Beat the Heat with Winter Melon Soup

Winter melon soup with seafood on top

Everyone's feeling the heat this summer, and a good way to cool down is by having winter melon soup.

Winter melons are like oval-shaped watermelons, but are far from sweet. The flesh is rather neutral-flavoured, which makes the taste of the soup broth vitally important.

A basic winter melon soup with mushrooms

Having this soup at this time of year helps remove the dampness from our bodies, and counteract heatiness or "yeet hay" (熱氣). If you've been eating too much fried food, lychees, or spicy dishes, winter melon soup will balance things out, ie prevent or lessen the chances of having a sore throat or breakout in pimples.

In fancy Chinese restaurants, the soup is served in the melon itself -- the top is carefully carved open like a pumpkin for Halloween, and then the flesh is scooped out and when the soup is ready, it's placed back into the melon, which is presented in large silverware shaped like the gourd.

The soup is also relatively easy to cook at home. First remove the hard skin of the winter melon and chop the flesh into cubes. Heat up some water in a large pot and when it's boiling, add the winter melon and some clear chicken stock or blanched pork bones.

A carefully carved winter lemon

Other ingredients that can be added include mushrooms, dried scallops, ginger, and barley, and let it simmer for about an hour or so. Towards the end add chopped seafood like shrimp or fish. Some restaurants include fresh crab meat.

Some recipes call for adding egg white and cornstarch to thicken the soup, while others keep the broth relatively clear.

The bowl of winter melon soup I had the other day had mushrooms and bits of pork, and it hit the spot.

Easy Way to Make Bak Kut Teh

Pork ribs floating in the broth with 25 cloves of garlic!

In Singapore and Malaysia one of the must-try foods is bak kut teh, or pork rib tea simmered in a medicinal broth that is meant to have a warming effect on the body.

Some of the spices in the broth include star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and pepper. Cloves of garlic are added along with pork ribs and simmered for hours.

A friend visiting from Singapore gave me a box with several packets of the bak kut teh soup base and I made it a few days ago. Thankfully this version from Song Fa does not have the strong medicinal taste!

Singaporean brand of bak kut teh

I followed the directions of putting 900g of pork ribs in a pot of boiling water and then rinsing them to get rid of the scum.

Then I cleaned the pot and added fresh water to boil again, and then put in the soup packet which contains two sachets of spices and 25 cloves of garlic! I boiled them together for 15 minutes. 

The broth started to have a slight white pepper taste, and I put the pork ribs back in along with one half teaspoon of dark soy sauce and one half teaspoon of light soy sauce and let the broth simmer for about an hour.

I periodically checked the broth's taste, and the directions said the sachets can be removed whenever you feel the spice level is enough, which I did after an hour.

The soup had a dominant peppery flavour, not too spicy and the pork ribs were very tender to eat. And yes the garlic gloves pretty much disintegrated by this point! The broth had a comforting effect and it's even better removing some of the oil accumulated.

This recipe worked really well and I have a few more packs to enjoy!

A Bowl of Taiwanese Flavours

Taiwan style noodle soup at BBT Cafe

Today I met up with some friends for lunch in Vancouver's Kerrisdale and we decided to go to BBT Cafe, a Taiwanese restaurant.

I'd eaten there a few years ago and hadn't been back since.

I ordered the Taiwan style noodle soup ($15.95), which includes a soy-infused egg, bits of braised pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts with wheat noodles.

This dish is called Taiwanese danzai noodle soup, which translates as "wooden stick noodle soup", or "slack season noodle soup", which was made by fishermen in southern Taiwan. 

During the off-season, or "slack season", they would peddle the noodles by carrying them in pots suspended from wooden sticks to make some money until the season came to catch seafood.

Enjoyed this bowl of noodles, a relatively light lunch and liked the chewy texture of the wheat noodles!

BBT Cafe, 5979 West Boulevard, Vancouver, BC. Tel: 604 266 2195

Chinatown Eats: Bitter Melon and Spare Ribs

A large portion of bitter melon and spare ribs with lots of rice!

