This past Canada Day weekend, my visiting family and I went off in search of nostalgia and old…read morefriends to BC. In this search, it entailed a stop to Castlegar, home of the impressively multi-award winning Chopsticks japanese and chinese restaurant. In fact, you can't possibly miss that fact, as award upon award certificates for the last 5 years are proudly displayed at the front entry. With that in mind, it was time to try the food.
Now, the resto itself in terms of appearance and decor is probably a little schizophrenic. Think modern Canadian meets chinese meets sushi bar, and you might probably come close to the actual look. A huge wooden dancing fish awaited the entering clientele (I scared a small kid by telling him that the fish was alive and was so big because he ate kids) while the attractive young waitresses in traditional chinese chungsams (I have no idea what's the actual english word for those dresses are) would then meet, greet and promptly seat. Four in all at that moment, they were attentive, pleasant, and quick on the ball, a good sign for any resto as good service is always a plus.
Now, I can't vouch for the Japanese sushi personally as I didn't get a chance to try them out, but I can say that the chinese part was bang on and authentic as you can find in any major city chinatown, which for a town like Castlegar in the middle of the Kootenay Rockies region was fairly impressive.
The first dish wasn't really my own cup of tea, a soup with chinese herbs, pork bones and tongue, was unusually unexpected to find in Castlegar. Heck, it'll be unusual to find anywhere outside of HK, Vancouver or Toronto. It was ok to me, but my gal noted that it had quite a delicate flavour, and the use of tongue as opposed to say stewed pork cubes or sirloin. In fact, she especially notes that it was very tender and flavourful.
The next dish, a simple cold chopped slow poached chicken, served with an onion, ginger and oil sauce is considered to be a classic of Chinese cuisine. It's deceptively simple, as it's actually not that easy to get the chicken quite right. Poached too long, and the meat becomes an unusual mix of rubber pieces. Poached too short, and it becomes a simple raw chunk of meat. So the fact that it was done quite right and tender is definately a sign of an accomplished cook. The ginger onion sauce was also nicely seasoned right, just the right level of salt to match the chicken.
A plate of stir-fried Veggies with Shrimp and Scallops then followed. Again, nice, simple yet delicious with rice. What then followed was a bit of a surprise, a large omelet plate. Both were well done, and were a simple addition to complete the meal to satisfaction.
So in the end, a good authentic chinese dinner with great service outside of a major city. Go figure. But from what I had the opportunity to enjoy, the awards are well earned.
