Summer Palace Chinese - Authentic Chinese

There is nothing that excites me more than a morning off and a new place to try. When that restaurant promises authentic Chinese cuisine, my excitement level takes off over the stratosphere. In reality, despite having an appreciation for global cuisine and all types of food, I will never be able to replace classic Chinese fare and it will remain my go to for any occasion. Thus after a peaceful slumber, I made the long but fruitful trek to Summer Palace Chinese Restaurant.

Summer Palace is located on a nondescript strip mall off of Pembina Highway close to the Bishop Brandin Overpass. The pleasant signage beckons you inside to the spacious and modern dining room. Clearly taking over smaller lots, there are two distinctive dining rooms in Summer Palace, one catering to the Westernized diners wanting the lunch buffets and one catering to those wanting more authentic Chinese fare.

The menu can only be described as sprawling. Over 200 items adorn the pages of the modern menu with the most popular dishes having a pictoral depiction alongside the wording. The fare is classic and authentic Chinese banquet style menu with the bevy of chicken, beef, pork, hot pot and rice dishes. The only thing missing is the presence of live seafood, a small negative for an otherwise impressive menu.

Called Casseroles on the menu, the Eggplant with Seafood (Hot Pot) had a nice amalgamation of Japanese eggplant slivers with a concoction of seafood (scallops, squid and shrimps) all tossed in a delightfully rich and creamy soy based sauce. Slightly overseasoned and heavy handed with the salt, the sauce goes well with a bowl of white rice. Only other qualm is the large pieces of eggplant which, due to its size, did not completely soak up all the sauce during the cooking process.

Crispy Spring Chicken with Green Onion an Spicy Ginger Sauce is another standard dish I use to judge Chinese restaurants. The version here was nicely done with a perfectly fried chicken that preserved the delicate balance of crispy skin and tender meat. The topping of spring onions and spicy ginger sauce was a nice accompaniment and contrast to the tender meat. The addition of soy on top of the already salty sauce made the dish a tad overseasoned again.

Beef Tenderloin, Mixed Mushroom and Green Beans in Summer Palace Special Sauce is a mouthful to order but quick to devour. The incredibly tender tenderloin is carefully fried with baby mushrooms and green beans in a pungently sweet and salty soy based sauce. The delicate flavours all come together to form a taste of umami for the diner. One just has to overlook the smaller portion size.

Overall Summer Palace Chinese Restaurant offers authentic high quality Chinese cuisine. The wealth of menu options will mean that everyone will find something they enjoy. Despite being on the saltier and greasier side, the flavours were well thought out and strong enough to overcome the heavy handed seasoning. Definitely worth a visit.

Osborne Village Cafe - Spunky Brunch

The main benefits of spring and summer for me is the awakening of the summer restaurant scene. Like a bear arising from a long hibernation, the energy and excitement surrounding new and established restaurants around town is palpable. And for me it builds up a renewed vigor to try newer places I might have overlooked on my first perusal. Such was the story of the Osborne Village Cafe, a contemporary spunky diner located minutes from my home. Thus when a fellow resident asked for a bite (and a pleasant meet and greet), how could I say no?

The Osborne Village Cafe is the preemptive dining experience of the Osborne Village Inn, a local motel/hotel in the heart of Osborne Street.  In truth, the exteriors are downright drab and do little to uncover the exciting local secret underneath. Thankfully the interiors are less of an eyesore with a spunky diner feel to the brick lain interior. The wait staff are of an eclectic flair each with a quirky but fun personality that makes one feel instantly comfortable.

The menu is appropriately fun and quirky. While the basis of the menu surrounds standard diner breakfast, lunch and brunch fare, the chefs do a nice job of adding their own flare and uniqueness in each dish. Case in point are their omelettes featuring fun quirky names like The Hipster or the Pegger and combining peculiar ingredients like wild rice and mushrooms or curried chickpeas and eggs.

