Some of you will remember that I posted about Luckynoodles about two weeks ago. In that post, I wrote about Luckynoodle which is located in the very spot that had a high turnover of restaurants over the years.
But I was also quite excited about Luckynoodles too. I don’t normally go back to a restaurant twice but with Luckynoodle I did. I really enjoyed their Hunan cooking and also was amazed that their lunch specials are so cheap.
After I published the blog post about Luckynoodle, a number of people went to to Luckynoodles and gave us their feedback … all of which was positive … and I was not surprised.
I wanted to go back to Luckynoodle to try their other specialty dishes which they wrote on the board. And their menu too was extensive.
Well, there is only one way to try their dishes … I have to make up one table so that we can order many dishes. I can’t do that with just the four of us in the family.
Moreover, our two boys doesn’t really fancy dining out this way. “Chau Choy” is what we call it … I mean communal style. They are strange. I know they always enjoy dad ordering dishes and eating them communal style but yet every time I said we are going to have “chau choy”, they will say no. They prefer to have their own individual dishes and not have to share. I think they protest for the sake of asserting themselves. I know they like communal style dining because dad has a knack of ordering nice dishes.
So I wanted to gather enough people to fill up a table — at least 10. We got 21 instead. So it was two tables.
And what a feast it was. You are not going to believe this. We had 13 dishes and it was just $15 before tips. [Rey and Jun, you left $25 when you had to leave early. I thought I better mention this because you might think that Ben wanted to pocket the change. LOL!]
This is not one of those run-of-the-mill Chinese dinner. The dishes we chose were peppered with words like ears, kidney, lamb, bamboo shoot, white chili, gizzards and stuff like that.
So we started with getting 3 appetizers while we go over the menu proposed by me. The chef too also reviewed the menu and pretty much agree with our selection … so we are in good hands there. We also added one more dish based on popular demand. So THIRTEEN dishes!
The first appetizer was the Cucumber with Garlic which is cool, crunchy, garlicky, lightly salty. Someone remarked that it is not smashed and that traditionally it should be smashed. Instead this was cut which makes it a bit more prettier.
Traditions vs aesthetics — do you have any preference? Me, I go with tradition.
The Fungus with Red Chili was sweetish, vinegarish, spicy, lightly crunchy. For those who likes it hot, they will eat this with the chili. Mere mortals only …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Mini Chowtimes Dinner at Luckynoodle (805 words)
© ben for Chow Times, 2010. |
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Post tags: Chinese, Hunan, Restaurant Review, Vancouver