Went to Chinatown today and headed to The Boss Bakery and Restaurant for lunch.

One of the lunch specials was a classic Cantonese dish -- bitter melon with spare ribs.

Here the bitter melon is thinly sliced and sauteed with onion, and pickled vegetables that add a slightly sour taste to counterbalance the sweetness of the small pieces of pork ribs. 

The saucy dish is great with white rice, and at The Boss, it's always a giant mound that could feed a family of four.

Mini pineapple buns and flaky egg tarts

Just as we were finishing our lunch more food was ferried to our table -- freshly baked mini pineapple buns and flaky Portuguese-style flaky egg tarts. 

The buns were warm, light and fluffy with a slight crunch from the cookie top. So good!

The Boss Bakery and Restaurant, 532 Main Street, Vancouver, BC. Tel: 604 683 3860.

Chinatown Eats: Pan-fried Pork Patty

Pork patty on rice at The Boss Bakery and Restaurant

Yesterday we went to Vancouver's Chinatown for lunch, and our go-to is The Boss Bakery and Restaurant on Main Street. The cha chaan teng offers lunch specials, featuring a rotating menu with 12 dishes with portion sizes that are impossible to finish in one sitting.

Sometimes the menu has pan-fried pork patty with rice and this signature dish is delicious.

However, one needs to be patient, as it takes a long time to cook.

Typically these pork patties are steamed, but here it's carefully pan-fried, and because it's very thick, it takes a while to cook through.

A good pork patty doesn't use ground meat -- it should be pork butt or shoulder with some fat, otherwise the texture will be too tough. Then the pork needs to be sliced thinly into strips, and then the strips carefully diced into small pieces. This is what gives the pork patty a meaty texture.

The diced pork is mixed with cornstarch, oyster sauce, some chicken boullion and white pepper for flavour and then formed into a patty.

For steamed pork patties, some are also seasoned with finely diced water chestnuts or preserved mustard greens before the mixture is placed in a shallow dish and then steamed for about 15 minutes.

In the case of The Boss, the thick pork patty is steamed and then fried to add a bit of char, and then served on a large mound of white rice, garnished with thin ginger slivers and scallions, and one broccoli floret. A small dish of sweet soy sauce is included for extra flavour.

The result? Tender, and very meaty patty that goes well with rice. Bring a food container to carry leftovers home!

Attempting to Cook a Hakka Classic

Hakka dish of braised pork belly and preserved mustard greens

In November we made a trip to Meizhou, a county in southern Guangdong province where the vast majority of the population are Hakka. It's where my mother's family is from and we visited their ancestral home on the outskirts of the city centre in a rural area.

During our visit we sampled a classic Hakka dish, braised pork belly with preserved mustard greens and we were shocked at how bad it was! The first restaurant we ate it, the chunks of pork were so dry; the second day we tried it again and while it was more moist, the flavours weren't melded together. In both cases they weren't cooked long enough and in enough liquid.

Stir-frying pork belly and garlic together

Before the trip I listened to a talk on Hakka food given by cookbook author Linda Lau Anusansananan. I bought a copy of her book, The Hakka Cookbook: Chinese Soul Food from around the World and today attempted her recipe for braised pork belly with preserved mustard greens.

I had been warned it was not an easy dish to execute, but looking at the recipe this version looked pretty straight forward.

First I soaked the preserved mustard greens to get rid of the dirt and then chopped them into smaller pieces and squeezed the water out.

Then I heated up the wok, added oil and stir-fried a lot of minced garlic for a few seconds before adding the pork belly chopped into one-inch chunks and stir-frying them until they were light brown.

Mustard greens, soy sauce and wine added

Next I added a lot of Shaoxing wine, the preserved mustard greens, sweet soy sauce and more dark soy sauce and sugar and let it boil and then simmer for one and a half to two hours.

I periodically checked the taste of the sauce and added sugar to tone down the saltiness, and the mustard greens weren't tender enough so I added more water and let it boil and then simmer.

