Showing posts with label bean curd sheet rolls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bean curd sheet rolls. Show all posts

Zunyan Fine Dining & Banquet 樽宴大酒楼 (Toronto)

Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2024 by

If you’re in the mood for dim sum on a weekday, consider Zunyan Fine Dining & Banquet where any small, medium, or large dish is only $5 for the entire lunch period. Order before 11:00am on weekends and the price inches up to $5.25.

Their sui mai with fish roe (L) is solid with authentic flavours and the pork not overly pulverized. Just break into it before eating as they were not cooked through on one of my visits.

Oddly, the har gow is considered an XL and therefore not included in the special. But, if you’re a fan of shrimp dumplings, the shrimp and chive dumplings (L) is a close substitute. Moreover, the filling is heavy on the shrimp and skimps on the vegetable anyways. It’s a run-of-the-mill version of the dish with the wrapper slightly to thick and sticky.

It’s a similar story with the BBQ pork and egg rice roll (M), which has big chunks of barbeque pork, but lacks flavour. The rice roll wrapper isn’t consistently prepared: one visit it was too thick and another still thick but at least silkier.

If you prefer a thinner cheung fun, the fish paste with parsley and preserved egg rice roll (L) fits the bill and the filling a combination seldom found elsewhere.

Zunyan’s shrimp balls (L) remind of me of a crab claw without the crab. Hot, crispy, and juicy these are delicious! Just be aware that the crispy vermicelli noodles pieces coating it are not always used.

The shrimp balls are much better than the pan-fried shrimp with corn cake (L), which is really fish paste studded with shrimp pieces. Sadly, it also lacks corn… an ingredient that adds texture to an otherwise overly soft patty.

While there’s a fair amount of mushrooms in the tofu skin roll (M), there isn’t a lot of other vegetables and relies on vermicelli instead. At least they were well toasted to give it that crunch you need.


I prefer the steamed bean curd meat roll with oyster sauce (M) that encapsulates more filling. Big chunks of pork, shrimp, and vegetables are wrapped in the flavourful bean curd sheets. Having ordered this several times, the dish stays consistent and always satisfies.


The shrimp paste and squid with vermicelli (L) is rarely found at dim sum restaurants, even though it was a staple in the past. While the dish isn’t heavy on the shrimp paste, it’s flavourful enough and the vermicelli soaks in all the juices and almost melts into the other ingredients. Sadly, in recent months the squid seems to have been taken off the menu… hopefully, it’ll make a reappearance.  

For a filling dish, the preserved egg with minced pork congee (L) arrives as a huge bowl and has a decent amount of ingredients. While the congee base could be saltier, it is accompanied by green onions and crispy wonton bits for colour and crunch.

Zunyan’s wrapped chicken with egg yolk and cilantro sticky rice (L) are larger arriving two to an order. However, it’s mostly rice with a bit of salty duck egg and meat. Overall, nothing really stood out and it was too dense. Having it with the steamed shiitake and chicken (L) is ideal. At least the chicken is marinated longer and flavourful enough to cut through the big chunks of rice.

If you can get past the overly oily wrapper on the fried chicken dumpling (M), it is crispy and stuffed with chunks of chicken, diced mushrooms, and green onion. For me, I found this was too oil logged and heavy.

In terms of dessert, sharing the golden mango sago (M) is a perfect finish. The sago isn’t overly large and just sweet enough to satisfy. The real mango pieces are also a nice touch.

I find the mango sago more satisfying than the black sesame glutinous rice balls (L), which wasn’t sugary enough. Ultimately, it tastes more like a nutty sticky rice ball than dessert.

Zunyan’s dining room is spacious, but even so, I recommend arriving before 11:00am on weekdays to avoid waiting. Tables of two will need to be okay with dining beside others as the small tables are set very close. There’s no privacy with dim sum.        

