs with garlic and herbs)

I hadn't been to Pondok in a while, so I didn't realize it at the time, but these are two of the items provided in Rice Table 2.

I felt this was a great lunch special. Just the right portion, the taste is very good, the price is right.

I like the presentation of the dish. It's elegant and simple without feeling cheap. The rice is very pretty in the cone shape in the middle.

It's a good combination - a bit of vegetables, some meat, and some rice.

The beef sauce was very good, and they put crunchy fried onion the beef. The only problem I had with the beef was that it was slightly dry despite the presence of the sauce.

The vegetable stir fry presented a mysterious flavor that I couldn't put my finger on. It was a deep, throaty flavor that was quite intriguing. I devoured the whole thing, where usually vegetable stir fries of things so prosaic as cabbage and carrot would leave me completely unimpressed.

I was curious about the spice, so I asked the waitress. I was expecting it to be some strange, exotic thing I'd never heard of, but no. The waitress kindly informed me that the spices are actually quite simple: garlic, ginger, and white pepper. White pepper! So that's what I was tasting. Despite being quite common and ordinary a spice, it doesn't seem to be used very much in restaurants. I think they used it most effectively here.

I was really quite satisfied with my lunch. If I hadn't bought the lumpia, it would only have been around $10 in total, which is average for lunch.

I plan to come here again try try some of their other lunch entrees.

---

Ethnic cuisine enthusiasts curious to try Indonesian food should head over to Pondok and give it a shot. I personally recommend Rice Table 2, although perhaps there are items on the menu that I haven't tried that are better than this. Unfortunately it seems that the prices have gone up in the last few years. Rice Table 2 now costs $29. Yes, the dish is large enough to share between two people, but even so, it's still a little on the expensive side for ethnic food.

I recommend having a look at the online menu, because they have photos there, which are helpful in deciding. I wasn't too tempted by anything on the menu before because I had no idea what to expect, but looking at the photos they have online makes me curious to try a lot of those items.

On the subject of Indonesian cuisine, I just noticed there is another Indonesian restaurant not far from Pondok called Sate Modern Indonesian Cuisine. It's right near the Park Theatre on Cambie. I will have to check it out in the coming days to build up my experience with Indonesian food.

Bishop's

Bishop's @ 2183 West 4th Avenue

http://www.bishopsonline.com/

Bishop's is one of those places whose reputation precedes it. Look up "high-end fancy Vancouver bistro" in the dictionary and it will say "Bishop's". John Bishop has no less than four cookbooks to his name. Other high-end bistros may fall victim to vanity and slack off in one or more areas such as service or consistency, but from our experience dining at Bishop's for the first time last Friday night, they seems to still have it all together after all these years.

Exquisitely balanced flavors, attentive and knowledgeable staff, quality down to the smallest detail, locally sourced ingredients - all phrases that spring to mind to describe our experience there. You pay a hefty price tag for a meal at Bishop's, so you are definitely paying for all of that.

Most bistro places fall short in so many ways that I find it outrageous to pay out the nose for such second-rate quality. It's not that I'm a cheapskate. I'm not rich, but I am willing to pay full price for a good meal if it is truly good. Most bistros don't live up to their prices, that's all. Our meal at Bishop's the other night left us with not a single complaint, so we felt it was money well spent.

To get a sense of just how serious a restaurant this is, just have a look at their wine list, which is by far and away the most extraordinary I've seen anywhere in Vancouver. It's more than 20 pages long, and includes decades-old bottles of wine, port and champagne. To name but one example, they have a bottle of 1927 Dow's port available for $1800.

Moreover, they list the name of the maitre d' and executive chef at the bottom of the menu, and the dessert menu has its own pastry chef. They also have a vegetarian and vegan version of the menu available upon request. I've heard of offering 'vegetarian versions' of dishes, but never of an entirely different menu. That's quite considerate.

I phoned Bishop's last Thursday to make a reservation for Friday evening, fully expecting it to already be booked, but we got in without any problem. I was surprised to find the place empty when we arrived at 7 pm on Friday evening. People came in bit by bit over the course of the meal, but the place was never packed. I suppose the price tag does have a winnowing effect, even for a place this centrally located and boasting such a good reputation.

