Chow Times Cantonese banquet at Red Star

Red Star Seafood @ 8298 Granville

Red Star Seafood on Urbanspoon

For the last few months, the Vancouver food blog Chow Times has been organizing a series of feasts on the theme of the "eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine". They'll be having a total of eight get-togethers, each focused on one particular type of traditional Chinese cuisine. Before I discovered their blog recently, they had already covered two: Hunan and Shanghai.

Kweepo and I were lucky enough to attend the third in the series, which was a lavish 10-course Cantonese banquet at Red Star restaurant on South Granville. The Cantonese love having large feasts with big groups of people, but I'd never experienced anything like that before because I don't have any family here.

Their invitation to the event is an instructive introduction to the history and culture of Cantonese cuisine. It gave me a new appreciation of Cantonese cuisine's long history and variety, and a new perspective on how to better enjoy it.

Cantonese cuisine has been my least favorite of all Chinese cuisines for a long time, because my main exposure to Cantonese cuisine has been in the form of dim sum. After encountering exactly the same dim sum dishes at one Cantonese restaurant after another, I concluded that they lacked imagination.

In fact, to truly experience Cantonese cuisine, you have to either go to Guangdong, where I'm sure the dim sum has more variety, or try the more expensive dishes at a banquet. I almost never go to Cantonese restaurants for anything other than dim sum because their regular menus are so expensive and I don't know enough people to hold a banquet.

I decided to go to this banquet despite the steep price tag (about $60) because I thought it was a good opportunity to be exposed to a variety of the region's pricier, fancier, more characteristic dishes - to finally experience Cantonese food on its own terms, the way it's supposed to be experienced. The organizers of this feast clearly had this intent in organizing the meal, and considerable thought, footwork and research went into the preparation of this event, for which I tip my hat in their direction.

This is going to sound weird, but I don't like not liking something. In some cases, I feel like failure to appreciate a certain type of cooking is a shortcoming on my part. I feel like maybe I haven't tried enough, or maybe I haven't tasted the right dishes or been to the right restaurant. It's like an itch I want to scratch. I thought this meal might help finally show me what it was I'd been missing all this time.

To get right to the point, this meal was a great experience. The company was pleasant, and the atmosphere of conviviality was great, and it was great getting to taste such a variety of high-end dishes in one sitting.

Did it change my opinion of Cantonese food? Yes and no. Some of the dishes were good and some were less good. This meal gave me a better sense of what Cantonese do well, namely: fresh seafood, prepared in austere and simple dishes with very subtle sauces. I love fish, but other than that I have never been a big seafood fan. Sea cucumber, shrimp, squid - these things leave me nonplussed.

This meal did not change the sheltered, small-minded reservations of a westerner used to 'safe' foods. And unfortunately it's precisely in the strange and exotic that Cantonese seems to shine its brightest, or at least take its particular character. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot to appreciate in Cantonese food for me. It's just that I have to be more selective.

Let's get right to the dishes. Most of these were like nothing I've ever had, so in that sense alone it was a great experience.

~ Dish 1/10: ROAST SUCKLING PIG ~

This thing was the star of the meal. The restaurant roasted an entire suckling pig for this dinner. This was one of the main things that convinced me I wanted to come. There were two tables at the meal, each with 13 people. Each table got half of the pig. This wound up being slightly insufficient to feel like you got a good taste of the thing, which is a shame because it was by far the best dish of the meal.

This was like no other pork I've ever had. It's a special dish for a special occasion. This restaurant is known for its roasted meats, and this is undoubtedly the crown of all of those. The skin is crispy, the meat underneath succulent and tender. It's actually eaten in much the same way as Peking Duck - you wrap a piece of meat, a piece of green onion and some sauce in a little tortilla and eat it like a midget Sino fajita.

The only problem is they ran out of tortilla and green onion, which was disappointing considering the price of the dish. We were instructed to sprinkle a little bit of sugar onto the pork, and indeed this was a good suggestion. The sweetness was a surprisingly good match with the roasted pork.

~ Dish 2/10: STEAMED SCALLOPS WITH FUZZY MELON ~

This felt a lot more typically Cantonese to me than the previous dish in the sense of it having seafood and having a very subtle, neutral flavor - as opposed to the rich flavor of the fajita. The melon was very soft and added more texture and bulk than flavor to the scallop in the middle. I asked the waiter what the sauce was, and he said it was just a 'white sauce'. The random piece of broccoli thrown in for some reason, though? Could have done without it.

~ Dish 3/10: CANTONESE STYLE SPECIALTY SOUP WITH CHICKEN, WHELK AND JINHUA HAM ~

The way they prepared this soup is to boil chicken and ham pieces in the water and serve the whole thing as is, with the pieces of meat in the soup. They then took the meat out, cut it up, and you took some pieces and put it in the broth. The broth tasted basically like chicken soup you'd have anywhere, and the meat was very dry because it had been boiled and all the flavor had gone into the soup. Again very Cantonese in the sense of being very basic, without many added spices or sauces or anything. But not that great. One small bowl was more than enough of this.

~ Dish 4/10: HONG KONG STYLE SPICY CRABS ~

The crab was pretty good, though I'm not a huge fan of crab. They were deep fried and coated with a spicy sauce. The sauce wasn't too spicy.

~ Dish 5/10: STEAMED FISH ~

This was apparently cod with cilantro and strips of what appear to be leek. It was good, but one fish was not enough for 13 people, and we each got the bite-sized portion seen above, which wasn't enough to really appreciate the dish.

~ Dish 6/10: SEA CUCUMBER WITH BRAISED MUSHROOM ~

One of the more obviously exotic dishes on the menu, I was really excited about trying this to push my boundaries. Sea cucumber is normally something I would never have thought to eat. I hate the idea of gooey, squishy things as a general principle - all the more so when it comes to eating them. Fish I readily ingest, but mollusks, crustaceans and invertebrates I detest. The mere thought of eating a sentient undersea intestine is not something that strikes me as necessary.

But in the spirit of adventure, I gave it a shot. The specimen upon which we dined was a monster that even brought out cut up into fist-sized chunks went around the table and then some. The Cantonese 'sauce' was a tasteless paste that served mostly for lubrication it seems. We were hence on our own when it came to the mortal combat, left face to face with whatever gustatory challenge the monster might launch our way.

I was surprised to find that it was all bark and no bite - it didn't have that much taste. Not even salty or seafoody. Very subtle. Only the squishy texture reminded me of what I was purported to be eating. It's not something I would recommend or ever want to try again, but it was worth trying once.

I wound up eating a lot more of the bok choy bedding than the sea cucumber. The garnish of shiitake were typically very spare in their preparation and not particularly to my liking.

