July 31, 2013
We came back for dinner with more family.
Stir fried kai-lan with ground pork & Braised fish with tofu
The gai lan was really tender and tasty even if the stalks were long and cumbersome to eat.
Winter Melon Soup
The soup is made by scooping out all the winter melon and making a soup from the winter melon base and chicken broth with all the ingredients, then the soup is put back into the winter melon and simmered for hours. The soup was rich and delicious with the winter melon absorbing the broth's flavouring.
Fried garlic roasted chicken
The name literally translates to "golden sand" from the fried chopped garlic on top of the chicken.
The chicken was delicious! It really makes a difference when you use free-range chicken - the meat is amazingly tender. The skin and garlic together made the chicken even tastier and added a crackling texture.
Szechuan Eggplant
The eggplant dish was good and not too spicy. I love this dish paired with rice since it has so many layers of textures and flavours to it. Delicious!
Sirloin Beef topped with peanuts
The beef was cubed and cooked until they were perfectly tender morsels. Yum!
Braised Pork Belly with Beancurd
The sauce was pretty good, but I found the pork belly very fatty and it wasn't braised long enough to be really tender.
Szechuan Fish Filet and Braised Tofu with Mushroom
The fish was cut up into tiny slices and it was made spicy with all the grounded chili peppers on top. The tofu was amazingly soft and scrumptious. It really makes a difference with fresh tofu.
Sago Dessert with Coconut milk, Corn and Tapioca
This is one of my favourite Chinese desserts (especially when it's made with taro).
The coconut milk adds the sweetness and it's usually warmed. I found the corn a little weird in this version of the dessert since the dessert is already sweet, I didn't think that they needed to add corn to make it sweeter. Instead, they should have added something a little heavier and with more substance (like taro) to make it balanced. I also found the dessert a little watery.
July 30, 2013
Located right next to the North Point subway station is The Orient Barbecue Cuisine.
Top: Stuffed eggplant
Bottom: Fried fishcakes
I would have preferred it if the stuffed eggplant were cooked just a little longer to make them softer and mushier in texture so that it would contrast with the meatier fish cake stuffing. The fried fish cakes were okay, but I wish the edges were a little crispier.
Pan fried chive dumplings
These were good.
Cotton Wool Chicken
It had a lot of things in the dish including mushrooms, fake crabmeat, chicken and daikon. The chicken and mushroom dish was decent.
Oyster pancake and Roasted pigeon
I was expecting the pancake to be savoury with the oyster and egg combination, but the pancake turned out to be sweet...very interesting.
Roasted pigeon is delicacy in Hong Kong and this pigeon had crispy skin and very lean meat.
Shrimp Cheong Fun, Siu Mai and Steamed Meatballs
The siu mai was okay; A little tougher than some of the siu mai I've eaten in Toronto and it was packed with meat.
Haam sui gaau
The deep fried glutinous rice dumpling with meat and vegetables inside was really quite good. The skin was a little crispy and sticky with yummy filling.
Century egg and pork congee
One of my favourite types of congee - yum!
Osmanthus jelly (gwai fa go)
It was sweet, but not too sweet and a little bland.
