Ottawa Foodies

I ate here for the first time this past Monday. Being Chinese, I would think I have a palate for this type of cuisine. It was very good!

I don't really know what we ordered since Mom does the ordering in such restos but this is what I recall:

- I think one dish was called 8 Treasures and was a hot pot comprised of tofu and veggies. SO yummy!

- One dish was sole on a bed of Chinese greens. It was very delish and beautifully plated. The main pieces of sole were so tender. I wasn't so crazy about the fried pieces which bordered the plate.

- A third dish was eggplant stuffed shrimp (one of my favourites). This resto did a pretty good one. The dish was a bit hot (temperature-wise) but the shrimp stuffing was really good!

- Lastly, we had a veggie dish (a root vegetable you don't typically find in other Chinese restos here). The dish was okay but not my fave.

All and all, delicious food (minus the complementary red bean soup dessert -- which is usually one of my faves but it wasn't very good here)!

This is the only Chinese resto I know of which has private dining rooms. For those who have been to China, restaurants there are always on a scale of real grandeur and flash which always have private rooms for large groups. Sea King is trying to offer this to its clientele. Good to know the option exists. I think they may be equipped with karaoke as well.

Tonite we had dinner in this restaurant at the first time. We ordered Meal D (see below) plus Fujin fried rice.
- crab meat soup
- seafood/vegetables
- fish (steam)
- lobster
After we asked for the bill, we were given red bean soup as dessert.
Overall, the dishes were above-average. The only critics (which I hope would turn to be future improvements) were:
- crab meat soup contained a bit more flour
- fish was a bit overcooked
- red bean soup was not sweet enough
I sincerely hope that the owner will keep improving the food quality/choices; there is no doubt that this place will become a famous food place among the locals.
If you plan to have dinner here after 6 PM during the weekend, you would better make reservation in advance. There are just about 20 tables in total... the seats are filled fast!

I was first brought to this place in February. Although it is located in the basement, the restaurant looks bright, neat, and clean; especially when you compare it with those in Chinatown. There are a few VIP rooms offering flat-screen TVs, which I think would be best for family and friends gathering. In terms of dim sums, I would give 7/10, not because of the quality, but food choices. I am looking forward to trying more kinds such as Shanghai dumplings in future. The prices are reasonable... if you compare this place with Mandarin Olgivy, the lunch will cost you much less here. Personally I rank this restaurant above-average, and it has been the "canteen" of my family lately :)

Da Butcher, you'd probably be hard-pressed to find any restaurant that has never had a patron become ill. Heck, I even made a half-hearted attempt to revisit The Works this weekend past (bailed due to wait time). ;-)

I cant belive you would even consider going back to that poison pit after being sooo sick!! Your crazy Ashley!

After dance practice in Barhaven last week, my friends suggested to have late night snacks. A friend suggested New Hong Shing, vendor 661 (her husband likes their version of General Tao Chicken and their fried noodles very much). Another friend said that they just had dinner there and didn't want to go there again for late night snacks. So, the majority voted for Sea King due to the location and the menu variety of their late night snacks there. (My friend told me that they had dinners there couple times and didn't get sick. So we should try again.)

I was not hungry. But I don't mind having congee and some stir-fried noodles. So, we ordered the following late night snacks (small portion at lower price around $3.50, just for taste) to share:

- A bowl of congee with fresh fish fillet ($3.50 per bowl?)
- A bowl of congee with Pork and preserved egg (but they made a mistake and gave us congee with Seafood). That was fine to us.
- Stir-fried noodles with bean sprout
- Choy-Sum with olyster sauce
- Deep-fried tofu
- Sesame chicken (cold plate)
- Pork slices (cold plate)

The congee was very good, better than the one I tried at Jo Moon Ting (vendor 1316). The stir-fried noodles were also quite tasty. Tofu was standard. Pork slices were also good. Now I tried their Sesame chicken, I won't order this dish again.

The price for the above food was $30. So, it was quite reasonable.

Ashley, I'm glad you're feeling better. What you describe sounds a lot like the symptoms of salmonella poisoning. In 2005, I experienced the same thing you did after eating an undercooked turkey burger at The Works in Westboro. It was a very unpleasant week. I emailed The Works to tell them what happened but never heard back.

en.wikipedia.org

Did you call the restaurant to tell them about this? Since they're quite new they might still be ironing out wrinkles in their food safety practices.

I have finally regained my strength to sit in front of my computer after having diarrhea for 5 nights. The good side of the problem is that I lost 6 pounds.

After the “happy meal” dinner with our friends at Sea King, I returned to this place with my family for a family dinner few days later. I just wanted to try their dinner menu.

