Tsui Woo Seafood Restaurant
2461 Nanaimo Street
Vancouver, BC
I have to admit something. If you take a look at all the restaurants I have visited so far, you will notice that I do not visit Chinese restaurants that often. There are several reasons behind it, the not-so-obvious one is that “mom’s cooking is better”. The other one is that, for good Chinese food, it has to be served family style. Sure, there are HK style cafe or similar restaurants but, at the end of the day, the ones more representative of Chinese cuisine are those family style. Even Dim Sum, you enjoy it more if you go in a group rather than on your own. So, when I check with LC and his family for dinner, that gave me an excuse to blog about such type of restaurants. And, as usual, I let my guests choose…
We did not make any reservations but the restaurant was half full when we arrived so we had no problems getting a table. And here comes a usual matter of discussion when going out as a group… What to order?!
We were a party of four, a small party given that other tables had 10 peoples in it.
I passed the decision taking process to LC. After easily 10 or so minutes, we were ready to order, only to find out one of the dishes we asked for (lamb) was not available. Bummer… After another additional 5 or so minutes thinking what dish to order as replacement, we were good to go.
Some peanuts while we waited for the first dishes.
There was a bit of back and forth on the first dish. I was asked for an opinion but, instead of giving a straight answer, I just said “get something you don’t usually have at home”. Not sure if I would regret saying that because we ended up having…
A roasted squab. Each one of us had a quarter, which gave us enough to sample it. While I am glad I gave it a try, it is not a dish I would order again. Tasteful, yes. Game-y flavour, yes. But, otherwise, difficult to eat and simply not worth it. Next time, I would go for a BBQ duck instead…
The next dish was spareribs with dried tangerine peel. The spareribs were fried pieces of spareribs with a orange-y, tangerine taste glaze. I found the sparerib pieces to be overcoated and overfried, to the point any juices from the spareribs were completely gone. As for the tangerine, aside from that orange-y taste, I couldn’t find any evidence of tangerine, not even some zest. In fact, it could have easily been an orange marmalade/jam.
Black pepper beef (I think). This was about the best dish we had the whole night. The slices of beef were tender; however, it felt fried first then stir fried, which gave it an oily texture overall.
Snow pea tip with garlic. A close second behind dish after the black pepper beef. The garlic was soft and did not have that strong pungent taste. It was a bit too watery but something I could live with.
Pan fried house chicken and spareribs, which contains among other things, black fungus, Chinese sausage and some other vegetables. While the idea of the dish was good; how it was prepared was bad. Here, the chicken pieces were cut so small that you couldn’t distinguish the bone pieces from the chicken meat pieces. I easily bit over the bone chunks a couple of times while trying to eat it.
Finally, for dessert, something that Chinese is not that well known for, we had red bean soup. No pictures of it, though.
To close, readers of this blog have noticed that I do not make comments regarding price (unless it is a really good deal or a total rip-off) or service. Hey, there is a reason why I called this blog the way it is called! So why bring it up now? While Chinese restaurants here are not known for service, I did not expect things to be that bad this time. How so? We were seated in a corner next to a table where they have some table clothes. Given they had to walk by a couple of times, we had to end up seated in an odd arrangement to let them go through. That’s something I can live with. What I can’t live with was the fact it took over 25 minutes for the black pepper beef to arrive after the spareribs dish was served! In the meantime, another table (party of 10) which came easily over 30 minutes after we ordered but ordered pricier dishes (read: Alaska king crab, if memory serves me right, at $12/pound) was served ahead of us. Even if the food had been more passable, I wouldn’t have mind. But overall it did not. As a result, this is not a place I will suggest in any way. Thumbs way down…
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I used to go to this restaurant a long time ago when it was a Schzewan place. It’s gone through a few changes since then. I guess I won’t be going there anytime soon. I hate bad service, even if it’s a Chinese restaurant. Why pay money for that? Yes, those spareribs look like they’ve been fried to a crisp. Don’t you love how Chinese restaurants fry everything as a shortcut? I guess they want to be fast. I once cooked a meal at my friend’s Chinese restaurant. It’s so much different from cooking at home. I literally fried everything first before stir-frying. Oil on top of oil on top of oil! I loved the high-powered woks though!
oh i’m sorry to hear about the service in this restaurant :/ and yes, i have a little prejudice against going to chinese restaurants, too, because my mother is an INCREDIBLY fabulous cook, and if i wanted authentic, delicious chinese, i’d go home!
Pearl, there is no need to feel sorry. This is one of those things I knew would go through when I started this! ^_^ I also have the same problem as you, if I want really good Chinese food, it is mom’s cooking. However, I don’t live anywhere near her so that is not really an option…
Sherman, if you are going to a fast-food type Chinese (like Kent’s Kitchen as we have mentioned in the past), frying and then stir-frying would be an acceptable shortcut. However, in an actual sit-down restaurant, that is not. In there, as you mentioned, you are paying $$$ for your meal and the cooks must be able to show his/her skills, specifically, the wok hei part.
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