Memory Corner

I'm apologizing in advance for my impending rant...  You see, I really do not understand people who take recreational sports so darn seriously...  I was having probably my worst softball game in quite some time and I knew it.  I took ownership of my mistakes but some new guy on our team decided to add his opinion in between every inning.  In fact, he felt the need to let me know out loud during the game (for everyone to hear) that I was doing something wrong.  Suffice to say, that didn't help matters.  Afterwards, we headed to Memory Corner in Richmond to hopefully make better memories...

Since I was feeling quite low, I didn't notice we had ordered 2 types of chicken nuggets.  The first one was the classic Deep Fried Crispy Chicken with plenty of basil and interestingly green onions and whole garlic cloves.  In big chunks, the meat was succulent and super juicy.  The exterior was lightly crispy and well-seasoned with salt and white pepper.  We were quite surprised at the portion size as we struggled to finish it.  The other version was the Deep Fried Spicy Fermented Bean Curd Chicken that featured a much crunchier coating.  Furthermore, in addition to the sharp aroma of the fermented tofu, there was significantly more spiciness.  Due to the smaller size of the nuggets, the chicken was a touch more firm, yet at the same time being moist.

From these 2 dishes, we moved onto to the Sesame Sauce Noodles.  Although not looking very interesting, this was our favourite dish of the night.  With a bevy of firm noodles, there was a proper amount of sesame paste for flavour.  There was enough saltiness and equal sweetness to provide balance which resulted in an aromatic bowl of noodles.  From dry noodles to soup noodles, we tried the Tomato & Beef Tendon Noodle Soup.  The best part of this was the broth.  Even visually, it was obvious that they had put some time into it as there was depth and meatiness.  The tomato was not very strong, but it did show up in the finish and aftertaste.  Again, the noodles were toothsome and held up well even until the last strand.  We were indifferent with the meat as it was on the chewier side.

Predictably, Boss Woman insisted we have the Shrimp and Egg Fried Rice.  I swear she subsists on those 2 ingredients alone...  Well, this was the least interesting item in my opinion.  I thought the shrimp were nice being big and cold-water crunchy, however, the rice itself was a bit too wet for my liking.  Moreover, there was a general lack of impact and flavour.  Fortunately, we ordered the 3-Spice Chicken, which naturally went well with the rice (although it came with a bowl of plain rice too).  Following in the footsteps of the other chicken dishes, this one was well-portioned as well with tender pieces of dark meat (with no filler).  I found the taste to be more sweet than anything else with only a touch of tartness.  There was a bit too much sauce which somewhat diluted the flavours.

Lastly, we tried the Stir-Fried Lamb with Satay Sauce, partly because there was 2 whole pages dedicated to lamb.  We thought this dish was okay, but not particularly memorable.  There seemed to be more vegetable than lamb itself, which only helped lessen the impact of the lamb as well as making the dish watery.  We were expecting rich impactful flavours and were ultimately left with a fairly bland vegetable dish.  But even with that, the dish wasn't bad and in fact, most of the food was good and well-portioned.  We'd consider returning again.

The Good:
- Fairly large portions especially for Taiwanese
- Decent eats
- Reasonable pricing

The Bad:
- More wok-heat would've improved 2 of the dishes
- Service was friendly but fairly inattentive