Upon entering, I was asked if I would like to check my coat, which I did. When we sat down, we were immediately greeted by John Bishop, confirming the rumors that he greets every guest himself.

Curiously, they don't have a cocktail menu. Instead, the waiter informed us that if we had any special requests for cocktails they would be happy to prepare them. Being the nervous type, I'm not able to recall cocktail names on the spot, or at least the only ones I can recall are the typical boring classics, and that's not what I'm out to try. I want to try something I've never heard of, that's the whole point. I remembered reading in one of the reviews that they had a good signature martini, so I asked about that, and the waiter promptly informed me that they did indeed have such a drink: the signature Bishop's martini made of passionfruit, pomegranite and vodka ($13).

We ordered this. The waiter asked whether we wanted two orders, and I demurred, saying we only wanted one order, and we would share it (trying to save a little money). He kindly offered to bring out two glasses, and we accepted. It was by no means my intention to try to eke out more volume for the same price by splitting the order, but this is the glass we were each served:

That looks like a full glass to me. It was a very generous portion, essentially two for the price of one, so we were very impressed by their consideration. Slightly light on the vodka, but very finely balanced in terms of the sweetness and not too fruity. I think they did good by not going overboard with the alcohol in this. Amazingly I didn't feel tipsy at the end of the meal, even after having had a martini and a full glass of wine.

Our meal began with the following complimentary soup sipper:

(Sorry for the darkness of the photos. It was very dark in there and hard to shoot.)

Unfortunately, I don't recall the details, save that it was a cold tomato bisque with a dab of some kind of oil on top. The soup was light yet potent and a wonderful little taste bud tantalizer to begin the meal with.

Next, they brought out some bread:

But this is Bishop's we're talking about. This wasn't just any bread. It was all house-made. There were two types: Milk bread and soda bread with blueberries and hazelnut. Both were delicious - the milk bread soft and, well, milky, and the soda bread closer to the consistency of a dessert cake, but without the excessive sweetness. I usually leave bread sitting on the table whenever bread is served before a meal, because (1) the bread is usually gross, and (2) I don't want to fill up on bread.

All of the bread was gone within 10 minutes. It was that good. Remarkably, they asked us if we wanted some more rather than merely clearing the plate. We did indeed take some more. So much for not filling up on bread. I just couldn't resist.

As a joke, I asked Kweepo if the butter included alongside the bread was house made too. Much to my consternation, she apparently took it seriously and asked the waiter when he came by whether the butter was also house made. I don't recall what the waiter said, but a few minutes later he returned to the table carrying a small plate of what, he went on to explain, was hand-churned butter from a dairy farm in Agassiz (a small town just past Chilliwack) where they sourced much of their cheese and butter. Not house made, but as close as you can get. He had apparently taken the request quite seriously. He also explained that this butter had just come into season. It is only in season beginning at the end of summer, at which time they bring back a big hunk of it from the dairy farm.

Rather than being annoyed by the question, he seemed delighted by it, by the interest in the specific details. I found this remarkable, and it was a constant throughout the meal. We had many questions throughout the meal and were constantly surprised by the remarkable lack of hesitation and specificity with which each of the servers was able to respond, on the spot, to questions about whatsoever particulars we might have. Every ingredient seemed to have a long back-story like this.

And the hand-churned butter? Heavenly. It's remarkable how different the taste is from conventional butter. You could almost eat it straight like that it tasted so creamy and rich and not fatty.

Starters range in price between $14 and $18. There were five choices on the menu. We settled on one of these items. We wanted to save a little money, so we ordered only one opener, which we intended to share.

Smoky Eggplant and Walla Walla Rotolo Pasta ($18, walnut, fig and fresh borlotti bean sauté, house cured prosciutto bianco)

A little while later, when the above opener was brought out, we were each brought our own plate. We hadn't even asked for this to be done. And the portion was very large. It looked like a full portion. If the full portion is six of these rolls, then that would be like a main course in itself. It feels like they boosted the portion. Either way, we were very impressed by yet another instance of them generously adapting the order to our particular circumstances. At other restaurants, withering derision would have been our reward for ordering only one appetizer, not care and consideration.