By the end of it the chunks of pork belly were very tender and I scooped them out along with the preserved greens before reducing the sauce a bit.

I took the dish to a family dinner tonight and got a lot of positive reviews! I will attempt it again soon!

Making Hakka Style Stuffed Tofu

Hakka style stuffed tofu we ate in Mui Yuen last month

Last month my mom and her siblings went to Mui Yuen, or Meixian county in Guangdong province, where her side of the family is from.

They last visited in 2008, where they went from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, and from there arranged a van to take them to Mui Yuen, which took about five hours on the road.

Tofu with seasoned ground pork stuffed in them

Seventeen years later we took the high-speed rail from West Kowloon station in Hong Kong to Meixian county in just over two hours, including three stops in between.

For my mom and her siblings it was a great way for them to get together, reminisce and speak Hakka, which I didn't understand...

While we were in their hometown for a few days we of course had to have some Hakka food, but to be honest, what we tried overall was meh.

We had asked our tour guide to take us to the best restaurants, but either she didn't know the best places, or they were and weren't that good.

It's hard to comprehend since over 90 percent of the population there is Hakka, so it's not like a non-Hakka person cooking dishes they didn't grow up eating.

Napa cabbage in the Dutch oven and stir-fried

Nevertheless, one of the better dishes we ate was stuffed tofu, which was stuffed with seasoned ground pork and then pan-fried before it was braised. The tofu was also silky smooth, which required skills to be able to panfry and braise without breaking them.

I hope to eventually be able to make something similar, but in the meantime I was inspired to make another version from A Very Chinese Cookbook by Kevin Pang and his father Jeffrey Pang.

In it Jeffrey explains he is Hakka, and gives his relatively easy recipe of stuffed tofu which I followed and doubled for a big family dinner.

First step is mashing some fresh ginger and spring onion in some water for about 20 minutes until the water turns green.

With chicken stock added, tofu is placed upright

Then the water is strained and added to ground pork, along with soy sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, white pepper, and sesame oil. Once that is mixed thoroughly that should be left to marinate for at least an hour (though I didn't do it for that long!).

In the meantime take firm tofu, cut them lengthwise and then into four small squares. Taking a spoon, make a small round scoop in the middle, and then carefully add the pork mixture, leaving a small mound. 

Chop a Napa cabbage in half and then half again lengthwise, and then chop into two-inch pieces and wash. Then heat up a Dutch oven, add oil and the Napa cabbage and stir-fry it for several minutes. Add chicken broth, and then using chopsticks, arrange the cabbage to create a nest before placing the tofu with pork upright.

After 15 minutes the pork and tofu are cooked

Cover it and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes and the dish is done. The sweetness of the cabbage along with the pork adds flavour to the tofu. I added a pinch of salt in the end.

I've also made an Indonesian version using fish sauce in the seasoning and cutting the tofu into triangles and stuffing the meat in a slit in the middle. 

We Didn't Jump on the Tai Bo Cafe Bandwagon

Steamed pork patty at Sang Kee in Wan Chai

After I came back from Hong Kong, a Vancouver friend told me about Tai Bo Cafe in Yuen Long, which has become a viral hit. Someone on social media raved about the cafe's pork patty rice, and now there are 2-hour queues for it.

Seriously? 

Legit prawn toasts covered in sesame seeds

Apparently it started back in March when someone asked for a restaurant recommendation and one of the comments replied, Tai Bo Bing Sutt.

Then a few months later, that same commenter would mention the cafe when others posted about things not even related to food, from complaining about academic stress, asking for job vacancies, or raving about their favourite music artist.

People saw Tai Bo Bing Sutt mentioned so many times that they had to check it out themselves, hence the super long queues.

Apparently the person suggesting the bing sutt is a friend of the owner's daughter.

True or not, it has helped this eatery become super popular with the term "tastebud nuke", where the flavour of the patties explode in your mouth, overwhelming your oral senses.