Dining in a larger group affords you the opportunity to try a multitude of dishes. The Hipster is a two egg omelette chock full of cheddar, avocado, mushrooms and curried chickpeas. The star here are the chickpeas with a nice earthy aroma and strong curry flavour contrasting well with the soft delicate egg exterior

My main for the day was the Duck Burger. A ground patty of duck breast is topped with a tangy orange marmalade all housed in a large brioche bun. Since the chefs decided to ground up the duck meat, it was missing the usual fattiness found with a whole duck breast, but instead had a slightly slimey greasy consistency. With that said, it was incredibly tender and went well with the sweet and slightly bitter marmalade. The accompanying side of Curry Lentil Soup had a nice fiery kick to the typical proteinacous lentil soup.

Overall the Osborne Village Cafe delivered solid brunch fare at affordable prices and while some of their experimentation did not work, they have to be applauded for even attempting to innovate classic brunch fare. Definitely worth a visit for anyone in the Osborne area hankering for brunch.

Spicy Noodle House - Aveage Northern Chinese

Going through a relatively busier time of residency affords me less time to dine out and even less time to update this blog. Seeing the lack of posts over the last month is troubling and something I want to change as soon as possible. Given the undulating ups and downs of residency, I do want to maintain an even keel with respects to the blog as it is one of my major non-medical releases. Therefore I vow to maintain a standard of 15 new blog posts per month going on forward.

When stressed or busy with work I always go back to the classics, the tried and true cuisines that I know will offer me a solid meal at affordable prices and are reasonably authentic tasting. Spicy Noodle House fits that bill perfectly. It caught my eye on one of my first trips down Osborne Village when I first arrived here and even with the large number of underwhelming reviews and mediocre pictures on Urbanspoon/Zomato, it nevertheless piqued enough of an interest.

The bright flourescent green sign stands out in the clout of busy Osborne Village. Importantly so because the restaurant itself is in the basement of a three story building with little to no exterior window spacing. The drab exterior though is contrasted nicely with the spacious, albeit minimalistic, interiors. One does wish the lighting improved especially with the ambient sort at short supply.

The helpful waitresses immediately provided the spacious and sprawling menu. Akin to their namesake, Spicy Noodle House offers a nice collection of traditional Northern Chinese noodle soups ... and all at less than $10 a bowl. On top of the soups are a bevy dim sum items and main dishes categorized by the main protein of choice. This area of the menu more resembles a westernized Chinese restaurant with every permutation of meat with vegetable available. More exciting are the Chefs Suggestions which approximate authentic Chinese again with various Hot Pot and fried noodle dishes.
 

Ground Pork with Peanut Noodle Soup is a Northern Chinese classic featuring a creamy peanut soup stir fried in a nice mix of crunchy vegetables and ground pork all served on top of chewy flour noodles. This large bowl had a nice contrast between the silken noodles and the creamy soup with the crunch of celery.

Ordering a hot pot dish is a standard measuring stick for Chinese restaurants and so I went with the Chicken with Chinese Sausage Hot Pot this time. Chock full of fatty Chinese Sausage, the initial impressions impressed more than the actual taste and flavour. While I liked the dichotomy of sausage and Chinese mushroom, the aroma and sharpness of the large pieces of mostly raw onion took away from the dish.

Comfort food always comes to reign when I am stressed or tired and so I gravitated towards the Dim Sum Combo. I found it curious that a Northern Chinese restaurant would offer dim sum, something known more in the Cantonese regions. And while this should have set off alarm bells, I unfortunately had to sit through this mess of a dish.

Clearly originating from a frozen variety, the Sticky Rice with Meat had a laughingly tiny amount of tasteless ground pork enveloped around a mound of also tasteless sticky rice. And to top it off, the portion size is one that leaves much to be desired.

These Yu Tee Gow Dumplings are a close approximation of Shark's Fin Dumplings in most dim sum restaurants. Unfortunately these dense dumplings were filled with fatty and bland meat that was tough and sinewy to chew through and were covered with a thin and friable wrapper that was prone to ripping open.

And to end up the trifecta of poor dim sum showing, these Haa Gow Dumplings take the tiniest shrimp and covers them with the seemingly thickest wrapper available. Needless to say the overall taste was an outcry to proper shrimp dumplings.

Spicy Noodle House offers average Northern Chinese cuisine and below average dim sum fare. For those wanting an affordable meal on Osborne should look to their noodle soups and ignore everything else on their sprawling but overall disappointing menu.