Chinatown Eats Lunch Special

Baked sole fillets with spinach and rice in tomato sauce

Every week we head down to Vancouver's Chinatown and have lunch at The Boss Bakery & Restaurant. Sometimes it's busy and practically every table is occupied, other times it's very quiet.

Today it was bustling and we had to sit in a booth at the back of the restaurant. For lunch there is a menu that includes a daily soup, the main dish and a beverage. A cold one will set you back an extra dollar for ice cubes.

I've had spaghetti with beef, but it's not ground meat, but instead slices of sauteed beef with a tomato Campbell soup kind of sauce.

Flaky Portuguese-style egg tarts

That said Vietnamese pork chops with lemongrass is delicious, thin medallions that are pan-fried and dipped in a light fish sauce and complemented with sliced cabbage and tomatoes.

This time I had sole fillets over rice with a few spinach leaves that is doused with that tomato Campbell soup sauce and baked.

Since it's baked it takes longer than stir-fried dishes, but well worth the wait. It comes piping hot and tastes like comfort food even though I didn't grow up eating it.

For dessert we got Portuguese-style egg tarts. They were not pastel de nata, but rather egg custard in fancy flaky layered shell. The custard wasn't too sweet -- they didn't sprinkle sugar on top of the custard before torching it, nevertheless we loved the crunch on the flaky crust!

Other desserts we've had are the Cantonese egg tarts, sesame balls filled with black sesame paste, and even Taiwanese-style pineapple cakes.