Lovely steamed threadfin fish with chicken oil

I obviously didn't go to this place as I hadn't heard of it until I returned home.

But I did have a pretty good steamed pork patty at Sang Kee, a restaurant known for Hong Kong specialties. Opened in 1976, the place is now located in a non-descript office building on Lockhart Road in Wan Chai.

On the third floor you can hear the hustle and bustle of the place, the small dining room packed with mostly large tables. The one next to us was celebrating a birthday, and there was even a table filled with Europeans enjoying the food with red wine.

Not long after we ordered the food arrived fast and furious. We started with braised duck tongues, nicely balanced, not too salty, and we munched on those until our plate of prawn toasts came. 

Cold starter of braised duck tongues

These beauties were perfectly deep-fried and generously covered in sesame seeds. Another dish was a half portion of a roast piglet, the skin was very crispy, and a thin layer of tender meat underneath. 

Then came our steamed pork meat patty. It was a large portion for the five of us, drizzled with diluted soy sauce and spring onions. You could easily tell it had been hand chopped from the mouthfeel having a bit of a bite to it. 

Another outstanding dish was the steamed threadfin seasoned with chicken oil and Chinese ham. The fish looked so plain, but its taste was so flavourful -- we couldn't stop eating the tender delicate white meat that was perfectly seasoned until we were left with a plate of bones.

The pork patty would have been good with white rice, but we had ordered congee with meatballs and a fish called mottled spinefoot. The congee had been simmering for hours, the grains totally broken down and had chunks of the fish and meatballs.

Simple steamed rice cakes for dessert

Finally for dessert, steamed rice cakes that weren't too sweet, and had a honeycomb-like texture.

The dining experience was not "tastebud nuke", but definitely memorable! 

Sang Kee

3/F, Sunshine Plaza

353 Lockhart Road

Wan Chai

+852 2575 2239

Picture of the Day: Sweet and Sour Pork on Ice

Tsui Hang Village's sweet and sour pork on ice with pineapple

We've all eaten sweet and sour pork in different variations, but how about this one?

At Tsui Hang Village in Tsim Sha Tsui, the restaurant's version is called "Sweet and Sour Pork on Ice" for HK$208 US$26.70).

When it arrived, the bite-sized pieces of the pork were served in a bowl made of ice and next to it slices of fresh pineapple. It was presented deconstructed, but had an added dimension.

Not only was there a sweet and sour taste going on, but also hot and cold! 

Picture of the Day: Steamed Crab and Pork Patty

Steamed pork patty surrounded by crab legs

Tonight we went out for dinner at Golden Paramount Seafood Restaurant in Richmond and had some staple dishes, like winter melon soup, crispy chicken, sweet and sour pork, and steamed fish. They were all very good, perfectly cooked. 

The winter melon soup was perfect for today, which reached a high of 27 degrees.

We also ordered steamed crab -- with pork patty cooked together with the chopped up crab.

One of our friends at the table had seen this combination on a TV cooking show in Hong Kong where a top chef made it, and it looked so delicious that they asked the Golden Paramount manager if this could be done for us.

My picture is of the dish half eaten, but you can see the pork patty has soaked up the sweet juices of the fresh crab meat. 

Will we see this variation in other Chinese restaurants around town? Very high chance. 

Taste of the Philippines with Sisig Pizza

Encapsulating Filipino cuisine on a pizza with sisig and egg

Just Pizza is a local pizza joint that offers Asian flavours on some of their pies and I have to say this month they nailed it.

To celebrate Filipino month for June, they created a sisig topping that was so delicious.

Sisig is usually the leftover bits of the pig, such as the head, ears and cheeks. While lechon is about roasting a whole pig stuffed with rice and other ingredients, sisig is a tradition from the US airbases in the Philippines. 

The American commissaries sold pig's heads for cheap because they didn't use them, and the locals boil it to make it tender and then grill or broil it. The sisig is served on a sizzling platter and is usually eaten with rice.

