Dinner @ Red Star

Monday nights are usually reserved for my softball league games. I look forward to them because we eat out afterwords! Yes, it's pathetic, I am more interested in the eating than the game itself. My team gives me grief about blanking out during a game because I'm thinking of food. Anyways, I had to skip my game tonight to attend a baby 1-month dinner at Red Star. It actually turned out that the game was canceled because of rain (it actually stopped raining). For those of you wonder what a baby 1-month is all about, it is based on Chinese tradition. Long ago, in China, it was an achievement for a child to make it to their 1-month birthday due to in sufficient health care and nutrition. Thus, it was a big thing to celebrate a 1-month birthday. However, it's mostly just tradition now since most children make it past 1-month, especially here in Canada. I've already blogged about the excellent Dim Sum at Red Star and you can read about it here. I decided to do a separate post about dinner because it would be an excessively long post on Red Star otherwise.

We showed up a bit late to the dinner because we were rushing out the door. You never get to leave on time when you have 2 young kiddies. However, Chinese people have a penchant for arriving late to dinners like these (especially weddings). As always, I was missing the Canucks game again and this was the most important one of the season! Well, nothing better than good food to take my mind off the game (although I was checking my Blackberry often). Typically, the dinner menu for weddings, 1-months or any other type of celebrations are quite standard. We started off with an appetizer platter which consisted of Sliced Braised Beef Shank, Roasted Suckling Pig, Soy Chicken and Marinated Jellyfish. The beef shank was tender and had delicate hints of 5-spice. The soy chicken was cooked perfectly and was lightly flavoured. The jellyfish was crunchy and was lightly flavoured with soy and sesame oil. I wasn't a big fan of the suckling pig. Although the skin was crunchy, the attached meat was dry, hard and salty. Part 1 of the Peking Duck arrived next. Although the skin was crispy and had good colour, I didn't like the fact they didn't remove the fat. I know some people like eating the duck fat; but I do not. The next dish was the Shrimp Mousse Stuffed Crab Claws. These were fried just right. A bit crispy on the outside and sweet and juicy shrimp on the inside.

Next up was Stir-Fried Broccoli with Scallops and Fungus. The broccoli was cooked only slightly, so it retained it's freshness and texture. The same could be said about the scallops. They were big and juicy. However, the dish was a bit over seasoned. Part 2 of the Peking Duck arrived in the form of Duck Lettuce Wrap. There was plenty of duck meat accompanied by shitake mushrooms, crunchy water chestnuts and bamboo shoots. There was real care put in preparing the lettuce, they were all in one piece and uniformly shaped. After 5 dishes, we finally got to the soup! It was a classic Shark's Fin soup with crab meat and young bamboo shoots. There was no shortage of shark's fin and crab meat in the soup. Moreover, the broth was outstanding. It was delicately flavoured without being salty. You could taste the sweetness of the crab and the chicken they used for the broth.

After a slight wait after the soup, the lobster arrived (this is traditionally the case, so the hosts can go around to every table and raise a glass with the guests). Although the plate of lobsters was impressive, one look at them and we knew the dish was overcooked. Digging into the pieces of lobster, it confirmed our suspicions. The meat was a bit tough. Moreover, the sauce was again quite salty. As per usual, I ate the lobster brains from the head. No one seemed to fight me for it, I wonder why? While I was downing several cups of tea to appease the salt from the lobster, the Sea Cucumber and Shitake Mushrooms arrived. They were served over a bed of baby bak choy. This dish was a winner. The pieces of sea cucumber were very large and remained in one piece. There was just enough oyster sauce to flavour all the ingredients; however, the baby bak choy were a tad overcooked.

The requisite steamed fish was the next dish and it was a pretty large Rock Cod. I didn't get a good picture of it since the server butchered it before I could get to it. So you'll have to take my word that it was steamed perfectly and the sweet soy sauce complimented the sweet flesh. Lastly, here comes the "filler" dishes. At all of these dinners, the rice and noodle dishes show up last, when no one has the stomach to eat anymore. As usual, the noodles came in the form of Yee Mein. It was fried up pretty good, retaining some elasticity with just a hint of soy. The rice came in the form of Ho Yip Fan which is fried rice wrapped in lotus leaves. When steamed, the rice takes on the aroma of the leaves. This was indeed the case; but the rice was quite dry and hard.

Mercifully, those were the last 2 dishes. We were quite stuffed because each dish was very large and plentiful. Wait! There's more! I forgot about dessert... First, we got a plate of cookies. They were terrible. They were cold and there was not enough lard in them (can't believe I'm saying that); thus, they were quite dry. Fortunately, the second dessert was Baked Tapioca Pudding with Lotus Paste. This was really good. The pudding itself wasn't too sweet and neither was the lotus paste. The "pineapple bun"-type topping on the pudding added a texture contrast to the dish. Not all places make it with that type of topping. I personally like it done this way. More opportunity to use lard!

Overall, the meal was very good, with some minor issues. Since we only had 3 tables, the food was not overly mass-produced. I really like the food at Red Star - dinner and Dim Sum. I remarked to VL (Viv's cousin who had the baby), that she should have a few more kids, so we can do the 1-month dinner again next year!

The Good:
- Execution on most dishes were successful
- Quality of the ingredients were high (especially in this meal)
- Portions were good

The Bad:
- A bit salty in some of the dishes
- A bit pricey

Red Star
8298 Granville Street
Vancouver, B.C.
604-261-8389

#2200 - 8181 Cambie Road
Richmond, B.C.
604-270-3003