While moving can be slog of packing, chaos, expenses, and yet more, endless packing, one of the fun…read morethings about moving to a new-to-you area is discovering what's in the neighbourhood. The main highlights of living in the Sullivan's Pond/Lake Banook area are readily apparent - the water, parks, trails, and nice houses - but sometimes you have to dig under the surface to know, oh, there's a food truck lot randomly on Prince Albert.
One of those trucks is the pun-fully named Canton-Ease, and I had them in my sights while knees-deep in cardboard boxes and looking for a quick and, dare I say, easy dinner.
Being a food truck, Canton-Ease's menu is much more compact than its brick and mortar forefathers, although that's not a bad thing. Another mark in the 'pros' column was the appearance of some legit Chinese dishes amongst the usual suspects.
Ordering online is smooth , either through their own website's platform for pick-up or UberEats if you want delivery. I wasn't quite so tired from unpacking that I wanted to unnecessarily line Uber's pockets, so I did the pick-up myself.
We started things off with the pan-fried dumplings. Takeout containers aren't the best friend of a food like this, but they still had some crispness by the time we got to them, and they had that great classic, dumpling flavour of pork and chives.
I was very happy to see mapo tofu on the menu, and all the more so when I tried it. Even the Chinese places that have this on their menus often pull their punches a bit, but Canton-Ease's had a deep, rich flavour profile with spicy pops of chili, a little bit of funk from the mushrooms, and a hint of Sichuan peppercorn tingle. Together with the silky chunks of tofu and savoury bits of pork, this was an excellent map tofu!
We had to get some noodles, and opted for the Singapore vermicelli, subbing in additional BBQ pork for the shrimp. While the noodles were broader than expected - more like a pho noodle - the curry flavour and crisp contrast of the veg made for a tasty dish nonetheless.
Being the responsible adults that we are, we didn't completely forsake the Canada Food Guide, and ordered the stir-fried mix veg to get some much-needed green onto our plates. Tender-crisp chunks of broccoli, baby bok choy, mushrooms, carrots, bean sprouts and snow peas helped brighten up our plates and lighten our gluttonous guilt.
Once we were more settled into the house, I made my way back to Canton-Ease for a lazy meal while my wife was out of town for work.
The order was smaller this time, of course, but I did over-order ever-so-slightly so that my wife would have some leftovers to greet her when she got home the following night. Take notes, boys.
I went for the boiled dumplings this time, figuring that they'd fare better as takeout than fried stuff does, and for my main I chose the Shanghai noodles. In a moment of weakness that I'll chalk up to culinary curiosity and not at all greediness, I tacked on a lone egg roll.
The dumplings were expertly wrapped, with the supple wrapper perfectly hugging the juicy pork and cabbage filling. Dipped in some chili crisp, these were *chef's kiss*
Not to be outdone, the egg roll was definitely made in-house, and leaned toward the "meat paste" style that used to be quite common in Halifax, but it still maintained some granular texture to the meat, and a rich, warm blend of seasoning further enhanced an egg roll that frankly puts its many cabbage-heavy competitors to shame.
I love noodles of nearly any form, but the extra-thick ones in Shanghai noodles are always extra fun to slurp down. Once again, Canton-Ease's quality ingredients helped them stand out amongst the crowd, with the shiitake mushrooms bringing more to the table than their button cousins, and the rich, just-salty-enough-but-not-too-salty sauce gently coated every bite.
While I didn't move to the Sullivan's Pond/Lake Banook area because it has a food truck lot, it *is* a nice little perk, and we'll definitely be ordering from Canton-Ease as long as they're our neighbours.
