Eat Me!
Showing posts with label dinner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dinner. Show all posts

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Red Star Seafood Restaurant 鴻星海鮮酒家

8298 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6P4Z4
Tel: (604) 261-8389
Fax: (604) 261-7877
Map

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

This is a popular higher-end Chinese restaurant. I personally like the Granville location better than the Richmond one. Their interior is nice, pricing is average and the service is good. The food overall is tasty.


Blanched Geoduck
The geoduck was cooked perfectly so it wasn't too chewy. It goes great with the light soy dipping sauce.


Roasted Squab
This was perfectly roasted with tender meat and crispy skin. What can I say, it was yummy!


Steamed Fish in Lotus Leaf
Not particularly memorable...



Fish Soup
I have to say, I usually love fish soup, and I loved this one! Tastes clear and healthy.


Blanched beef slices with vegetables
I really like this dish too even though its super simple. You just take the fat beef and dip it into this special soy sauce and eat it. Goes great with the vegetables (菜苗 - baby veggies?)


Stir-fry Prawns with Lima Beans
Nothing too special about this dish, nonetheless it was sold. The shrimp and beans were very crunchy and fresh, even when covered in that sauce.


Rock Cod with Stir-fry Vegetables (1st half of the fish)
The fish was cooked well here, very tasty and good texture – what you'd expect from a fresh fish. Other than that, nothing special.


Rock Cod with Tofu (2nd half of the fish)
I was not a fan of this one, they took the rest of the fish and cooked it a entirely different way. It was tasty but some of the fish bones were swimming in that sauce so it was difficult to eat comfortably.


Jumbo Scallops with Garlic
These were sizable scallops, it was at least 2" in diameter. I'm a sucker for garlic flavoured seafood, but you can also order this cooked in different ways. I believe it was like $6-$8/piece.


Seasoned Chicken (Half)
This is one of those staple foods you'd find at ANY Chinese restaurant. This place was no exception, the chicken was well made. Juicy and tender, just the way I like it. I believe the chicken is cooked in a chicken broth to amplify flavour.



Red bean soup, almond cookies
Your standard Chinese dessert after a meal. LOVE the cookies!


Their name in English is 'Red Star' but that's not actully the meaning of their Chinese name. 鴻 (word for 'wild swan') sounds just like the word for 'red' (紅). My aunt told me there's a popular restaurant with the same name in Hong Kong, but we don't know if they're affliated.


Others' Input:
Red Star Seafood on Urbanspoon

Monday, December 6, 2010

Lin Chinese Cuisine 林

1537 W. Broadway (near Granville St.)
Vancouver, BC V6J 5L1
Tel: (604) 733-9696
Map | Website

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

A little Northern Chinese restaurant that's receive a lot of local attention is located by a busy intersection. Parking is difficult but that's expected of the Broadway/Granville area. This place is packed on a regular basis with lunch combos (miniature versions of various full size dishes) serving the local businessmen/women on their lunch breaks.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
上海砂锅菜饭
Shanghai vegetable hotpot rice $6.99
I actually really liked this rice even if it is a bit on the oily side. It tastes refereshing because its basically just rice and veggies, a good choice since most of the stuff on the menu is heavily meat-based. It also smelled really good.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
生煎包
Pan fried pork bun $4.99
This tastes average, a bit too oily for me. I guess my mouth isn't as used to the Northern Chinese food as it is to Southern Chinese.


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
葱油饼
Pan-fried green onion cake $4.99
Sometimes referred as green onion pancake, its usually available at dimsum as well. There are generally two kinds, deep-fried or pan-fried. This one here had a strong green onion flavour which is perfect. A good pancake has many little layers inside with chopped green onion sprinkled in between. Interestingly enough, there are two pancakes stacked here when its usually served as one.


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
小笼汤包 (Xiao Long Bao)
Shanghai juicy pork dumpling $4.99
You can't go to a Northern Chinese restaurant without ordering this staple menu item. As usual, the chef in charge of making these dumplings is situated inside the dining area behind a counter and glass window so customers can see how they're being made right before their eyes.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
蜜汁大虾
Honey Prawn $15.99
This dish looks like your typical 'lemon chicken' 'sweet & sour pork' aimed at Caucasian taste buds with one exception that this actually tastes really good! (No offense to those other 2 dishes, but coming from a more traditional Chinese food tasting background, I don't like them because they really misrepresent Chinese food) Anyway, this dish is seriously delicious, I might have eaten the whole plate myself if everyone else I was with didn't also like it too ...


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
上海炒年糕
Shanghai style rice cake $9.99
They've got some good stir-frying skills because this dish, even though it looks simple, actually takes a lot of technique. The chewy rice cake pieces can stick together and form a giant blob if you're not careful. Its also easy to undercook them which causes them to be hard and impossible to chew.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
黄鱼响铃
Crispy tofu wrap fish $12.99
The server who took our order recommended we try this, and I'll have to say I wish we didn't. It was hard to eat because the outside yellow bean curd layers were crispy on the outer parts but unbreakable on the inside. The fish inside was tasty but because of the odd outer wrap, it made eating each wrap really difficult due to their large size. It was also the last lingering dish to arrive which was not impressing.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
肉末担担面
Tan Tan noodle soup with minced meat $6.59
This was alright. The name is misleading, and the noodle is underneath.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
牛肉烧饼
Beef sesame cake $4.99
Crispy wrap around sweet beef. Yum.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
蒸或炸银丝卷
Deep fried sliced roll $2.99
Can't really go wrong with this one, its a popular item. This comes in a deep fried version as well as the plain steamed version. Both types can be dipped in the condensed milk.


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
上海粗炒
Shanghai style chow mein $8.99
This tastes really similar to the rice cake one, if not identical in flavour. It was pretty good except for the overly oiliness. I've had this dish at other restaurants and having it less oily but still great-tasting is entirely possible.


Others' Input:
Lin Chinese Cuisine on Urbanspoon