Jul. 07, 2010 - Issue #768: Crumbling Away
Revue
Urban renewal
Off-the-beaten-path restaurant impresses
I have a confession: when I want to try a new restaurant, I'll often head outside of the typical Whyte Ave/Downtown restaurant nexus. The places that I've tried over the years have offered good food in unpretentious settings and at even more unpretentious prices. It was during the trek to one of my favourite haunts that I noticed Urban China.
I invited a friend to join me for dinner one weekend evening. A mix of large, circular and smaller tables, Urban China clearly caters to groups of different sizes. Indeed, a few parties of more than 10 people were already sitting in the restaurant when we entered. We were immediately seated at a smaller table.
The server placed two menus in front of us, but we set aside the one with the North-Americanized Chinese food offerings. Last year, when my co-diner and I went to Europe and were faced with menus in German—which neither of us happens to speak—we would order food by opening the menu to any page, pointing to a random item and letting the food surprise us. ("You know that's a calf's heart, don't you?" one server in Innsbruck said to me).
Well, we opted for the same ordering method in this restaurant, as it had led to some pleasant culinary surprises back in Europe—calf's heart, a delicacy in that region of Austria, is really tender.
The server came immediately to take our drink order, a pot of tea ($1) to share, as well as three communal dishes. While we knew what satay honey-fried oysters were ($18.95), we were also intrigued by two other dishes that we hadn't seen before: the pan-friend enoki yee noodles ($12.95) and the crab-meat and fish maw soup ($15.95).
We look around, enjoying the black-and-silver simplicity of the décor. The atmosphere was simultaneously casual and classy, a very nice kind of laid-back elegance. The wall on the far side from the door was bright red, with a painted dragon crawling across the lower half of it. The small accent of colour gently warmed up the room.
The lamps were little chandeliers, and televisions projected soccer games and Chinese programs from each wall. A later visit to the washroom revealed small televisions playing hockey games above the sinks, though I find televisions in washrooms as obnoxious as ads in bathroom stalls.
The first dish to arrive was the soup, which was served with pepper and red vinegar, if we were so inclined. The white soup has a pleasant jelly-like consistency—the soft crab meat is easy to chew, while thee fish maw has a gummier texture. I tried one bowl plain, and then added some pepper to my second helping. The flavours of the crab meat and the fish maw blended together without overpowering, and I enjoyed it both plain and with a bit of pepper kicking inside. I was also impressed with the size of the portion—there was enough for us to have three bowls each. While we were enjoying the soup's mixture of textures, the servers brought the oyster hot pot and the enoki noodles, and their portions were as generous as the soup.
Urban China has another winner with the pan-fried enoki yee noodles. One reason why we'd ordered this dish was to learn what enoki is, and after we'd sampled it, the server pointed out that enoki is a type of mushroom. The mushrooms' texture is of soft crunchiness, with their little heads growing on long, stringy stems. A counterpoint to the chewy noodles, the mushrooms continued the trend of matching taste and texture, and we had no trouble polishing off the dish.
As good as the other parts of the meal were, the satay honey-fried oysters were a different story. A thick crust covered the oysters themselves, but the entire dish was overly deep-fried. As a result, the oysters' crust was too soggy, and at times reminded me of the kind of Chinese food that you might get at a mall foodcourt. The oysters within the crust somehow managed to avoid the external greasefest, but the onions and red peppers fried along with the oysters certainly didn't. My co-diner and I couldn't help but imagine how good that dish might taste baked, or at least fried in less oil. Still, we did manage to finish everything—three dishes is a good number for two diners.
To top everything off, I swiped some of my co-diner's silky mango pudding ($3.75). The flavour announced itself immediately on my tongue and I can still detect the echo even after I swallowed. It was some good pudding.
We left pleased. I can imagine returning in the winter—that steaming soup would be just the thing to make me forget about the cold. V
Mon – Sun (10 am – 11 pm)
Urban China
10604 - 101 St, 780.758.1888
More info about Urban China →
Privacy Policy:
Vue respects your privacy. We will not forward your personal information to any other organization except as required by law, and will use your e-mail address only to respond to your comments. We reserve the right to edit and remove comments for length, clarity and/or if they are illegal or inappropriate. Your email address is never shown to visitors to vueweekly.com. Read the whole policy at: http://vueweekly.com/privacy
Comments policy
Comments go online directly without first being seen or reviewed by editors at Vue. Don't personally attack people, don't be defamatory, don't be spam-atory, don't hawk your band, don't pretend to be someone else, be clear, be on topic, be nice. Read our extended comments policy here. »
We use Disqus for our comments system. What's that all about?
We found that managing the comment community at Vue was easier to do with a system like Disqus. If this isn't straightforward to you, get help here.