The end result is a whole bunch of textures, slightly crunchy from the collagen from the ears, or soft and tender from the cheeks, and they are cooked with chopped onion and seasoned with calamansi juice, and soy sauce.

So imagine that (pork jowl and belly) on a sourdough pizza with garlic white sauce, with dabs of calamansi sauce, a few spicy birdseye chilli, and topped with chicharrones, or deep-fried pork rinds, and a fried egg too.

The pizza beautifully encapsulates sisig with a slightly elevated touch. Needless to say it was delicious.

Looking forward to the next monthly flavour and slowly eating my way through the menu!

Just Pizza

1629 Kingsway

Vancouver, BC

604 566 8888

Lee Kum Kee's Easy Char Siu Recipe

The char siu turned out delicious and not dry at all

We made char siu today!

The result is tender barbecue pork that isn't dried out and easy to make when you have Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce (Chinese barbecue sauce).

Lee Kum Kee prides itself for creating sauces and condiments to make it easy for home cooks to replicate restaurant flavours in their own kitchens. And char siu is one of them.

Get 350g of pork tenderloin with some fat on it and marinate it with a combination of four tablespoons of the Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce and one tablespoon of the brand's premium hoisin sauce.

The marinated pork loin

The recipe suggests marinating the meat in this thick sauce overnight before roasting it in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes and then turning it over and roasting for another 20 minutes.

We weren't quite sure the marinade was that easy and consulted another one that suggested adding a tablespoon of light soy sauce and some five spice; the soy sauce made it too salty and we had to balance it out with some agave syrup and honey.

So perhaps best to just stick with Lee Kum Kee's recipe to ensure the best results!

Review: Blue Smoke in Singapore

Crispy Iberico pork belly

A restaurant in Singapore I was introduced to is called Blue Smoke, run by chef/owner Ivan Yeo. It's located along Joo Chiat Road, on the east coast of the Lion City. Before dinner my friend and I wandered along the street checking out the various boutiques and shops. 

There were vintage shops selling clothes from the 1980s to antique brooches and jewellery, a biodynamic wine shop where the wines had no sulfites in them, and clothes made by young designers. 

Succulent miso shiitake brioche buns

At the appointed time we reached Blue Smoke, and it's a casual place with an open kitchen at the back. Yeo was there with a bandana on his forehead, as I can imagine it gets pretty hot there as he cooks with open flames and grills.

He's a maverick in that he did not come up through the ranks in the restaurant world -- instead he was in advertising, got jaded, then switched to music, and that was where he saw how restaurants and bars were run from the back-of-house point of view that interested him. Yeo had also had a taste of the restaurant business as his grandparents had opened eateries and he helped out as a kid.

Then he has an uncle who made his own beers and Yeo and his brother were interested in pairing food with these beers, hence Blue Smoke. The concept is that everything on the menu is smoked, but not in the American way of marinating for ages and then smoking it for over 12 hours. Yeo prefers to experiment with various ingredients by grilling them, throwing them on open flames and then seeing what happens.

Hands-down favourite grilled cauliflower

We tried some of his dishes and for the most part they were pretty good. We started with the miso shiitake buns, where brioche buns are cut open and brown butter spread on the insides with smoked shiitake mushrooms. They were a delicious combination.

Next came the crispy pork belly, reminiscent of the Cantonese roast pork. Here they used Iberico pork smoked over lychee wood and then roasted over charcoal, then served with wasabi sour cream to add a subtle kick and attempt to cut the oil. This was a bit too fatty for me but the skin was crispy.

The grilled cauliflower steak was arguably the best dish. It was grilled with miso butter and served over a bed of yuzu sauce and crumbled pistachios sprinkled over it for a bit of a crunch. We all raved about this humble vegetable that tasted so good.

Grilled lamb marinated with a Sichuan spice rub

Another meat we tried was the grilled lamb shoulder that arrived beautifully presented before we attacked it. The lamb was marinated in a mild spicy Sichuan-style spice rub before it was grilled over both wood and charcoal before being served with a side of wasabi sour cream. 