The dish itself was nothing short of exquisite. Here is a close-up of the roll, disrobed, to give you a sense of what it is exactly:

It's what appears to be narrowly sliced lasagna sheets filled between the layers with eggplant puree. I had no idea what in the world "eggplant and walla walla rotola" was supposed to mean, so this was a complete surprise to me.

Balanced finely atop the rolls are white beans and what appears to be Italian parsley. What at first sight appears to be a slice of parmesan or some other salty Italian cheese is in fact the so-called "prosciutto bianco", a clever euphemism to render palatable something most would otherwise set aside: lard. I assumed it to be cheese at the time and devoured it.

A half fig sat demurely in front. It went exquisitely with everything else - the walnut, the occasional bean, the pasta, the eggplant filling. All was a harmonious whole. And again, what a generous portion it was. We both had this same portion.

Our mains came out not long thereafter. First mine:

Sloping Hill's Pork Belly Confit with Fennel Pollen ($35, Tarragon spaetzle with roasted corn and artichokes, scarlet runner beans, sour cherry kriek and mustard seed juice)

Again this was absolute perfection, every bite heavenly. I can't emphasize how good this was. There's good, then there's very good, then there's OMG good. The fatty belly was for the most part delicious save near the end when I had to set aside some of the fat. They did an impressive job making one of the less palatable parts of the pig so delicious. The pork was wrapped into a sort of ball and placed atop a smattering of various items, all of which went very well with the pork and created a very well balanced dish. The burst of cherry sweetness in particular was a revelation that brought alive the taste of the pork. The artichoke complimented the pork in a more subdued and delicate way, while the corn and spaetzle gave it substance. Spaetzle is a starchy thing made of egg white and flour. It was provided in just sufficient a quantity to not become cloying. I can still remember the flavor of this dish, several days afterwards.

To go with this I got a glass of Peter Lehmann 2007 Shiraz from Australia ($14), which was a grand choice, although Kweepo's Cab Sauvignon went with my dish even better.

Yarrow Meadow's Duck Breast ($39, leek and ricotta tart, thyme roasted discovery apples, apple cider jus)

Another remarkable pairing of rich meat with fruit-based sauce and actual fruits. Just like the pairing of cherry with pork belly was genius, so the pairing of apple and duck seemed like a match made in heaven. The counterintuitive pairing of fruits with meats is something the Europeans have been doing for ages. The duck was cooked well, with the fat cooked enough to not be chewy. The small block of pastry provided alongside the duck was also excellent - flaky and light, filled with leek and house made ricotta. And the little daub of yellow sauce you see there was quite amazing, although I didn't catch what it is. Every single element stood apart and had something interesting to contribute to the flavor of the duck. It was a pleasure choosing a little bit of each with every bite so that every bite has a slightly different pairing of flavors, taking a little bit of apple with the duck breast this bite, then a little bit of tart with sauce and duck breast next bite, etc.

With this Kweepo got a glass of J. Lohr Oaks 2008 Cab Sauvignon from California ($14). I don't want to embarrass myself by attempting to describe its attributes in the manner of a true wine aficionado. I don't recall smelling prunes or leather or moss, but I do recall a bold, rich wine with deceptively fruity nose that complemented both dishes well.

The desserts range in price from $12 for a Maple and star anise crème brûlée (which sounds wicked good) to the average $14 for Lemon verbena panna cotta with sour cherry sauce (idem) to $18 for a selection of local cheeses with seasonal accompaniments. We got the following:

Warm chocolate cake with early grey tea ice cream ($14)

Call me old fashioned, but I just have to have chocolate for dessert. The other desserts do sound amazing. There's something indescribable about warm chocolate cake with chocolate syrup paired with cold ice cream and fresh fruit. This was absolutely perfect in that regard, with the fresh peaches. Though the peaches were crunchy. But a minor gripe, as this dessert hit the spot perfectly.

(Mini rant: I've never been able to find good juicy peaches in Vancouver. Everybody seems to be under the misunderstanding that peaches are supposed to be hard and crunchy. They're not, people! Maybe some types are, but you haven't tasted what a peach is like until you've had a peach that just melts and explodes with juice when you bite into it.)

The flamboyantly bejeweled and bespectacled combination busboy and waiter cleared our table with aplomb and restrained professionalism, and at the end, with plates balanced precariously on one arm, withdrew a curious implement from his shirt pocket, the likes of which I'd never seen before, with which he proceeded to gently scrape the table, funneling the bread crumbs away for disposal. I got a picture of it here. Is there a name for this? I admire how we humans can come up with implements specialized for the most trivial purposes. It even has a latch hole for easy hanging.