~ Dish 7/10: BARBECUE DUCK ~

The restaurant's forte is in roasting and the roasted duck did not disappoint. Somehow they managed to finagle the animal such that the pieces of duck had a lot of meat without excessive fat, and a rich smoky flavor. I often find myself leaving the fat in duck dishes because it grosses me out, but this time the proportion was just right. The Chinese are good at duck.

~ Dish 8/10: SIU GAO DUMPLING WITH NOODLES IN SUPREME SOUP ~

A simple noodle and dumpling dish was a nice change of pace from the heavy-hitters that came before. The dumplings were good and the thin wheat noodles were tender and easy to chew, unlike the inedible hard noodles I was served at Congee and Noodle House on Broadway. The dish came much ballyhooed by our boisterous maitre d', who pronounced it one of the restaurant's specialties. It was good, but I didn't quite see what was particularly special about it.

~ Dish 9/10: RED STAR'S SPECIALTY RICE IN LOTUS LEAF ~

The presentation of this dish was nice - it came in a bowl constructed of lotus leaves and molded into the shape of one of those old Chinese magistrates hats that you see in the historical dramas. With a flourish, the waiter pulled the top of the dish off, revealing the steaming rice contained therein. I don't remember the particulars of the rice's preparation or taste, but it primarily served as a palate cleanser and change of pace from the previous dishes.

~ Dish 10/10: BAKED TAPIOCA PUDDING WITH LOTUS SEED PASTE ~

I loved the dessert. I've never had tapioca like this. It was baked into a sort of tapioca pie, so that you get a bit of crunchy crust with each bite. The tapioca itself was really creamy and rich and unlike any other tapioca I've had before, almost like they put custard in there or something. It was a good way to end an interesting and eventful meal.

And it was a LONG meal. We arrived at the restaurant at 6:30 p.m, and by the time dessert came out, it was almost 10 p.m.

PHEW. That was a feast. Although we didn't leave stuffed, amazingly. I was a little disappointed that the beers weren't a little more affordable. $5.99 for a Tsing Tao seems very pricey. Other than that, it was an exciting experience and I look forward to the rest of the meals in the series.

Breakfast Cafe - Java Express

There are times in the morning that I am running late for work and have no time for breakfast at home, or I simply get tired of the boring fruits, yogurt and cereal deal, I would like to grab something quick but nice at a cafe. Unfortunately, I'd been searching for it for years, and I had no luck finding such. So often times I would just swing by a Starbucks, which is literally at every street corner in downtown, pick up a prepacked, microwaved spinach feta cheese & egg white breakfast wrap -- the tortilla wrap is horribly dry and the egg white can be burning your tongue while other ingredients are just lukewarm. Swallowing that thing down requires lots of tongue strength and esophageal muscle contraction. Most coffee shops have breakfast muffins or English muffin sandwich for sale, but they are usually not fresh and ridiculously overpriced.

Cafe de Paris on Nelson and Howe is a nice little corner cafe. It serves good breakfast and lunch, and the Japanese barista is always friendly and smiley. I went in there once and had pretty good sandwich and soup. It is just a bit expensive, I must say. I do not expect to pay a large amount for cafe food, especially for breakfast, I would like to keep it around $5. Bread Garden also provides breakfast wraps and sandwiches, but it is just beyond pricey. When I was still studying in university, I often went to the Bread Garden near my place at Metrotown for its free wireless Internet. If not for its wifi, I doubt they would have as many customers. I mean, who on earth would spend $6 on a tiny piece of brownie? There are cheap and good breakfast cafes near my current place in Kits, and in West End where Animo lives, like Teresa's Cafe on Denman. It serves old fashioned bread, egg and bacon with a decent price, and for $5 you can get the whole deal. However, during our recent visit, we have realized the reason behind its cheap food - it looks like they prepacked all the butter cases by halving each one. Therefore, Animo had to ask for 6 extra butter cases for his two pancakes. They skimp on butter or jam to cut down their budget. Also, a cup of coffee is charged for $2 there, even more expensive then freshly brewed Starbucks coffee. I know there are quite a few brunch joints such as Joe's Grill in West End, Bon Crepe on Robson, The Elbow Room on Davie and Sophie's Cosmic Cafe on West 4th Ave - they are all great places to hang out and have a long brunch.

I stumbled across this breakfast gem, Java Express, by accident. It is located right on Howe and Helmecken in downtown, right cross the street of the Starbucks that I used to go to. I've passed by it everyday on my way to work, and I just assumed it would be like any other coffee shop. It is not. All the breakfast items are freshly made and they all taste damn good.


I have tried their breakfast wrap, croissant and new English muffin egger, and my favourite has to be the wrap. It is quite substantial and tastes beautiful. You can actually taste the creamy sundried tomato mayo and beautiful small chunks of tomato. Such a delight and a homey treat. In fact, the owner reduced food prices by $50 after HST was launched. That is such a nice gesture. It makes me want to support them more as it shows that this cafe owner sincerely cares about customers.

My Bánh mì odyssey

Kim Chau Deli @ 707 Kingsway
Tung Hing Bakery @ 1198 Kingsway

Or mini-odyssey, if you will. In which I discover a new world.

For the past two days I've been eating Vietnamese subs at almost every meal. You know how excited you are when you discover some new type of food that's awesome and inexpensive and like the dawning of a whole new world you never knew existed? Well that's what I'm experiencing right now with Vietnamese subs. And it's funny because I've known about Vietnamese subs forever, but never tried them.

It all began with this post on Tung Hing Bakery over at Chowtimes. It got me really excited about the idea of trying some Vietnamese subs, which I'd ignorantly jilted over the years for its more beautiful cousin Pho. Rue the wrath of a scorned banh mi, for it is indeed a delectable little item that is greater than the sum of its parts. One taste and you will find yourself addicted to its sensuous pleasures, caught in a downward spiral of completely unwarranted thirty minute drives way out to Kingsway just to get a $3 sandwich for lunch.

It's funny because I go to this neighborhood all the time. I've been to The Roc (decent dim sum) directly across the street from Kim Chau three times, and I've been to House of Dosas on the same side of the street a minute away from Kim Chau probably close to a dozen times over the years. They've got the best dosas.

This stretch of Kingsway running from Broadway to Metrotown is packed with dozens of tiny little Vietnamese places with unpronouncable Vietnamese names, and if you're lucky an English translation. From the outside they don't look appealing, but often the crummiest looking appearance can conceal very authentic cooking. I've always wanted to try out more of the Vietnamese restaurants here, suspecting hidden treasures to be buried therein. I tried one such Pho place, one on Kingsway closer towards Broadway whose name I can't recall, but despite the authenticity of the low-key homeyness of the decor (=shabbiness), the pho itself wasn't that great. That kind of dissuaded me. But after trying Kim Chau and Tung Hing, the fire is rekindled and I want to explore this patch of unexplored territory.