In a nutshell... 
  • Must order: fried shrimp balls and bean curd meat roll with oyster sauce
  • Just skip: pan fried shrimp corn cake and fried chicken dumpling

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 648 Silver Star Boulevard
 


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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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Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant (Toronto)

Posted on Sunday, April 10, 2022 by

While vegetarian options have advanced slowly in Chinese cuisine, there has always been a meat-free menu at "Buddhist"-type restaurants that are usually also vegan friendly given the limited use of dairy (sometimes used in desserts) and eggs (generally only found in dishes like fried rice and dessert). Unfortunately, given their reliance on mock proteins and soy sauce seasoning, these establishments aren't great for gluten abstainers, but at least offers some choice for the plant-based community.

There are three dishes I always order at Chinese vegetarian restaurants, and they're all featured in this post. Firstly, is the assorted gluten ($8.99 for small), which is especially important to order at Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant as it will save you from becoming hangry. Maybe it's due to the after effects of COVID and being short staffed, but service is slow and over half an hour went by before the other dishes arrived. 


Within the gluten platter, the spongy puffs were served the traditional three ways: sweet and sour, curry, and soy sauce. While a little more subdued in it's flavour, especially the curry format, they were nice big pieces and a great texture. Usually, the sweet and sour puffs are my favourite, but Lotus' bean curd rolls stole the show as they were wrapped tightly to be easily picked up, but still incorporated with enough space between the sheets to give it a lovely moist layered texture. 

Despite arriving with a lovely golden brown crust, the four bean threads sheet roll ($4.59 for 2 pieces) was really soft - it almost seemed like the restaurant pan fried the rolls and steamed it to finish, rather than the other way around. It was disappointing as what makes this dish good is the crispy crust mixed with the saucy vegetables. Nonetheless, there were ample amounts of well-seasoned black fungus, carrots, bean sprouts, and mushrooms within the roll and the layers of bean sheets weren't too thick. If this was just crispy, this would have been perfect.


The last dish that is a must have for me at vegetarian restaurants is the stir fried noodles with mixed vegetables ($13.99) or loa hong giy noodles in Cantonese. Lotus takes the time to properly toast the egg noodles so there are plenty of crunchy pieces to contrast against the saucy vegetables. The gravy was spot on and the vegetables cooked through but left with crunch. This was well worth the wait.


While visiting at lunch, expect a tea charge of $1.50 per person as they serve dim sum during this time. Indeed, dim sum seemed to be a popular choice for patrons, which may be why it was taking us extra long to get our order. Your meal could be sped up if you only order the gluten platter and mixed vegetable fried noodles, choosing the rest of the meal from their dim sum menu instead. Otherwise, channel your inner zen and just be patient. We can all use a mindful break from being hurried. 

Overall mark - 7 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 3838 Midland Avenue


 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:


CLOSED: Graceful Vegetarian Restaurant 法海素食軒 (Markham)

Posted on Monday, April 28, 2014 by
Location: Markham, Canada
Address: 7131 Kennedy Road, Unit 8 (located in Market Village)
Type of Meal: Dinner
Sometimes vegetarian cuisine can be sort of bland and too heavily weighted with vegetables and tasteless tofu. Enter East Asian Buddhist cuisine which is packed with flavour and has even evolved to offer a variety of mock meats. These imitations are sometimes made from bean curd sheets but more often wheat gluten. Its texture resembles meat closer as it can be made to become chewy and even stringy to rip apart. Once flavoured with sauces, seasoning or artificial tastes, they can look and sometimes even taste fairly close to the real thing.

Graceful Vegetarian Restaurant has been around for many years and one of the better East Asian Buddhist restaurants in the GTA. Their menu offers the traditional items as well as everything else in between. One tried and true favourite is the assorted gluten platter ($7 for small and $11 for medium; medium pictured below). Graceful’s has so many things! Aside from the typical curry flavoured and sweet & sour flavoured oil fried gluten, there’s also mock BBQ pork, fried tofu, mock intestine (essentially a deep fried tube of soy bean sheets),kao fu (a baked spongy gluten which is soaked in a sweet soy mixture) and some other items. If you want to try all that flavours and textures that gluten can offer this is the dish for you.


