Showing posts with label bbq pork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bbq pork. Show all posts

New Century Restaurant (Markham)

Tucked behind a labyrinth of florists and Chinese herbal shops lies New Century Restaurant. Walking through the pre-millennium constructed mall, I’m reminded of the restaurants I’ve visited as a child. There are shops to see and smells to discover before reaching the enormous colourful restaurant.

New Century will feed a large group. Their lobster, Dungeness crab, and sea bass combo for eight ($798) would satisfy ten or twelve. The individual New Century slow boiled soup is hardest to share but secure some empty bowls and you can divide the hefty portion. In the winter, there’s a silkiness to the piping hot consommé that sooths a dry throat and has an umami essence infused with abalone, ginseng, and pork.

There’s plenty to choose from in the house signature combo platter including roasted duck, soy sauce chicken, BBQ pork, pork slices, and seaweed salad. Saving my stomach for the later dishes, I had a taste of the duck (a good start with crispy skin) and BBQ pork (satisfactory and well flavoured).

With the generous portion of chicken in the combo platter, the slow cooked chicken with abalone broth seemed like overkill. I’ve never been a huge fan of this dish that’s served cold since I prefer chicken hot. Still, I understand it’s the jelly layer between the skin and meat that people enjoy. And to be fair, the chicken was tender, and New Century certainly didn’t skimp on the ginger and scallion oil.


For those who tend to fill-up before the “main dishes”, the stars of the combo arrive mid-meal. The stir-fried Vancouver crabs with silver fish in HK style spicy sauce needs to be eaten at arrival as the crunchy coating is best straight from the fryer. And despite not looking spicy, the dish has a light heat that permeates in the background. Additionally, the crab was fresh and meaty, cooked well so it remained delicately flakey.

The amount of sweet and sticky sauce used in the stir-fried lobsters with scallion in Maggie sauce was well balanced, lightly covering the crustaceans. Both lobsters were substantial; even after eating many pieces, we still had plenty of leftovers.

Although the steamed green basses with green onion and ginger arrived dishevelled looking. Being fileted off the bone before serving helped the hot scallion soy soak into the fish and made it easy to serve. New Century knows how to cook seafood well, the fish were flakey and moist.

The restaurant’s choice of using large serving platters does makes eating difficult. Dishes were comically oversized so three can easily fill up on medium-sized table. Soon it became a game of Tetris piling things onto smaller plates to make space for a new item. Even the snow pea leaves in soup arrived in a gigantic platter that’s normally used for soup. I guess the large dishes does mean New Century has to fill them as we were treated to a huge mound of the greens.

I preferred the snow pea leaves to the stir-fried cauliflower with cured meat. It’s a strange combination that wasn’t for me. But if you like Chinese sausage, the dish did contain a lot of lap cheung and at least the cauliflower wasn’t too soft.

You won’t find much tomalley in the lobster heads as it’s reserved for the finisher - braised thick egg noodles with mushroom and lobster tomalley. The lobster paste adds a pungent aroma and texture to the noodles. While not my cup-of-tea, it was a popular dish for the table.

Despite it being Lunar New Year, I was surprised there wasn’t any special desserts. Still, we were treated to flavourful mango pudding squares and delicate almond cookies. Given both were sweet, so they made the lukewarm red bean soup seem tasteless. Oh well, by that time I was stuffed to the gills and could pass on it anyways.

What a feast! We packed up leftovers that could feed the family again the following evening. One thing’s for sure; you will not leave New Century Restaurant hungry or empty handed.

In a nutshell... 
  • Must order: seafood dishes - lobster, crab, and steamed sea bass
  • Just skip: stir-fried cauliflower with cured meat, barbeque platters

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Markham, Canada
 Address: 398 Ferrier Street


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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

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Good Taste Casserole House (Toronto)


In the deep of winter, cravings for clay pot / casserole rice bubbles up from the depths of my stomach and beckons. The 20-minute anticipation while waiting for the made-to-order dish to arrive, the waft of sweet greasy steam that hits the nose, and the faint crackling sizzle that gives a greeting, it's like a winter sport for me.  

The expansion of Good Taste Casserole House out of Markham and into Scarborough has made it easier for me to tuck into the comforting dish. And their expanding menu keeps the hunger growls at bay while the 20-minutes elapse. Their BBQ pork rice noodle roll ($4.70) was a great 'appetizer' to share, soft and silky with large slices of pork- even though it wasn't the most evenly spread out across the roll.


I'm perplexed how some restaurants continue to keep prices low with soaring input costs. Good Taste offers their preserved meat and chicken with rice for $11.99, which is only a dollar more than 5 years prior. They haven't skimped on ingredients - if anything there's more protein topping the rice - and it still comes with a side of boiled yu-choy and a pot of soup where the hunk of pork, fruit, and white fungus remains.  


The execution continues to satisfy: the rice a balanced moisture so that it's fluffy but still dry enough so a golden crunchy crust develops on the bottom. While I'm normally not a huge fan of the greasiness of preserved meat, it's the perfect topping in this dish and keeps the rice from getting soggy. In fact, it actually tasted better than the chicken, which was over marinated causing the texture to be too 'springy' (or song in Cantonese) for my taste.

During our lunch time visit, I was surprised by how many Uber drivers were picking up packages to go. Takeout can't do the dishes justice - the rice noodle rolls become sticky and the crunchy crust of the clay pot rice hardens. If you're trying it for the first time, you need to have it in-person. After all, it's the anticipation and the things that hit the senses that makes casserole rice so special.

Overall mark - 8 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 325 Bamburgh Circle


Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:




Yat Lok 一樂燒鵝 (Hong Kong)


Unlike my normal planned out itinerary, we went to Yat Lok simply because we happened to be in the area. I vaguely recalled the restaurant being notable for an achievement – awarded one Michelin star and a glowing recommendation from Anthony Boudain, as it turns out.

Everyone goes for the roast goose, so you’ll want to do a quarter or half order of it with a bowl of rice or noodles ordered separately. We made the mistake of simply ordering the roast goose with rice ($58) and it arrived with the undesirable upper quarter portion of the bird, the rib portion resulting in mostly skin and bones, since the meaty leg is left for the quarter orders.


Nevertheless, we could sample the glistening skin, as crispy as Peking duck, and taste the well marinated meat (from what little there was). It was good, I wanted more, and jealously eying the plump half orders everyone else had.

While the meat in the BBQ pork with rice ($58) could use more marbling, it was also thoroughly flavoured with a vibrant dark caramelized crust. Even the rice had enough of that lovely BBQ sweet soy sauce on it for interest.


The 1pm weekday visit meant we missed most of the lunch crowd, scoring one of the three empty tables. Regardless, the restaurant is packed with seats that are turned over quickly. Despite their accolades, you’ll get a cheap meal. Moreover, it’s one of the few Michelin starred places I could visit after hiking the Peak, slightly sweaty and with a patch of coffee spilt on my shirt, without feeling out of place.

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Central, Hong Kong
 Address: 34-38 Stanley St. (Conwell House, ground floor)

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!