Anyway, this is the banh mi counter in Tung Hing Bakery:


It's very orderly. You can see all the ingredients that will go into your sandwich right there. On one side of the store there is a bakery, with confections presented behind glass. On the other is the counter for ordering subs. A small menu indicates five or six choices of subs. The subs are all about $3. Behind the counter, prominently in view, are the machines they use to bake their own bread - they have to be at hand because they're in such high demand. The lady behind the counter spilled out a tray of hot new buns onto the counter while I was waiting.

In Kim Chau, on the other hand, when you walk in, it feels like you've wandered into some confections factory. All of the equipment is right there in view. I wasn't sure where to go to place my order at first. Again, there's a little counter where you can order your subs, with a little menu of five or six items, though the items aren't on display like in Tung Hing. The girl who took my order was very nice and informative about banh mi when I explained I was a banh mi virgin, telling me about how they're made with lots more ingredients in Vietnam like eggs, but they can't do that here because they're not street food like in Vietnam, and people apparently wouldn't be willing to wait around to have an egg cooked for their sandwich. So the banh mi has taken a different form overseas. I'd love to try an authentic banh mi in Vietnam sometime. She also explained how in Vietnam they usually use a cut of meat they call "bacon" but that actually consists of a thin strip of meat with a huge slab of fat attached.

Preparation takes 30 seconds tops:


The final product:


I tasted Kim Chau's banh mi yesterday, and Tung Hing's today. I won't say one is better than the other, because they're both awesome and clearly good at what they do.

The basic ingredients are cucumber, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro, a smattering of special sauces, jalapenos, and a smattering of different meat ingredients. The sub I got at Kim Chau was the house special - it included three different kinds of special meat. I got two subs at Tung Hing today - one with pate that I had for lunch whose pate tasted very much like a relic of French colonial times (i.e. awesomely good), and one with a thick slice of so-called "garlic sausage", which I haven't tasted yet but looks amazing.

At Kim Chau the girl preparing my sandwich sprayed on at least three different sauces of mysterious provenance that went a long way towards making the sub so rich in flavor. She emphasized that when it comes to banh mi, it's all about the sauce.

And the bread. The bread is so good - soft and fresh.

Kim Chau has their bread shipped in on special order from a bakery, while Tung Hing bakes their own. The bread at both places was excellent. I personally grew up in France, so I know what a baguette is supposed to taste like, and it's pretty much impossible to find a baguette in Vancouver that tastes the right way. The baguettes they use at Kim Chau and Tung Hing are among the closer to the authentic French baguette that I've tasted in Vancouver. Usually a baguette you buy in a supermarket is either rubbery or the skin is way too hard. You practically break your teeth trying to bite into them. The baguettes they use for the banh mi at Kim Chau and Tung Hing are very soft, and way better than they look at first glance.

Everything is wonderfully fresh. And it needs to be, because they have a heavy throughput. I was speaking with the nice girl at the counter at Kim Chau about the art of banh mi, and she was telling me how they often get people coming in and placing huge orders of dozens of banh mi at a time, so it was a pleasure getting someone like me ordering only one! She had literally gotten an order of 60 banh mi that day. Wow. Apparently Vietnamese families buy them in bulk for home consumption.

There are many other banh mi places along Kingsway and elsewhere in Vancouver, so in the future I won't hesitate to grab a banh mi for lunch if I run across a banh mi joint.

Chambar

Chambar @ 562 Beatty Street

We were in no hurry the other day with time to kill before a movie in Tinseltown and wandered around looking for a restaurant in the area. We have a really hard time finding any good restaurants in Chinatown for some reason. It's Chinatown for crying out loud - where are all the good Chinese restaurants? What happened? I wish some of the many great Chinese restaurants in Richmond would move over here. We'd love to go more often but Richmond is a long drive and we can only make it down there at most every weekend to try some new restaurant.

We've been to a number of the restaurants in the vicinity already (it's the area between Chinatown and Gastown). Traditional joint Foo's Ho Ho we've been to before and I'll probably write about soon. We're not too keen on the place, though they've got a venerable history. Fusion joint Wild Rice is mostly an overpriced drink place, though they also have some overpriced food items. I just remember not being impressed when we went once. The food court in Tinseltown is a joke. It's a far cry from the awesome food courts in Richmond.

So we wound up just going to Chambar since it was nearby, though we really didn't want to be spending that much money. Chambar is one of Vancouver's most famous bistros, a Belgian-themed joint. It's in the $$$$ range, but my last experience there was quite positive in terms of the food (though the service was a disaster), so I decided to give it another go.

It was Friday night and we just waltzed in. Needless to say, the place was packed. We were lucky to get seated at the bar right away. And this turned out to be a lucky stroke, because at the bar the service is instant! No more worries about absentee waiters. During our last visit, we were seated way at the back and our waiter literally disappeared at one point, and we had to flag down someone else to get the bill.

This is Chambar. The expensive people go to Chambar to hang out and be seen. Especially so on a Friday night. You don't just casually walk into Chambar on a Friday night! We did. Ha. Much as I despise the dense miasma of narcissism, self-importance and voyeurism that pervades bistro places of this ilk, I must confess that Chambar is one of the few that despite its miasma actually serves good food. You walk out satisfied even though your wallet has taken a hit and you want to take a shower to wash off the chichi.

For drinks I ordered a glass of the Chambar Ale ($5 a glass). I did not know they made their own beer. They do, and it's available exclusively at Chamber, and you can even buy six packs. And it's the only semi-affordable beer on the menu. Everything else is $10+ a bottle. Seriously. My beer came quickly thanks to our remarkable proximity to the tap. It was potent and full-bodied and went well with the food. It's a shame their beers are so overpriced. That's at least a 3x markup over liquor store prices. They have a good selection of Belgian and other European strong beers.

Kweepo got the cocktail Fruits du Sudan ($10, Tamarind infused tequila shaken with fresh lemon, orgeat & mango juice) because she wanted to see the cute bartender shake his shaker. (Only partly kidding ;) It was a little bitter but stronger than many cocktails at other places, so not bad. But not worth $10.

I think everybody in the restaurant other than us ordered mussels. Bloody original, people. This place has great mains that you can't find in every Belgian restaurant, and we did the right thing by ordering them instead. The two mains we got were AWESOME.