The wood smoked stingray steak was another winner. The fish was marinated with traditional Filipino shrimp paste, homemade sambal belachan (chillis) and then smoked over lychee wood. For me it was at the high end of my spice tolerance, but it was so good that it was addictive and I kept eating it.

Finally the highly anticipated wood-smoked beef brisket... fell flat. Perhaps we were expecting something similar to American smoked meat, but this one arrived at our table looking pale and tasted bland even though it was marinated with garam masala and smoked for 20 hours. 

The smoked beef brisket was bland and flat

Nevertheless the dessert of deep-fried Del Monte banana tempura style with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream helped us have a nice finish. The outer layer of the banana slightly crunchy, warm and combined with cold ice cream was just what we wanted.

In terms of Chinese medicine, Blue Smoke is very heaty! We talked to Yeo after who told us they cook Teochew or Chiu Chow off-menu dishes! He described their fish porridge which made us all salivate, but we were too full and the kitchen was closed for the evening.

This is how Yeo entices customers to come back again and now we know!

Blue Smoke

261 Joo Chiat Road

Singapore

  

Palm Springs: Going Asian at Rooster and the Pig

Really yummy congee to start the meal

Before I left for Palm Springs, another friend recommended Rooster and the Pig, a Vietnamese restaurant. It has a no-reservations policy with doors open at 5pm. We decided to try our luck on Friday around 7pm.

It's located in a mini strip mall with apartments in the back and a parking lot that's not really paved. I rushed to the restaurant and lo and behold there was a table big enough for five of us right by the entrance.

"When is the rest of your party coming?" inquired the waiter.

Pork belly fried rice with Chinese sausage

"They're right over there," I replied, pointing to them approaching the restaurant just steps away.

They added another seat to the table and we sat down in minutes. 

It's a minimalist kind of look in there, with Vietnamese posters, cookbooks on Asian cuisine, a colourful tiffin, and plants on shelves above diners' heads.

The menu is pretty straight forward, with some appetisers to start, some rolls and then mains, all meant to be shared. For the five of us, I chose six dishes and it worked out quite well in the end.

We were even given a small bowl of congee to start and boy was it good! It had been simmering for hours, the rice broken down and thick but not too gloopy either, garnished with deep-fried garlic and scallions. 

Next up were two rice rolls, one with pork and shrimp with mint with a peanut sauce, the other butternut squash with lettuce with fish sauce. They were a prelude to the mains that came quickly.

Crispy turmeric cod with rice noodles

Our vegetable dish was braised daikon with a few stalks of Chinese water spinach or tung choi, seasoned with star anise and cardamom, though these flavours were barely detectable. 

Pork belly fried rice was a favourite -- it included Chinese sausage of lap cheong, pork belly, mushrooms, onions, and shallots. The rice wasn't sticky, but day-old rice and so the dish was not too heavy.

Another star of the evening was the crispy beef with a generous portion of egg noodles. The beef was fried then deep-fried for crispiness, contrasting with the noodles that had a bit of a bite to them. 

The crispy turmeric cod was delicious, lightly fried and perfectly cooked, though they were accompanied with lukewarm rice noodles, which was probably the style, but we would have preferred the noodles hotter. 

The portion was just right for the five of us and we finished everything. When we asked if they had dessert, we were sad to hear they didn't serve any! And we didn't see any Asian staff -- even one of the cooks who took a breather outside was African-American. We were impressed.

Crispy beef egg noodles was hearty

Our meal was so good that we wanted to eat it again the next day, but when we drove by Saturday evening, there were several people standing around outside and the restaurant looked full. We gave up and went back to Manhattan in the Desert for dinner instead.

Rooster and the Pig

356 South Indian Canyon Drive

Palm Springs

760 832 6691

Review: Archer in Vancouver

Archer's interior is sleek, minimalist and inviting

A friend visiting from Hong Kong wanted to try Archer, a restaurant that opened a year ago in downtown Vancouver, so we tried it out last week.

