Hakkasan

From Hakkasan

Hakkasan came from the dissolution of the partnership at Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine. One of the original business partners took the sous-chef with her and opened this restaurant with nearly the exact same concept - homestyle Chinese food served in a western fine dining context. The concept even extends to the odd location: a industrial and warehousing district close to the Ikea in Richmond.

The menu is very similar...right down to the garlic lobster and the use of whelk.




Hakkasan serves homestyle Hakka food. This cuisine is the food of the diasporic Han tribe from the middle of China. The Han migrated to the southern regions of China (Fujian, Gunagdong) and over time, this cuisine evolved.

This food is rustic and "homestyle" and I find it incongruent with the high-style concept that Hakkasan is proposing. However, I often have to remind myself that other cuisines have had this kind of elevation - the French, for example, have been serving homestyle food at high-end restuarants for a couple of hundred years. I don't bat an eye when I am charged $30 for a plateful of ratatouille, for example.

Chinese food to me is about value...and to me Hakkasan does not provide that value. I hold Chinese food to a higher "bang-for-the-buck" standard than pretty much all other cuisine. That is why I walked away disappointed after my trip to Hakkasan in Richmond. The food was fantastic, the service was great, but the prices....oy!



The best dish of the evening was the homestyle braised pork hock. This dish was braised in a "red-braise" style and had lots of delicious, buttery, melting fat.



All in all...the meal was delicious....but overpriced.

Dolce Amore

From Dolce Amore

Vancouver is blessed with some great gelato and lucky for me, some of the best is served right in my neighbourhood. Commercial Drive has long been the center of all things Italian in this city - so it shouldn't be a surprise that a great gelateria is located right here.

Dolce Amore is owned and run by the coffee roasting Grippo family. The gelato has a great creamy texture and intense, concentrated flavour. Today I had the green apple - tart and just a hint of sweetness. The scent of apple bursts through after the first bite.

Sweet Chili Cafe - Homestyle Indonesian in Vancouver

Located in the old Dona Cata location on Victoria Drive (near Kingsway), this new family run restaurant serves authentic home-style Indonesian food. Of dishes we ordered, my favourite was the Beef Rendang - the spicing was nuanced, and the beef was meltingly tender. It could have had more chili heat. We ordered it "hot" but it was "mild" to my tastes.



Other dishes worth ordering are the Laksa Ayam (which could have been hotter as well), the black rice pudding, and the tofu salad. Using the Beef Randang as my litmus-test - I can safely assume that their curries and stews will also be flavourful and authentic - albeit toned down for Western tastes. Their Roti Canai was a bit dense...lacking the requisite lightness and flakeyness.

The pricing is decent. They have "Rice Tables" - really more like combos than true rijstafels - starting from $7.50 to $8.25. Compared to Seri Malaysia on Hastings St - the servings are smaller and the prices are higher. Also, Seri Malaysia serves much more pungent and more authentic tasting dishes, in my opinion. Sweet Chile Cafe definitely pulled some punches on the spicing....still good, but could have had more of the dried and fermented seafood notes.

I do have one other quibble: They serve all their dishes on plastic plates and use plastic utensils. It cheapens the experience and it isn't very eco-friendly. I gave them my disapproval verbally...hopefully, they will stop using disposable settings.