~ MAIN 1/2 ~

Chevreuil aux Cerises ($31, Venison short loin, blueberry & venison sausage, paccheri pasta, proscuitto, basil pesto, fresh cherry concasse, champagne mustard)

Kweepo's plate was excellent in every way. Presentation was lovely. It looked small at first sight, but it was a healthy portion. Each of the three parts had its distinct sauce and flavor - the venison sausage was served appropriately with mustard, and not just any mustard, but champagne mustard. It was excellent and not gamey at all. The short loin was very different in taste and well paired with the cherry concasse. The big pieces of paccheri pasta were quite interesting and helped to fill out each bite. The topping of a bit of proscuitto was a nice touch. So many flavors dashing about, but the dish doesn't feel like a cacophony; everything fits in with everything else, providing for a constantly delightful variety despite the compactness of the dish. A very conscientiously prepared dish, with much thought obviously put into it. My only complaint would be that it became somewhat monotonous over the length of the dish.

~ MAIN 2/2 ~

Canard et Chevre ($29, Roasted duck breast, goat cheese & tarragon gnocchi, sauteed scallions, hazelnut & peach salad)

This dish was perfect, one of the best duck dishes I've ever had. Again it looks tiny but is a perfect portion. The only complaint I have is that there were insufficient gnocchi. There were only 7 or 8 gnocchi dotting the circumference of the duck. It looks beautiful, truly a work of art, and tastes every bit the equal of the presentation. So many contrasting flavors and textures, but they balance out well and provide for a variety throughout the span of the dish from one bite to the next, from the crunchy nuttiness of the hazelnuts to the sweetness of the peach and the goat cheese sauce that each complement the duck marvelously. And the duck is perfectly cooked, not too dry or too bloody, and without excessive fat. This was a wonder down to the last bite.

~ DESSERT ~

L'abeille et son the ($12, Honey ice cream, chamomile creme caramel & lemon meringue puff)

A marvelous little dessert, only slightly overpriced. But it's again a well conceived pairing of dissimilar textures and approaches - creamy, velvety honey ice cream with a bit of honey in a cavity at the top; rich, unctuous creme caramel; and light, fluffy puff with a dash of fruity sauce and whipped cream.

The other dishes on the menu (mostly fish dishes) do not look as interesting as these, but I'm tempted to give them a shot after seeing how good everything here was.

Long's Noodle House

I discovered this restaurant today as Kweepo and I were deciding where to go for lunch. We try to explore some new restaurants every week, and on the weekends I particularly like to explore Chinese and other Asian restaurants, because there are so many out there. You can try a different restaurant every day in Vancouver and never run out.

I ran across this one in a nice Vancouver food blog I just discovered called Chow Times whose writer (also named Ben like me) seems to share with me a passion for Chinese food. His blog entries are wonderfully presented, with lots of tantalizing photos, and the descriptions and photos in his entry for Long's were too much to resist.

It turned out to be a good decision. Despite being innocuous and located way out in the middle of nowhere, Long's is one of the best Chinese restaurants I've been to in Vancouver. You would never know just walking past it how good it actually is. It looks as ordinary as the many mediocre Chinese restaurants that litter the city. We ordered five separate dishes at lunch today, and we weren't disappointed by anything. Everything was delicious, and there was great variety between the dishes, and there is still a lot more I want to go back to explore.

Long's serves Shanghainese food. I've had lots of other kinds of Chinese food, but it wasn't until I came to Vancouver that I found restaurants serving Shanghainese food. So I'm not too familiar with the cuisine, and eager to learn. I've had not too good luck at other places in the past when I tried to sample some Shanghainese specialties, but this time I feel like I got a feeling for what true Shanghainese food is like. It feels particular to the region without being excessively weird.

I'm pleased to report that the first thing they did when we sat down was to serve us a glass of hot tea. I couldn't identify the tea, but it had a floral smell. Kweepo hazarded it might be Osmanthus, but I don't know as I've never had Osmanthus tea. Anyway, it was delicious, and a good accompaniment. And, of course, complimentary, as it should be.

As other reviews have noted, the service was friendly and fast. The restaurant is quite small, the decor nonexistent. It's good Chinese food, to the point, without frippery. When we arrived, every table was full except for the biggest one. Luckily a small table was leaving right as we arrived, so we got to sit fairly quickly. Orders came out quickly at an interval of a few minutes. The atmosphere is convivial without being harried or noisy.

Gong Cai Shanghai Style - $4.50

This was a delicious if slightly salty vegetable appetizer featuring some obscure Asian vegetable called Gong Cai that's like a limp cucumber. It was spicy and flavorful and crunchy. The flavor is quite pungent, so it made a good side-dish to nibble on between bites of the other dishes. Excellent. Like nothing I've had elsewhere. Why do I love Chinese food? Because they never cease to bring out some obscure vegetable or item like this that I've never even heard of but that's truly amazing and like nothing else I've ever had.

Wine Chicken - $5.95

One of the restaurant's signature dishes, the Wine Chicken did not disappoint! This is a must try. It's served cold, but it's delicious and uniquely Shanghai in taste. A true authentic regional staple. Also affordable, as the portion is fairly generous. The rice wine in which the chicken pieces are folded gives the chicken a great flavor like nothing else out there - sweet in a rice wine kind of way with a hint of alcohol to make things exciting.

Beef Rolls - $4.95

Very good beef rolls. The been inside is preserved, you can taste the cilantro, and there isn't an excessive amount of hoisin sauce. Very finely balanced and light beef roll. Peaceful on Broadway serves a killer beef roll that honestly is a little better than this one, but this one is drier - more like a wrap - which I prefer, as the one at Peaceful can be a bit greasy.

Shanghai Spring Rolls - $4.95

At first glimpse these might look like ordinary spring rolls, and indeed the wrapping itself is unremarkable, but the filling is surprising. It's mostly cabbage and other vegetables, but it has a great flavor that's like no other spring rolls.

Shredded Pork Wrapped With Sticky Rice - $3.95

My favorite discovery of the meal was this fascinating example of an authentic Shanghai staple. It's hard to tell from the photo, but inside is actually a Chinese donut, some preserved vegetables and the pork. It has an exquisite texture when bitten - a bit crunch, a bit flaky, a bit chewy. It all meshes perfectly together.

In addition, we ordered a glass of warm soy milk, and I recommend doing the same if you want to have that true Chinese meal experience. It goes really well with the food and it's only $1.50 for a big glass.

This is the kind of meal I like - rather than two big, expensive dishes, a lot of small, inexpensive dishes, to make for a meal of tremendous variety that doesn't hurt you in the wallet. After all of this food, we were stuffed, and still had most of the beef rolls left - and it all came out to just a bit over $30 with tax included. Truly a good deal, and we'll be back to sample the other items on the menu. There were many other items that sound interesting.

