Sherman's Food Adventures: E2 Cafe

E2 Cafe

Trick or treating in a mall, seems like all the rage in the last few years.  Well, it is guaranteed to be dry and the chances of tainted candy are small - pretty much a parent's dream come true.  Well, we once again braved the hoards at Lougheed Mall.  But wait, this was only round 1...  We headed into the neighbourhood for round 2 later.  But not before we headed across the street from the mall for eats at E2 Cafe.  Formerly Lulu Cafe, E2 is a typical Hong Kong-style cafe.  Unfortunately they are located in a parking lot that is about 20 parking spots short.

With both of our orders, it came with a bowl of soup.  I decided on the Cream of Mushroom while Viv had the Borscht.  The cream soup was pretty typical being floury thick rather than creamy.  It did taste okay though with a balance of flavours.  There was only a few slices of mushroom to be found though.  Despite being overly sweet, the borscht (Chinese bastardized version that is) exhibited depth, body and plenty of tomato flavour.  Furthermore, it was not devoid of ingredients.  The kids ended up sharing a Build-Your-Own-Noodle - udon in original fish broth with ham and fish tofu (in addition to the standard ingredients such as shredded Napa cabbage, mushroom and bean curd skin).  The broth wasn't exactly silky nor exhibiting body, however, it was not bland either.  The noodles were still chewy and not much to say about the toppings as they were store-bought (like all other places).

I ordered the 3-Item Meal consisting of beef steak, ox tongue and fried basa filet.  For my starch, I selected spaghetti and my choice of sauce was black pepper.  I wasn't a huge fan of the steak as it was completely cooked.  On the other hand, the tongue was moist and tender (mmm...  tender...).  The star of the plate was the fried basa as the fish was flaky and soft while the breading was really crunchy and not greasy.  This was fried as well as one could expect.  As for the black pepper sauce, I liked it (despite being a bit too thick).  There was plenty of spice and garlic within the thick sauce.   Viv decided on the Baked Pork Chop Rice which was an impressively large portion.  Although it was doused in sauce, the pork chop was juicy and still super crispy.  As for the sauce, it was mild with only a bit of tang (from the diluted ketchup).  The rice was pretty good as it was wok fried and retained a good chew. 

As part of our meals, we had a choice of drink.  Viv had the Mango Milk Tea with coconut jelly.  Yikes, if we had known that it would be that sweet, we should've jacked her dad's insulin stash.  This was not very good.  I went for the Iced Tea (w/o sugar thankfully) and it did the job.  And really, E2 essentially did the job and was a decent value.  Sure, there is better to be found in Richmond.  Yet, we were very far from Richmond (thank goodness...).  Service wasn't bad per se, but not overly enthusiastic either.

The Good:
- Large portions
- For what we had, the food was decent

The Bad:
- They are cursed with a crappy parking lot
- Too much sugar in their bubble tea

E2 Cafe Restaurant on Urbanspoon

1 comments:

LotusRapper said...

You got a thing for tender tongues ?

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