We ordered the following:
- Peking duck (3 separate dishes were made out of one duck – one with thin slices of duck skin; one with the duck’s bones to make a soup; and one with the duck meat, stir-fried with veggie) - $32
- Chinese style beef slices (sweet and sour kind)
- Soya sauce shrimps
- Stir-fried choy-sum

The Peking duck was alright and the duck skin was roasted to have a very good shiny brown color. We ordered the whole duck. But only few duck skin slices were put on the plate. Last time during our group dinner, I already got the impression that this restaurant gives a smaller portion of food for more profit (remember I said I was still hungry after the dinner?). The few duck skin slices we got were just a “ripoff”.

Traditionally, the BBQ duck is carved in front of the diners. They didn’t do this and just delivered the few duck skin slices to our table. The steamed pancake used to wrap the skin was definitely those frozen ones that I can buy from 168 Market (you just reheat in the microwave.)

After we ate the duck skin slices, we were served the soup (small size) from the duck bones. The soup tasted good. The chef put some watercress into the soup along with few small-sized tofu cubes. I picked up the tofu and put them in my mouth. I realized that the tofu had gone really bad and had to spit it out immediately (can’t remember if I ate any). My son’s girlfriend also picked up one or two tofu cubes. I wasn’t happy that bad tofu was served in the soup. I didn’t bother telling the server that the tofu had gone bad already (should have done that). My husband and my sons didn’t eat any of the tofu (thank God for this).

After the soup, all the dishes we ordered along with the stir-fried duck meat shreds arrived on our table. The stir-fried duck meat was the best since it was spicy enough to ignite my appetite and I gave 4 stars out of 5 for that dish. But both the soy sauce shrimps and the beef were a disappointment (I gave 1.5 stars out of 5 for these two dishes). The beef meat was of poor quality. Too much baking powder used to soften the meat texture. The choy sum was okay (3 out of 5). So, 2 dishes out of 5 were below average and the soup had spoiled tofu.

The cost of the dinner was $90 after tax and tip ($18 per person). Price was reasonable.

Unfortunately, that night I went home, I had fever in the middle of my sleep, followed by abdominal cramps, followed by diarrhea. My fever had gone up to 101 degree Fahrenheit for 2 days. But my diarrhea situation was getting worst and I had diarrhea every one or 2 hours for few days. After the diarrhea stopped, abdominal cramps continued. I was very miserable resting in bed for my holidays (for my 2 weeks of holidays, one week was spent in bed). Unluckily, my son’s girlfriend had the same symptoms as mine after the dinner. She had vomiting on top of her diarrhea and abdominal cramps.

I don’t know if this was food poisoning or stomach flu. I can’t say for sure that my diarrhea was due to the food I ate at Sea King. But if I was the only one in the family who got sick that night, the probability of food poisoning was 50%. Now that 2 out of 5 people got sick on the same night and at the same time, the probability becomes 75%!

This is going to be an interesting discussion!

- If you do a Google search on "shark fin seafood restaurant", you will find many occurrences. Most of the Chinese restaurants specialized in sea food dishes like to call themselves "shark fin seafood" restaurants. This is a common naming practice traditionally.

- As FF indicates, shark fins have very little flavor of their own. It is more in their texture and the fin's ability to absorb flavors from other soup ingredients (I think a soup base is very important for a shark's fins soup.) More importantly, it is expensive! The high price of the soup means that it is often used as a way to impress guests during wedding banquets or special occasions. I am not a fan of shark fin soup. But I don't mind eating it during special occasions once a year though.

- Quite interesting to read this from Wikipedia article on Shark Fin soup:
"NBA All-Star Yao Ming pledged to stop eating shark fin soup at a news conference on August 2, 2006. ... Ironically, one of the items on Yao Ming's wedding dinner menu was shark fin soup..."
en.wikipedia.org

flyfish, I agree that this restaurant has an unfortunate name. However, you'll find that most of the better Chinese restaurants in Ottawa offer shark fin soup. Aside from the name this place is no different in that respect.

I agree that the harvesting methods for shark fins range from wasteful to horrific. The thing I don't get is that shark fin soup is basically a gelatinous and pretty bland concoction. From a foodie perspective it's a waste of calories and you'd be much better off ordering one of the other very tasty (and much cheaper) soup options.

As far as I can tell, the love of shark fin soup is based on culture and tradition rather than any conscious enjoyment of the flavour. It's a bit like those things we eat on certain days that taste like crap but are part of our traditions or heritage: candy canes, Christmas pudding, dry turkey, cinnamon hearts, Big Macs, Tim Hortons donuts, etc. ;-)

This was the Sweet Red Bean Soup with purple rice. A typical dessert in a Chinese restaurant. The chef added purple rice to the sweet red bean soup. We all like it!

Note: Somehow all my Canadian friends do not like this dessert so much.