Important note: This place is CASH ONLY. I had to run out and get some cash at a corner store after we finished eating because I didn't notice the tiny sign saying "cash only" at the counter.

Josephine's Restaurant Filipino Cuisine

This is a little joint on Main Street just south of Broadway. A few years ago another Filipino restaurant opened up a few streets south on Main Street. It was more upscale and pricey, but it has since closed down. There is another Filipino restaurant called Cucina on Joyce that we may have to try out sometime. I'm not very familiar with Filipino cuisine apart from a vague conception of satays, so I'm very interested in sampling any Filipino restaurant I encounter. And luckily there are a few in Vancouver.

It's hard to recommend this place, which is disappointing, because it's one of the few authentic Filipino restaurants I know of in Vancouver, and it's not a fancy bistro but a buffet-style eatery, having instead a fairly large selection of authentic Filipino dishes prepared and on display. I would have liked to be able to have a reliable little Filipino place to be able to have available to come back to every once in a while. But I don't envision myself coming back to this place.

Our recent visit there didn't endear us to the place for a number of reasons. When we walked in, it took literally about five minutes until anybody paid any attention to us. There is no menu - what is in the buffet is all there is available. There are about 20 different items, and none of them have any labels whatsoever - no title, no ingredients. Asking about each of the titles seemed to harass the lady behind the counter, and there was a line of people waiting, which put pressure on you not to ask too many questions.


I know next to nothing about Filipino cuisine, so this made it very difficult to make a decision based on anything but appearance, which can be deceptive. Something that looks good might be scary - one of the decent-looking dishes turned out, upon inquiry, to be a mash of liver and heart or something.

I wound up blindly choosing two items, as did Kweepo. The food at this place is food court level. It feels like it should be $5.99 for two items, like it would be at a food court. The problem is that it's $8.99 for two items, plus a dollar extra for one each of an Empanada (a vegetable-filled pastry) and Lumpia (a thin egg roll), which are staples that it would be unthinkable to omit if you want to have an authentic Filipino meal, as we did. The lady was sneaky - when I asked what these items were, she grabbed them and put them in my plate and said "They're good, you try?" I was tempted to say no just to protest the rudeness of her action, but decided not to make a big deal out of it. I wanted to try them anyway.

Another problem is that a lot of the stuff doesn't look fresh. It looks kind of burned and dry, like it's been sitting there for a few hours. Paying $8.99 for two small portions of this stuff with a huge pile of rice doesn't feel like a good deal. For that price I'd expect it to be an all-you-can-eat buffet. Another thing that disturbed us is that, after placing Kweepo's two items on the plate, the lady behind the counter proceeded to place the plate in the microwave and microwave it. Isn't the point of a hot buffet that it's supposed to be hot and ready to eat? And on top of that, microwaving food in plain sight of the customer seems a breach of restaurant etiquette. You're not supposed to microwave food to begin with, much less do it right in front of the customer.


As for the food, I got pepper chicken and a tomato sauce meat dish. Both were fairly good, but WAY oversalted. The chicken was very good, but paradoxically, it was very dry when chewed despite swimming in an oily sauce. The beef was well cooked but they left big pieces of fat on each piece, which I personally do not care for, though I know other people might not mind.

The combo came with a broth-like soup that I almost gagged on when I tried to have a taste because it was so insanely salty. Kweepo got barbecued chicken and tofu & green bean. The tofu & green bean were completely ordinary and unremarkable, but the barbecued chicken was tender and well seasoned, if also oversalted. What is it with Filipino cuisine and salt? I bought some salted tamarind confections from a Filipino grocery store further south on Main today, and they are so disgustingly oversalted I couldn't even eat one.

At the very least, I can't deny that the food here feels authentic. Everyone in the restaurant apart from me and Kweepo were Filipinos, testament to the fact that this is one of the places that is apparently frequented by the expat Filipino community that lives around this neighborhood. There are things there that I've never seen anywhere else and that I'm sure are very authentic. For that alone it is worth at least one visit. I just wish they would improve on the saltiness thing, and wish there was a way to take small samples of various dishes instead of being limited to getting only two items and a big serving of rice.

Worst Service of the Year: Roundel Cafe

There are three essential elements that corporate into fine dining – food, atmosphere and service. Whereas food quality outweighs the other two components, outstanding services and friendly ambience of a restaurant certainly adds a brownie point to its value and tremendously enhances the dining pleasure. My personal favorite restaurants with best services would have to be Fraiche, Tojo’s and Mistral on West Broadway.

I do not expect attentive services and gorgeous views though, when it comes to ethnic dining. Sometimes sloppy services even strike me as part of the being authentic package deal. Servers in most Cantonese restaurants, for example, have such an attitude in that first, they do not bother learning proper English. We have encountered waitresses using sign languages to take our orders. Cantonese as a language also harbors a taste of harshness in its tone that words can come off impolite and curt. Second, they never make eye contacts with you when bringing food to the table, neither do they respond when you say “thank you.” Cantonese restaurants, especially dim sum places (Kirin as an exception), for some reason do not prefer single or couple diners. Animo and I once experienced some restaurant seat waiting courtesy fail when we visited Sun Sui Wah on Main, supposedly one of the best dim sum places in town. At least two large parties of people went ahead and got seated before us, and we had to wait another 15 minutes to get a table, because they only provide 5 out of 30 tables available for two-person dining. Go figure the small table turnover rate. After we got seated, our server asked me and Animo, a white boy, that if we needed an English menu or Chinese menu. Did she just assume that just because Animo is Caucasian, he does not know how to order Chinese food? Isn't that borderline racism, or at least discrimination of some sort?

That being said, I do have great appreciation for their inexpensive food and admirable efficiency. Now I have learned to order everything all together, including drinks, appetizer, entrée and dessert, in a Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant, as server would only appear by your table once. We should not expect to pay little and get pampered. I get it. However, if I go to a brunch café and get charged $10 for some food that is essentially eggs and bread, I do have some expectations on services, or at least I do not anticipate rude behaviors and insulting comments from a server. Animo and I recently visited Roundel Café on Hastings, and it was regrettably one of the worst dining experiences ever. At first this café looks like a hip, funky neighborhood gathering spot, with an easy-going atmosphere and warm, friendly staff. We ordered juice and iced tea for drinks, which were $2.5 each as told by our server. Food was passable, but service was not attentive – I had to get up to the counter and ask for some jam. When the bill came, it was written $3 for both drinks. We thought there might have been a mix-up, so we brought it to attention to our server, a lady in her 50s. We expressed our concerns over the bill, our server said, “Oh I don’t know, I am not the owner.” She then left and a younger waitress came to our table, and confirmed, “Drinks are $3, not $2.5.” “But we were old that they are supposed to be $2.5.” Animo explained where our concerns came from. She became extremely defensive and condescending, raised her voice saying, “Look we are all humans and we all make mistakes. Are you saying you would not have gotten the drink if it is 50 cents more?” She clearly did not understand what we are trying to say. We as paid customers are simply pointing out their errors and a simple apology would solve all the matters. This lady did not apologize after making the rude comment, and left our table abruptly while Animo was still talking to her. At last, she turned around, shrugged sarcastically and blurted out "sorry" to us while rolling her eyes.

