Walked by this unassuming restaurant in Prince Edward and then I caught a glimpse of the stickers on their front door that proudly boast their 2012 and 2013 Michelin guide listing. As I stood there looking at the pictures and menu, a ton of people entered the restaurant for dinner, so we decided to see what all the fuss was about. Who would have known that there would be a previously Michelin rated restaurant right down the street from where we were staying?
Restaurant is small and the tables are pretty tiny. If you come alone or with a friend, chances are you'll probably get seated at a table with another party. Menu is fairly simple - this place is known for their "superior" steamed rice rolls, and while the average place usually only has bbq pork, shrimp, and beef, this place has fish, duck, and pork liver rice rolls. They're also pretty popular for their steamed turnip cake and vegetable pork bone congee.
The congee w/ dried vegetables, dried duck kidney, and salty pork bones was proclaimed to be super healthy and tasty. But when it arrived, the color of the porridge looked quite unappealing, and the taste was not there. It was a bit too bland, and only when soy sauce was added did the overall taste improve.
For their popular rice rolls - are they worth the Michelin star? Well, my opinion probably isn't worth anything, but I do think the rice rolls were tasty and comparable to the ones at Tim Ho Wan (and cheaper than THW's, too!).
-Beef rice roll was my favorite. Smooth and thin outer layering with good flavor and a good amount of beef inside. The sweet soy sauce also added a nice flavor to the overall dish.
-Shrimp rice roll. This was typical. Not the biggest fan of shrimp, but my sister thought it was pretty tasty.
-Pork liver rice roll ... I don't recommend this. We probably should have stuck with duck. This lacked flavor and didn't have too much ingredients. I think we all thought the pork liver was too dry and tasteless, so when eating it with the rice roll, we wouldn't have known if there was filling inside or not if we hadn't already seen it.
We also ordered a dish of steamed gailan since we needed vegetable sustenance. This dish was fresh, super green, and tasty.
We were in and out of this place within 30 minutes. While we were eating, we saw a number of people ask if there were seats available. This place does get busy so it's pretty much luck if you'll come at a good time with open seats.
tl;dr - For the price and the taste, I would say this was a decent meal. I think we ordered the wrong things and should have tried the turnip cake, spare ribs and rice, and the duck rice roll instead. But what we ordered ... it wasn't too bad. read more