Stone & Flow Asian Bistro

You've heard me say and I'll say it again, we have a dizzying array of Chinese food in the GVRD...  But it is overwhelmingly Cantonese cuisine.  For those who not familiar, Chinese cuisine is usually grouped into "Eight Great Traditions" that consist of Sichuan, Shangdong, Cantonese, Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui and Hunan.  However, if you want to be specific, there are many more than that.  I mean, there are some obvious omissions such as X'ian, Shanghainese, Xinjiang, Macanese, Taiwanese and the list goes on forever.  This brings me to the latest food adventure at Stone & Flow Asian Bistro.  It specializes in another cuisine which is Guizhou.  Unfortunately, it gets grouped into Sichaun at times due to the use of spice and its proximity to Chongqing.  In addition to spice, Guizhou cuisine is synonymous with fermented sour flavours as well. 

Therefore, the first dish we tried was completely representative of these flavours in the House Special Pounded Chicken Feet.  This was prepared tableside with all of the ingredients starting in separate plates.  Everything was literally pounded in a wooden mortar by a wooden pestle.  This ensure all the flavours were activated (and juiced).  We got plenty of sour and spice while also plenty of sharpness, aromatics and herbaceousness.  The chicken feet were gelatinzed being a bit crunchy and plenty bouncy.  My only wish would to be more chicken feet in this dish.

Something that was neither spicy nor sour was the Crispy Tofu Balls with Shrimp.  Honestly, these didn't look that appetizing and it took me awhile to actually try one.  Turns out, they were actually delicious!  They were indeed crispy with a crumbly tofu interior.  On its own, the flavours were pretty mild, so I went ahead and dipped it into the sauces.  Naturally, I went for the hot one.

We also tried the Stone & Flow Spicy Noodles with Beef.  We had 2 slightly different versions of the dish with one of them having thicker rice noodles.  These had a passing similarity to Chongqing Noodles with spicy and savoury beef mixed into the rice noodles.  I found the one with thicker rice noodles to have a bit more liquid, hence it was slipperier and a bit more spicy.

All of the food up until this point was good, but in reality, we were waiting for the Hot Pot.  We chose the both the Signature Kalli Soup Soup as well as the Sichuan Mala Peppercorn Soup.  Definitely loved the fermented sourness of the Kalli Soup while the peppercorn soup was only mildly spicy.  I felt the beef went better with the sour soup while the dumplings and fish were better with the peppercorn soup.

On that note, let's talk about the beef we had.  We tried the AAA Prime Rib Beef Slice and also the Australian Wagyu Beef.  Meat quality was great as the prime rib slice was tender and a bit buttery.  However, the Wagyu was even more buttery and yes, it almost melted-in-my-mouth.  I thought the prices for the beef were reasonable, with the Wagyu being $28.99.

We had the Hand Made Shrimp Paste (Balls) and also the Hand Made Beef Meatballs.  These were both excellent.  The shrimp had the desired bounce texture where the meatballs themselves were not dense.  There was a butteriness to them too.  That was the same for the beef as they had an airiness to them.  Just like the shrimp balls, the beef was buttery and required very little chewing. 

The most surprising items were the Shrimp Blossom Dumplings and the Shrimp & Crab Blossom Dumplings.  Not only were they striking to look at, they were large and fully-stuffed.  When cooked through, the texture of the wrapper was spongy (in a good way).  It was as if they used fish paste to make them.  Rather, it was probably due to the egg.  Inside, the filling was bouncy and airy, just like the shrimp balls.

We got some veggies as well in the form of the Assorted Mushroom Platter, Pea Shoots and Crown Daisy.  Things were definitely fresh, as you can clearly see in the pictures.  Once again, prices were reasonable considering the portion size.  For the mushrooms, we had a selection including woodear, king, oyster and enoki.

To end our meal, we got a few of the Hand-Smashed Lemon Tea with green peppercorn.  That was quite the interesting flavour.  It was light and refreshing with only a bit of sweetness while the peppercorn added some bitterness and bite.  The dessert that you see was the Guizhou Ice Slush which was more pudding-like with some mochi textures.  It had a toasted wheat flavour that was aromatic and a bit yeasty.  This was not sweet at all.  In the end, our Guizhou meal was delicious and had some unique flavours, in particular, the fermented sourness.  Although it shares some similarities with Sichuan cuisine, it is different in a good way.  Worth checking out!

*All food and beverages were complimentary for this blog post*

The Good:

- Unique flavours, in particular, the fermented sourness

- Love those dumplings

- Food quality is decently high

The Bad:

- Table turnover is somewhat slow, so there will be a lineup