After witnessing such unbelievably rude and unprofessional service, it was almost laughable when I saw that their tip option on their Interac machine was 20%. Tips? Zilch.

Pet Peeves: Tea edition

I have a number of pet peeves regarding tea served in restaurants:

- Paying for tea.

I expect tea to be served in a big pot and to be free in an Asian restaurant. Kirin on Alberni sets the example in this regard: First thing as soon as you sit down, they bring out a big pot of freshly brewed, loose-leaf Jasmine tea, on the house, to every table, and from there on out are attentive to promptly refill the pot when the lid is placed askew.

Setting the negative example is Iki on 4th Ave., which aside from being sloppy in both service and preparation (the nori on the maki fell apart at the seams and their Volcano roll was ludicrously overfilled with cream cheese), charged for the tea. And what did they bring out? A white diner coffee mug filled with hot water, and a tea bag. (And you can bet it was the cheapest green tea you can buy at Safeway)

- Wrong vessel.

See above. Coffee mugs are for coffee.

- Wrong tea.

Contrary to what some restaurants might think, it does matter what tea you serve. Chinese restaurants should serve Chinese tea, and Japanese restaurants should serve Japanese tea. I've been to a Chinese restaurant that served black tea when you asked for tea, which strikes me as astonishing. The new restaurant East Fusion in Tinseltown (I'll save you the trouble if you're curious about it: their food is uniformly inedible) brought out black tea.

- Tea bags.

The tea should be loose leaf, not tea bags. There is no quicker way to figure out if a restaurant has a global attitude of disregard for quality than seeing if they bring out a tea bag in a mug of hot water.

- Watered down tea.

Nothing is more annoying than taking a sip of tea and not being able to tell if it's tea or hot water. Kitsaya on West Broadway sets the example in this regard: They brought out a cup of tea so scaldingly hot that I was unable to taste anything for 15 minutes because my tongue was burned. Try as I might to sense the flavor of the beverage I was served, each sip seemed tasteless. By the end of the meal, the "tea" now cool enough to taste, I could tell that the tea had been so watered down as to have nary a particle of tea left. This restaurant has discovered that as long as you serve it hot enough, you can serve hot water instead of tea and nobody will notice the difference. In my previous post on Chongqing Robson, I mentioned that they, too, are guilty of the sin of serving tea watered down to such an extent as to have no flavor.

Les Faux Bourgeois Bistro

Wait. This restaurant was voted the #1 fine dining restaurant in Vancouver? Step. I may not be qualified to judge which one should get the top spot, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be this one.

This is a decent restaurant, but I think it's overrated. It's clearly been the victim of too much hype. It only does it disservice to portray it falsely, because it sets you up for disappointment. That's what I find happened to me when I visited it for the first time recently, carrying on my shoulders a world of expectations that promptly and unceremoniously bit the dust upon arrival.

Fraiche, one of the best restaurants I've ever been to and certainly the best fine dining restaurant I've been to in Vancouver, isn't even on the list! Haphazard ratings like this are what make me dislike the ratings at Urbanspoon.

(And it's not just about one restaurant on a big list. What about the other restaurants on the list? A hot dog stand is the best restaurant in Vancouver? And a cheap Greek eatery is the second best? Followed by Les Faux Bourgeois? Yeah, makes perfect sense.)

Anyway...

My recent experience dining at Les Faux Bourgeois was by no means an unmitigated disaster or anything. I can recommend this restaurant if you are looking for a decent traditional French cooking. The prices are not the absurd prices of some places like Cru, and the food was mostly quite good, which I can't say for many French restaurants in these parts.

Just don't expect to waltz over there one night and find a seat. You have to reserve to eat at this place at least one month in advance. For Fraiche I would gladly jump through hoops, but it is laughable for these guys (and the rest of Vancouver) to think so highly of themselves.

Aside from this, the main problem with this place is that the service was unprofessional and not what one would expect of a French restaurant of any caliber, much less the highest-rated fine dining restaurant in the city. Red and white wine were served in the same glass. The waiter wore a ragged t-shirt and did not pour the wine after opening it. The atmosphere could at best be described as bustling; at worst, harried.

It was horrendously noisy in there. I've never been in such a noisy restaurant. I could barely hear what the person sitting across the table was saying. And this was on a Tuesday night. That, and the lighting was very bad - it felt too bright and too dark at the same time, because of the lengthwise orientation of the restaurant and the lack of good lighting.

For openers we had TARTE FLAMBÉE ALSACIENNE ($10, caramelized onion puff pastry tart, crème fraîche, ricotta cheese, lardons, grape tomato salad). A fairly pleasing dish, but not particularly revelatory or creative. This sets the tone for the evening. The fare here is traditional and to the point without embellishment.

For mains we had FILET DE BOEUF GRILLÉ ($19, tenderloin with potato gratin and glazed vegetable, red wine shallot jus) and a dish of lamb with ratatouille that I don't see on the menu on their web site so I don't have details. The tenderloin was exquisite in the red wine sauce, and went perfectly with the potato gratin, which tasted very much as my mom used to make it. The lamb, on the other hand, was disappointing - decent but humdrum and lacking in taste, certainly not the overwhelming success of the tenderloin. So it was a very hit-or-miss experience.

We ordered a bottle of Spanish Beronia Rioja Riserva 2005, which was exquisite - earthy, full of tannins, long, with great evolution and body, though the fruits were a little gone and it felt like it was peaking. A very big and bold wine, just like I like them. It went very well with both of our dishes.

There wasn't even a dessert menu. When we asked about desserts, the waiter casually recited the four uninspired desserts they offer - chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, creme brulee and lemon tart. Very original. Very creative. The chocolate cake and creme brulee were good, to be sure, but everything about this meal was too middle-of-the-road and lacking in tension and excitement. The dishes we were served didn't have an aura about them as if the chef had carefully arranged every detail. The vegetables on my plate were literally inedible - a few tasteless pieces of carrots that seemed completely out of place. Little things like this are telltale signs of a lack of spark, and the fact that they are blase about their reputation and can sit on their laurels and watch the customers roll in.