The pan fried bean curd sheet rolls ($3.50 for small and $6.50 for medium; two mediums pictured) is one of the must have dishes when visiting. A great alternative to spring rolls, the filling is comprised of chopped vegetables, mushrooms and water chestnuts all wrapped in bean curd sheets and pan fried until they are crispy on the outside and piping hot inside. Served with Worcestershire sauce, to cool it down and enrich its flavour, they can be sometimes be found during dim sum but freshly made ones at vegetarian restaurants are so much better.


Although they are a bit oily for my tastes, the deep fried wonton with sweet & sour sauce ($9.50) can be a crowd favourite – especially amongst children. Unlike the soup based wontons, there is no shrimp or pork filling inside; rather they are simply deep fried wrappers. Served with a side of sweet & sour sauce, Graceful’s contains wedges of pineapple, bell peppers and slices of mock chicken and squid.


A healthier option is the steamed soya sheet wrapped chopped vegetables ($16.99). The thin tender soy bean sheet cocoons finely chopped vegetables creating a cushion, which is then topped with fat choy (a dried Chinese desert vegetable which is rehydrated and cooked in an oyster sauce) and sits on boiled broccoli. The dish has a nice combination of textures and flavours and certainly provides an adequate serving of vegetables.


The assorted low-han style vegetables ($11.99) is a popular dish that could also be called Buddha’s delight. Essentially a mix of items, every restaurant customizes their ingredients with Graceful’s having yu choy, bean sprouts, baby corn, black & white fungus, water chestnuts, carrots and assorted mushrooms. Cooked in a thick soy sauce it’s a simple but decent dish.


Next came the deep fried taro fish with sweet and sour sauce ($10.99). Inside the light crispy crust is a thick taro (root vegetable) which has been molded into the shape of fish. By itself it can taste pretty bland, but with the addition of sweet and sour sauce it becomes more flavourable. As a warning, this dish should be ordered amongst large groups as even a small piece can be quite heavy and filling.


The spicy eggplant with mock minced beef in hot pot ($10.99) is a great combination of spicy, sweet and sour flavours … a bit like a thick sweet and sour soup broth. Asian eggplants, which are less seedy and not as spongy as the regular variety, is quickly fried and then stewed in this spicy savoury sauce.


Last to arrive were the rice and noodle dishes. So, if you prefer to eat your carbs with other dishes than consider asking the waiter to change the cooking order. The Fukin mushroom egg fried rice ($15.99) may sound like a swear word but is actually a city in China. Although not as popular as the Yueng Chow fried rice, it is nonetheless offered at many places. The base is a simple egg fried rice, but then a thick savoury sauce is added on top and filled with various ingredients. Another one of my favourites, Graceful’s doesn’t disappointment containing mock sausage which actually tasted extremely close to BBQ pork.


Another popular but oily dish is the Cantonese style egg crispy noodle ($14.99); it’s the one to order to taste and see mock meats in their entirety. Containing chicken, BBQ pork, squid and shrimp (along with black mushroom and vegetables) there’s almost all the imitation items you can think of. Esthetically, it looks much like what is found at non-vegetarian restaurants, although the toppings have a softer texture compared to the real thing.


The braised vermicelli and bean thread noodle in satay sauce ($12.99) has a great aroma from the sauce. Even though it’s a relatively simple dish, with some finely chopped peppers and bean sprouts, it’s tasty and flavourful. I enjoyed the addition of the bean thread noodles (which has an almost elastic texture) mixed with the softer vermicelli that soaks up the liquid. Despite being described as “braised” the noodles are actually dry and not saucy at all.


Lastly, came the fried rice noodle with mock beef in XO hot sauce ($12.99), which was very delicious and my favourite carb dishes for the night. The noodles are stir fried quickly so they retain an al dante bite, but still soft and chewy. Admittedly, the sauce doesn’t have the richness of real XO sauce (typically contains dried scallops and shrimp) but is a good substitute and has a nice amount of heat to it.


After reading this, I hope I’ve inspired you to go out and be vegetarian for a meal. Don’t worry, you don’t need to sacrifice taste and choices; as you can see East Asian Buddhist cuisine has many delicious items to offer.

Overall mark - 8 out of 10
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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!



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