Across the Board Game Cafe

It seems like one of the prerequisites for being Asian is a love for board games. Unilaterally it seems that everyone I know from my ethnicity share this passion. Whether be it Uno, Connect 4 or Game of Thrones, it represents a time for fellowship and bonding with close friends (and/or family) to get some respite from the rigors of work responsibility. Thus during a lovely night where all the first year residents were available, I quickly made plans for us to go to Across the Board Game Cafe.

Located downtown in the Exchange District on Albert Street, this eclectic cafe tries to mix good food and board games. They offer two menus, one of small snacks and another of full blown meals. On top of that patrons are able to pay $5 to play from their vast collection of board games. An interesting concept that speaks to two things I love in life. Alright, game on!

The brightly lit cafe was nicely decorated and housed attentive wait staff. We arrived to find a large majority of the other tables taken and full of happy diners and gamers.

Across the Board Game Cafe offers daily food and drink specials and we, by happenstance, arrived on their wine night. At 35% off, it was an easy decision to have a bottle ... or two. The Maltec was a full bodied red with a nutty aftertaste. Sweet enough to be enjoyed as an aperitif but tart enough when paired with a meal. A good start!

Finding myself at the restaurant earlier than some of my dining companions, I ordered two popcorn for the table, Cheddar and Onion and Cinnamon Sugar. The Cheddar and Onion was preferred as it featured a more subtle flavour. The Cinnamon Sugar was too sweet and felt like a candy or dessert than a appetizer.

Always feeling the need to be adventurous, I somehow got the table to agree to this monstrocity of a dish. Called Across the Board, this meat platter features an ever revolving door of local cheeses and cured meats. To list the entire cohort would be too daunting, but the star of the dish was a Cheddar Jalapeno cheese. The spiciness of the Jalapeno mixed in with the sharp cheddar is excellently smoothed out with a fatty piece of cured pork and topped with a salty caper or a pickled cabbage. Mmm, Umami.

A co-resident ordered the Soba Salad Rolls. Two rolls are filled with soba noodles, apple, pickled carrot and cabbage with a walnut vineagrette. These colourful rolls were met with delight as she quickly devoured the offering. The soba noodles here are a nice contrast to the crisp vegetables and nutty sauce. 

Another co-resident ordered the Beet Carpaccio. This is a fun dish that pokes fun at the usual beef version. Here the chef takes thinly sliced beet and tops it with chevre, dill, toasted pecans and finishes it with lemon oil. This fun colorful dish also packs a lot of flavour with the baseline crunch of the beats harmonizing with the smooth cheese and leading into the chorus of lemon oil and arugula.

The England is their take on the traditional beef stew. A creamy base of root vegetables is mixed in with big chunks of beef and served with a bun and garlic butter. I found this dish slightly disappointing as the meat was tough and was slightly bland. The creamy broth, on the other hand, was expertly crafted and sang deep flavourful notes. Pitty about the beef though.

I had the Ukraine. Beet borscht with a kielbasa and a slaw, this dish was tasty. The borscht itself was nice and light with a subtle but noticeable beet flavour. The kielbasa was nicely grilled and the fattiness of the pork product was contrasted nicely with the sharp mustard. Overall a nice dish.

Two other residents ordered the Black Bean Chili and Rice. It features a base of rice topped with a black bean chili (they opted to have chicken in it), cheddar cheese and scallions served with garlic flatbread. The chili was robust and flavourful and added a ton to the deliberately bland rice. Unfortunately the dish was not served warm enough to melt the overlying cheddar cheese.

I hope Across The Board Game Cafe does well. It offers an eclectic concept of board games and good food and should cater to the evergrowing population of board game lovers. Even if you are not interested in playing any games, the food is solid enough to be worthy of a nice meal.

Fusion, Dowon Chinese & Korean

I love it when I learn something new. Part of the fun of being in medicine is the constant learning and reinventing one has to do. We are all taught the base knowledge, shown how to apply it and then told to constantly question and relearn as new discoveries are made. Learning however is not just in medicine, and today I gleefully learnt of a new cuisine. New restaurants pop up in Winnipeg all the time, and Dowon Chinese & Korean Restaurant had been on my radar for the couple months they have been open. Initially I scoffed at the name and thought it featured Americanized cuisines, but I quickly perused the menu and found something new, something fascinating, something mindblowing: this was Korean Chinese cuisine. A quick Wikipedia search revealed this to be a hybrid of Chinese recipes with Korean flavours and influences originating in the north of China. I was amazed. Where was this my whole life? What have I been missing?

Dowon Chinese & Korean Restaurant is located on Pembina Highway on the corner of Crane Avenue. The large structure with large signs beckon one forward. One can tell this was a bar that was retrofitted to become a restaurant. Nevertheless, the owners did a fine job of creating a cozy and inviting atmosphere.

The menu was extensive. After researching the popular dishes of Korean Chinese cuisine, I was delighted to see them all showcased. It is obvious where the (Northern) Chinese influences came from with the base of noodles, rice and deep fried meats. Thoroughly excited, I ordered a hefty amount, both to tide me through another day of call but to try as many specialty dishes as possible.

I was thrilled when I saw this. The two most famous Korean Chinese dishes are Jjajangmyeon (noodles with Korean black bean sauce) and Jjamppon (spicy noodle soup). Dowon does something brilliant and lets one order half portion of each. The Jjajangmyeon features chewy wheat flour noodles that were strong enough to lock in the flavours of the salty black soybean sauce. A mixture of sweet, salty and savoury, the sauce was blended with pork and vegetables. Excellent! The Jjamppon features the same noodles in a chili oil soup with vegetables and (frozen) seafood. The noodles again were chewy and thick enough to soak up the wonderfully chili soup. Tasty!

Researching the Mapabap revealed it to be a Korean take a popular Szechuan tofu dish. Here Dowon fries the soft silken tofu with Korean bean paste and mixes in vegetables, slivers of pork and Korean spicy peppers. The spicy peppers resembled Jalapeno peppers and added a intense spiciness to the dish. Dowon does a nice job of handling all the flavours in the sauce. Finishing it with the side of rice is the ultimate in home comfort food.
 

Kkanpunggi is another signature Korean Chinese dish. Taken its roots from Sweet & Sour Chicken, Dowon takes breaded boneless chicken, fry it golden brown, and mix it in a red pepper and garlic sauce. The key to this was the addition of lemon: the citrus adds a sour and tart element that interplays with the fried chicken well. The chicken itself was done perfectly with its extremely crispy exterior housing tender moist morsels of protein. Excellent!

Taking its Korean roots, I was served four banchans for the meal (from top to bottom): Pickled Potato & Onions, Spicy Cabbage, Kimchi, and Bean Sprouts. Everything was average and as you would expect for them as banchans.

Dowon is a special place for me now as the restaurant that introduced me to Chinese Korean cuisine. It was easy to pick out the Chinese and Korean influences, but I was most impressed by the new flavours instilled in dishes I had grown up eating my entire life. Finding places like this is inspirational and motivates me to seek out more diverse and unique cuisines, both in Winnipeg and abroad.