Portobello Ristorante

Portobello Ristorante @ 1429 West Broadway

I generally avoid Italian restaurants. Who wants to pay $15 for a plate of noodles that could just as easily be made at home for 1/8 the price? There is no mystery about fettucini alfredo, et al. I have no doubt that Italian restaurants worth their salt can make a better noodle dish than me. And friends speak in hushed awe about the delights they tasted on trips to Italy, with its rich culinary tradition. I just don't think Italian restaurants make for an exciting and worthwhile dining experience, as a general thing.

In our effort to try as many restaurants as possible, the other day Kweepo and I visited Portobello on Broadway near Granville. Our first choice was Cru next door, but the mains there were an absurd $35. The mains at Portobello are between $24-$28, and after my experience there I can confirm even these are laughably overpriced. The noodles range between $14 and $18, which again I find overpriced, although I predictably had better luck with these.

In summary, the pastas are decent but slightly overpriced, the mains are hit or miss, and the service is lousy. I do not feel that this restaurant is a good value. My experience is based solely on two dishes we ordered, so I can't comment on the rest of the menu. Perhaps we just chose the wrong dish, but I am not inclined to go back to check.

The first sign that things were not headed in a good direction was the emptiness of the room when we walked in. It was Friday night, and every bistro in Vancouver worth anything is completely packed on a Friday night. Clearly, people are not flocking to this restaurant.

The next sign was the casual, unprofessional attitude of the service. Instead of a person standing behind a counter greeting us and asking us for our reservation, a waiter casually sauntered up and looked askance at us until we were forced to say we had a reservation and could we please have a seat.

For our starter, we ordered the Fungo Portobello Gratinato ($10, portobello mushroom stuffed with bread crumbs, fresh herbs, served with roasted red pepper sauce). It arrived within about 10 minutes. It was quite passable, but not extraordinary in any way, and did not justify the $10 price tag.

For our mains, we ordered the Ossobuco Classico ($26, veal shank braised with red wine rosemary, carrots, celery, served with risotto) and Pappardelle Alla Romana ($14, broad egg noodles in a cream sauce ham, peas, mushrooms, fresh basil). The dishes took a long time to come out. We had been in the restaurant almost an hour before our mains came out.

We ordered a glass of Chianti Castiglioni frescobaldi to go with the Ossobuco. It had strong tannins with a little fruit, and though I usually like bold wines, it was without body and unimpressive. Very disappointing for a $9 glass of wine.

A basket of warm bread was brought out before the dishes were served. I like warm bread as much as the next person, but these were literally burning to the touch. I almost got a third degree burn just trying to break open one of the loaves. I know the importance of brining out hot food, but that was ridiculous.

I have personally eaten Ossobuco made in the traditional way, and it was a marvelous thing and a revelation about the possibilities of cooking meat. It was for this reason that I ordered Ossobuco for Kweepo, to share the experience of this one-of-a-kind traditional dish that is not so easy to find in restaurants. I hoped - no, I assumed - it would taste like the last Ossobuco I had. Hello, disappointment! The Ossobuco we had at Portobello was, in a word, tasteless. There seemed to be a hint of the trademark flavor of this classic dish hidden there somewhere, but only a merest hint. What a deception foisted on innocents who would eat this travesty and be forever turned off to the notion of Ossobuco as a tasteless, flavorless waste of $25. As if this weren't enough, the meat was on the leathery side. Every flexion of the jaw left my masseter screaming for mercy. Somewhere along the line in the course of the birthing of this dish, something went terribly awry.

The Pappardelle Alla Romana, on the other hand, was a satisfying dish, and exactly what I would expect from a pasta joint. The broad noodles were fresh and soft, and the cream sauce was unctuous without being pasty or overrich. There many pieces of ham and peas filled out the texture nicely. And finally, it came out piping hot. Italian pasta cools quickly, and I can't count how many times I've been served lukewarm pasta in an Italian restaurant, which ruins the dish. So at the very least, the pasta was spot on. Worth $14? Not really. Still overpriced for what it is, but at least not the massive disappointment that was the Ossobuco.

The thing that left me with a bad taste in my mouth was the decided lack of professionalism in the atmosphere at this restaurant among the servers. The service, while not rude or inattentive as in the case of many restaurants, was dissatisfying for a different reason - it was offhand, casual, sloppy. It was not what one would expect for the price tag. As we were getting up to leave and putting on our coats, the busboy flipped his tray impatiently behind Kweepo. The open design of the restaurant felt uncomfortable. A group of three or four people seemed to constantly be milling behind the counter/kitchen exchanging idle chatter or looking over the room. A lady I assume to be the manager was chatting away with the table behind me for the greater portion of our meal.

In short, my visit did nothing to change my general opinion of Italian restaurants. Quite the opposite, it mostly reinforced the majority of my negative perceptions.

Tojo's

There are two categories of restaurants that seem to dominate Asian cuisines in Vancouver - Asian fusion and sushi joints. It is challenging to create a fusion dish that is conceptually inventive and presentable, whilst satiating your taste buds. For some reason, Asian spices and cooking technique (mostly pan fried, grilled and steamed) does not always pair seamlessly with Western ingredients, or vice verse. Of several Asian fusion places have I experimented, including Wild Garlic Bistro , Red Door Pan Asian Grill, Wild Rice and Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie, none of them has engraved a fantastic note in my gustatory or olfactory memories. Those Asian fusion restaurants are majorly turfed in posh neighborhoods like Yaletown, or hip area such as Gastown and Chinatown, not lacking hipsters/pseudo-foodies throwing in their money for the sake of their own image and self-ego. I have heard good reviews on EN Japanese Restaurant, innovative Japanese dining with French and continental influences, which is on my list of restaurants to try out next. But I will not be surprised that dishes there are beautifully presented with pretentious portions, and jaw-dropping price tags, just like any other fusion bistros.

Sushi joints, on the other hand, are far more accessible and vary in all kinds of aspects. First, they are so abundant that you can find them in any sort of neighborhoods, humble or high-end. However, the quality does not always match up or down with models of the cars parked by the street. Second, the price range can be as low as $2 for a box of California roll for take-out, or as steep as $15 for one piece of King crab nigiri. Seafood is the essential material used in sushi making, therefore, the freshness and the quality of seafood weighs in tremendously to a sushi restaurant reputation. Tsunami Sushi on Robson street in central shopping district in Downtown Vancouver possesses the only floating sushi bar that I've known of in Greater Vancouver. It is reasonably priced, and dishes are fresh tasting and continuously made and presented in front of you. What attracts me the dearest about floating sushi bar is the mystery and excitement of anticipating what would be brought to the floating strip next, and that customers are in utter control of their own eating pace.

