Normally, I'd rather lose my left testicle (hello Phil Kessel...) than to drive into Richmond during rush hour. However, with my parent's flight back from Hong Kong arriving later than expected, that was the scenario. No, I still have my left testicle! So to make this foray into driving hell worth it, I decided to pick up some take out. This way, I didn't have to worry about dinner and oh yeah, my parents had something to eat too (I'm such a good son...). I decided that I'd pick up a few items starting with some Hainanese Chicken from Prata-Man. Then, I'd hop on over to the Yaohan food court for some Cantonese take out. Hey, the buy 3, get 1 free deal (which works out to $6.00 per large dish) is pretty good. Trying to work my way through the many choices, I decided on Golden Rice Bowl this time around.
So I chose my four items starting with the Sweet & Sour Pork. Almost completely comprised of meat, the pork was quite lean, hence being dry and dense. I guess sitting around for awhile didn't help either. Naturally, the batter soaked up all the sauce and became wet, but that was expected. The flavours were more on the sweet side, although it was not too bad. The Stir-Fried Fish was quite moist and flaky. There was no excess liquid as the fish was lightly kissed by corn starch. The flavours were quite mild which didn't overwhelm the fish. Also, the celery and carrots in the dish retained some crunch. The Beef Tendon & Bean Curd Skin had a considerable star anise hit. Some pieces were super tender while the bigger ones were a chewy. Keep in mind this was beef with tendon in it, not just tendon.
Lastly, we had the Stir-Fried Eggplant with red peppers. It was soft as expected, but not overly mushy. We felt there was a general lack of flavour with this dish. "Okay" is probably the best description for this take out food. As one of my readers (Lotusrapper) suggested, these places are pretty much very similar in terms of food quality. Does the job for an inexpensive price.
The Good:
- Inexpensive
- The lady was friendly
- Food is okay
The Bad:
- As with any of these joints, some dishes stand up better sitting around than others
- A bit mild with the flavours
2 comments:
You would have to have 2 cojones to drive into, and park, in Richmond ;-)
But Yaohan is definitely one of the better Chinese malls to park at. I usually park at the back lot off of Hazelbridge ..... don't have to contend with the whiteglove-wearing, welding mask-donning, drivers in their M-B AMG SUVs (like, seriously ???)
Yaohan food court is beginning to feel like Granville Island Market food court ..... forever frozen in some point in the '90s. There's been a few turnovers but the place is quite predictable and same year after year.
OK, my advice if you *have* to eat or buy takeout there. Go to Pak Tak (so-called Chiu Chow cuisine) at the far end of the same side as Golden Rice Bowl. Yes, it's still the same old Cantonese, MSG-laden slop that everyone offers there. But PT is a notch better comparatively.
BTW, an old trick I use at these places. Watch how the vendors take pieces from the backside and bottom of the pile of the dish you point to. That is, say you point to gailan, they'll take the pieces closest to them (backside from you) and from the bottom of the gailan heap. So you pretty much always get the bits that's been in the pile longest, soggiest and least "fresh", and whatever ends up on your plate will look quite like the more appetizing and shiny bits of each dish they have laid out. So my trick is I always ask them to take from the top of each pile, as well as "pass" on the sauces, which tend to be cornstarch rich and give the dishes that undesirable gloppy, sticky, MSG taste and texture.
My $0.25 :)
That should have said:
"whatever ends up on your plate will *not* look quite like the more appetizing and shiny bits of each dish they have laid out."
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