The One Restaurant

The One Restaurant
5908 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

On Tuesday’s “bonus” post, I showed some pictures of “interesting” dishes and hinted they will be for next week. I am sure some of you suspect what is coming but (and probably) overstating the obvious, yes, I was out of town. OK, let me rephrase that: I was out of the country/North America. But, as usual, there is that “last meal” concept, a place you might want to visit before leaving town. In my case, there was no particular reason for going out and getting something to eat (which, by now is not necessarily and excuse). Instead, I was too lazy to do dishes and throw the garbage afterwards… So, in this instance of laziness, I chose to visit one place that I suggested Anita the day we ended up going to Burgoo: The One Restaurant (TOR), which is a fork of a Burnaby favourite – Lao Shan Dong (LSD). The question is of course whether it lives up to its roots…

If you don’t know this area of Burnaby, you might easily (and I do emphasize on the easily part) drive by without noticing it. That is because it is in the far end of a strip mall barely east of the Kingsway/Imperial intersection and not that visible within the normal visual angle (unless, of course, you are looking that way). If you drive eastbound and are already driving by a Wendy’s, you are already too far. Probably the best landmark (current, as of the date this post goes live) might be the Blockbuster, i.e., drive as if you were going to Blockbuster and you should be good.

Upon entering, it is really noticeable the emphasis given to decoration. I mean, this is not your old school noodle shop where there could be a mismatch of tables and/or chairs. In this case, they seem to have spent a decent amount of money trying to make more modern, as if they were trying to catch up to newer restaurants (compared to LSD). While this is all good, I encountered a major problem: the tables (or at least the one I was seated) are not for somebody of my size. As a reminder, in terms of Chinese born people, I am fairly above average sized, and, after I was seated, I felt the table was at least 5 cm higher than it should be. I don’t want to imagine how it would be for somebody more “average” (Chinese-wise), given that it is that the population the restaurant supposedly caters. Of course, I am not sure if it was that specific table I ran into this problem but, given the layout, a visual inspection tells me the tables are about the same height…

But, enough about decoration, I was there for the food! Upon checking the menu, once again, it is obvious that TOR is also trying to expand their menu. No longer limited to appetizer dishes, boiled dumplings and noodles. Now, they have full plates, including fried items, rice dishes and so on. Again, I might be overstating the obvious but they could be aiming to the likes of Beefy Beef, No 1 Beef Noodle and so on. So, while I wanted to compare their beef noodle against is parent LSD, I also wanted some dishes that were not available previously there. And, given that I needed some sort of comparison, I started off with…

Their Salty Deep Fried Chicken Nuggets. I am not sure about those who grew up in North America but I did not grew up eating chicken nuggets. In fact, I never grasped the concept of eating boneless chicken meat, specially considering that the best parts are the dark pieces with the bone. Furthermore, if it was chicken, it was supposed to be an actual *real* piece of chicken. As a result, I had mixed feelings ordering it. However, what was served was actually better than the name of the dish. Here, there are pieces of chicken dark meat, dusted with flour or (most likely) corn starch and fried lightly. No, it wasn’t raw, rather, it wasn’t as crispy as you could find in a lot of other places. Instead, it was still quite juicy inside. While the fried Thai basil provided a different note, a little bit of peppery tones would have helped, as well as a wedge of lime/lemon. One thing that I must admit I was really surprised was the portion size: given the price, this could be easily shared between two (or even three) as an appetizer!

As mentioned above, I wanted to try their beef noodle to compare it against LSD and that’s exactly what I ordered. Not sure if there was a lost-in-translation here but I asked it spicy. Unless I have become more spice tolerant in the last couple of weeks, I barely detected any spiciness. I did sweat a little bit; however, it might be due to the fact I did not remove my jacket after walking in and/or because the soup was hot (temperature-wise). From a noodles perspective, they are about the same, i.e., with some bite and stretchiness, though I noticed the exterior didn’t have the same starchy feeling as the last time I was in LSD (which was around January). The beef was also similar, though it seems the pieces were cut somewhat smaller (and might have fewer pieces than LSD). Under normal circumstances, I don’t have preference for one or the other; however, when it comes to stewed/braised-like meats, I prefer a more decent size cuts than smaller sizes. Furthermore, they held back somewhat in the pickled mustard. And, finally, the broth…

In the past, I quite like to go to LSD, mainly because some of the competition had some hell of an issue with parking (No 1 Beef comes to mind). However, that was also because I preferred their broth over the ones from the beef noodle competition, as it had a strong, savoury taste. However, in the case of TOR, it had a slight sweet taste… Now, it was good in its own ways; however, my preference here is for that stronger, more savoury taste instead. As a result, I found it not as enticing…

One thing that LSD did decently was service speed. Though a lot of people will accuse them of being too rustic (i.e., providing only the basic), at least, things will come quite fast compared to other restaurants. Then again, it is a smaller restaurant. However, things here took forever to come and, a lot of times, timing was particularly bad. For example, after I finished my meal, I had to flag several waiters/waitresses before I was given the bill. At that moment, there were only six tables occupied… And, the worst happened to the table next to mine, were customer A was given his order (a meal with the before mentioned chicken nuggets) but his partner didn’t get his order (a rice bowl with Chinese sausages) until easily 10 minutes later. I know this is no Western restaurant where timing has a greater deal and everybody is served (almost) at the same time but, at least, 10 minutes wait is simply not acceptable.

In a way, given its LSD background, I had some high expectations and they couldn’t deliver. From the noodle side, I would rather go back to LSD. From the other dishes perspective, it looked quite good but, depending if I am going by myself or with others, it might be a bit of a coin flip (specially if people are ordering different type of dishes, which might drag the others down).

Tagged under: Burnaby • Chicken • Chinese • Late Night • Noodles • Soup