Omakase, loosely translated as "Entrust" or "Trust the chef" in Japanese, is a concept Japanese dining experience where the chef customizes an entire menu based on your personal preferences, presenting a minimum of 8 courses (the min. number of plates varies in different restaurants) from light appetizers to hot main dishes and wrapped up with dessert, no difference than Western dining in this sense. However, all the dishes are created uniquely, using seasonal highest quality seafood and other ingredients, a truly spiritual and lavish treatment to your taste buds. Tojo's , voted as the top sushi restaurant in Vancouver by New York Times, is the place to go for Omakase. I have been to Tojo's three times over the past two years, and tried Omakase twice in different seasons. It is about the only Japanese bistro that I've been to that serves up to its elite reputation, if not more, and the only place that when I put down my one hundred dollar bill on the check, I feel money is well spent.

During my 2nd visit to Tojo's, I was privileged to meet Chef Tojo. He is a lovely old man. Tojo works behind the bar, gives directions to his fellow chefs. He is very strict on if a particular dish of sushi needs soy sauce. Before a plate of sushi handed to us, Tojo would kindly inform us, "please use soy sauce" or "no soy sauce." Once a regular customer sitting next to me in the sushi bar was about to dunk a piece of sushi into soy sauce, I noticed a cloud across over Chef Tojo's face, then I heard a firm voice saying, "I said NO soy sauce." Unlike a typical movie sequence, the first original movie usually being the best of the entire sequence, my third time visit was an absolute charm and would be my best dining experience at Tojo's in terms of the variety of seafood, the creativity of the courses and the exquisite taste of each dish.

1. Tuna tataki topped with grated ginger, sprinkled finely chopped green onion and loosely scattered purple sprouts.


2. Morel mushroom wrap of chopped scallop and fish paste, pan fried with dry seaweed coat; nested on a bed of buttered spinach, topped by bonito (dried fish flakes). The photo does not justify the quality, and it did not look like the most appetizing dish, but it turned out to be the most surprising and mouth-watering dish of the whole meal.



3. Octopus salad - elegantly sliced octopus, garnished with canola petals and thinly picked kelp, rested on a mat of fresh Japanese seaweed. Special house sauce drizzled atop. Chef Tojo's creations are artistic and playful, always alternating a cold and hot dish to tease our palate.




4. Smoked sable fish rolled in playfully sliced pine mushroom, asparagus, daikon root and fresh mango pieces. It is a quite substantial dish, and the smoke sable fish is about the best smoke fish I have ever tasted.

5. Spot Prawns were just in season. Hand peeled and presented before us.

6. Geoduck and cucumber mixed with spicy mayo. Geoduck has this crunchy texture perfectly paired with cucumber, of which the combination generates a creamy yet refreshing flavour. Seaweed wrap was thin, soft and crispy, free us from struggling of biting the seaweed sheet off.

7. Salmon sushi roll - simple and rich.

8. Toro Nigiri. I am a tuna girl, salmon is good but tuna and toro simply blows me away.

9. 2010 sushi roll - salmon, deep sea tuna, scallop and tamago hugging a thin layer of rice. prawn tempura stuffing. The plate was garnished by blueberry sauce, written Tojo's 2010. Chef Tojo's signature dish of 2010, purposely designed for the Vancouver winter Olympics 2010.

10. Cucumber roll - artfully prepared cucumber skin wrapping of avocado, prawn tempura, yam tempura and asparagus. Each bite renders a wonderful sensation on the teeth and the mouth chamber - cold, crunchy skin and warm, crispy, surrender by the nice creamy touch from avecado. Truly one of my favourite Tojo's creation of sushi rolls.

11. Alaska king crab nigiri

12. Uni (sea urchin) nigiri - this is a test of your open-mindedness in seafood category. If you overcome that ocean hint, sea urchin can taste quite nicely. Creamy, naturally salty and pungent. If you a stinky cheese lover, you might have the potential to a sea urchin adventure. My first encounter of sea urchin was during my 2nd visit to Tojo's, sea urchin was mingled with an assortment of sable fish, scallop and other ingridents in a nice and thick stew, it did not taste as distinguishable as it would when it comes in alone with just a tad of rice underneath. It is definitely a challenge of my palate in a wonderful way. After my two encounters with sea urchin, I felt like my appreciation for sea food has reached another level and my taste horizon has broadened.

13. Spanish mackerel nigiri

14. We finally called it a day after 13 brilliant creations by Tojo's. Our dessert comes in two cute glass cups - Left is black sesame pudding topped with two blueberries and a sliver of strawberry. Right cup contains ginger sorbet resting on a cocktail of grapefruit, strawberry and pineapple bits, a thin slice of sesame cracker graciously landed in sorbet.

The entire meal was a dreamy journey full of surprises and hidden gems. Each visit at Tojo's is very much like rebirth - there is always something new, something different and unusual, and something fun. Everything is made to perfection, so I feel perfectly pampered and satisfied. You go there, sit down and get ready to be impressed. It's not only about food, it is also about observing and learning how to eat Japanese food properly. For instance, I often see people soak a piece of nigiri in soy sauce until the rice dripping with sauce. Here is one thing that I learned at Tojo's - Less is more. Soy sauce is supposed to enhance the flavor of sushi, but it is not a must for each every dish. Many sushi rolls should be eaten sans soy sauce. Even when using it, it should be used in a minimized amount. I have also noticed that all the sushi are made with less rice than normal. I am used to seeing a big chunk of loosely packed sushi rice topped with a sliver of fish in bad sushi restaurants. This is nothing more than a poor taste. Another lesson from Tojo's is that rice is the secondary character in sushi world, it is important as bad rice can ruin the whole thing, but the essence of a sushi is what is inside or outside of rice. All the sushi tastes heavenly even just a simple salmon roll, partially because of the high quality fish they use, also it's the small amount of rice that is just enough to mellow out the seafood flavor and not too abundant to steal the thunder of the main role. Professionalism is revealed in details. Before the meal starts, customers are asked if they have any food allergies. You can also take this opportunity to let the chef know what you would like to try and what you prefer not having. The chef normally notes down your preferences and allergies onto a piece of sheet, so when he creates food for you, he'd remember.

At Omakase, your wallet and appetite is the limit. Food will be brought to you continuously unless you say stop. After 8 dishes or so, chef would kindly ask if you want to stop or continue. I strongly recommend people who claim to be a seafood lover, go to Tojo's, at least once in your life. Just go sit at the sushi bar, shout, "bring it on!" and embark on your magical seafood journey.