I didn't know much about this place except that its menu features ingredients from the Pacific Northwest.

We arrived on time and entered the long narrow space with high ceilings that immediately felt open, welcoming and airy. There are long wooden planks that curve around the ceiling, while mossy green banquette seating finished with polished wood are inviting. 

Lovely plump scallops that were flavourful

While the white walls were a bit bare, we still enjoyed soaking in the interior, and could just see the heating lamps in the kitchen upstairs that probably had a chef's table next to it.

So far, so good.

We each ordered a non alcoholic drink -- lychee iced tea for her, and strawberry lemonade tea spritzer for me (CAD$10 each). Mine was very refreshing, hers had a strong hint of jasmine tea.

For starters we tried the roasted scallops ($29), a creative concoction where they were just fully cooked and complemented with verjus bacon vinaigrette and puffed wild rice for some crunchy texture.

The uni and lardo ($38) is expensive, and looks impressive. Giant pieces of the sea urchin are placed on top of a brioche mini square loaf with thinly sliced ribbons of lardo. Unfortunately the lardo hadn't had time to get to room temperature so it was an ordeal to bite into, let alone slice in half to share. Also disappointing was the uni -- it had none of the sweetness, only bland, barely enhancing the flavour of the brioche. 

Most enjoyed the pea risotto with sunflower seeds

Wet towels should be served with this dish for diners to clean their hands after. Or were we supposed to eat it with a fork and knife?

After an intermission came the mains. We really enjoyed the pea risotto ($36), which had a wonderful crunchy texture from the sunflower seed gremolata, asparagus and the parmesan tuile. 

But what was with the "cheeky Berkshire" ($48)? As my friend put it -- the dish's plating looked like it has been done by a culinary student, not an experienced chef. Grapes ringed the dish, along with unevenly cut turnips, and a fillet of pork jowl sliced up as if for a child. It tasted like a really expensive and pounded piece of char siu. 

Presentation of pork jowl looked very amateur

Nevertheless we hoped for a good sweet finish with dessert and ordered both options on the menu ($15 each). We knew the mille feuille was not promising as soon as we sliced it, and it didn't succumb to the knife by spurting flakes everywhere. Sadly it tasted like stale crackers and we couldn't finish it. Even the scoop of black sesame ice cream looked like it had been sitting there for a while.

The lychee rose was no better. Inside the big white blob shaped like a rose was one lychee. One. The rest was cream that had a faint taste of lychee juice from the can. It was not mousse as promised, but cream decorated with not Okanagan cherries, but one and a half raspberries.

When one of the waiters took this plate away, he did it so mindlessly that the sprinkles of crumbs from the mousse dessert fell not only on the table, but also the chair -- his colleague immediately saw the disaster and quickly wiped it off the table and chair, apologising for the mess.

The lychee mousse had one lychee in it

In the end we paid over $250 (the mille feuille taken off our bill), including tips. While the scallops and pea risotto were the shining stars, they weren't enough to save the rest of the meal. Even after a year a restaurant can't get it right... It's tough to be successful in the restaurant business, but at least the interior is a winner?

Archer

1152 Alberni Street

Vancouver, BC

778 737 6218

Picture of the Day: Roasted Pig Eyes

The roast pig with hearts over its eyelids for the emoji age

When you order a whole roast pig at Chinese restaurants, there is this uncomfortable tension of what to do with its eyes.

As per Chinese custom, the whole animal is presented, and even though it's dead, the chef wants to make it seem lively...

Decades ago it started with the bright red maraschino cherries held in place with toothpicks where each eye ball would have been.

Then it was upgraded to flashing red lights! The pig seemed possessed.

Fast forward to 2023, and at a Chinese restaurant in Richmond, the roast pig presentation climbed up a notch with plastic red hearts on its eyelids. 

It's reminiscent of the emoji with the smiling face and two hearts for its eyes.

A roast pig for the emoji age...