The price tag for this meal came out to a respectable $184.64, tip included. This was among the most expensive meals I've had in Vancouver. But it was also among the best.

---

To sum up, the food at Bishop's was uniformly delicious. There were no missteps. I am impressed how such rich and sumptuous flavors are created using what are essentially very basic and easily found ingredients such as white beans, prunes, cherries and eggplant. And considerable thought is put into the provenance and quality of all of their ingredients, many of which are locally sourced. The only criticism I can think to level is the price. If they shaved a little of the price, it would be absolutely perfect. If I was rich, I would go here every week. Otherwise, for the rest of us, this is a safe and reliable place to go on special occasions to have world-class cooking of the highest order.

Ningtu Restaurant

Ningtu Restaurant @ 2130 Kingsway

For Sunday brunch we ate at this restaurant, which in English is only generically named "NINGTU". The English title gives you no sense of the specific nature of the cuisine. Kweepo explains to me that the Chinese subtitle to the right of "NINGTU" on the awning signifies the following: "Signature Dishes of Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province". And the name Ningtu is actually a reference to a specific town in Zhejiang Province, Ningbo, so it's specialized within even that region (although after our experience there I have doubts as to how authentic it is). Pretty important information about the specific type of cuisine served at the restaurant. I would have been interested in trying such food, but would never have known without being able to read Chinese.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Long story short, we didn't really like this place. The service was very poor. It took us forever to get the attention of the servers on numerous occasions. And the food was disappointing. We've had better Shanghai-style food elsewhere.

The menu:

So shabby! Look at that, the menu is all burned on one side. We couldn't even read the prices for a bunch of the items.

CASH ONLY (please!)

First we ordered "Sweet rice stuffed with shredded pork". I'd love to tell you the price, but that's one of the many items on the menu where the price is obliterated by the burn. Unbelievable. What's worse is that when I went to pay, the lady didn't give me the receipt to check. Have you ever heard of that in any restaurant?

This is what arrived:

It's basically the same thing as the Shredded Pork Wrapped with Sticky Rice you can get at Long's Noodle House for $3.95, but the one at Long's was better. There was too much rice on this one. Your mouth felt stuffed full of rice without much taste.

Next we ordered "Shanghai style fried thick noodles". It's one of the few prices we can read on the menu. It's $7.95.

This is what came out:

The color was unappetizing, and it turned out to taste pretty bad too. Almost no flavor. It's like they just cooked noodles and cabbage in soy sauce. Kweepo didn't feel that this was a particularly authentic Shanghai dish. Cheap enough but not even worth that much.

Next we ordered "Chicken wonton soup". Again we don't know the price because it was smudged away.

Kweepo wanted this. It's something we've had tons of times before. The wontons were actually pretty good, if a little too big - filled with spinach and chicken. The broth wasn't good. It tasted like Campbell's chicken soup. The broth we had in Beijing wonton soup was really good because it was very light and yet very flavorful. Middling decent but not worth going out of your way to try.

Next was this strange dessert called "Ningtu special rice flour balls". It looked exotic and interesting so we wanted to give it a try.

We kind of regretted it when this was plopped in front of us. The balls are huge and really not that appetizing.

They're filled with bean curd. When you bite into them they're very very sticky and gooey and pasty. The sensation is like having a mouth full of peanut butter. Not particularly pleasant. The taste is OK in a typical subdued Chinese dessert kind of way, but not that great. It's just way too large a portion. If the balls were small and bite sized it would be great.

In short, didn't like it. It felt like we were eating lunch at T&T. That's what the food tasted like. Mass produced fare that you could buy in an Asian grocery store, with very few redeeming features. Perhaps there are other items on the menu that are better, but considering the consistently low quality of each of the dishes we got here, I think it gives us a good idea about the overall quality of the restaurant. We were immediately not very impressed when we walked into the restaurant, and that impression was confirmed when we ate the food. It's a shame, because I would like to visit a restaurant that provides authentic and well prepared fare from these regions. At least I know of a few other Shanghai restaurants, so we have options.