ottawa foodies

I've never tried real Chinese food before, I've only had the Chinese-Canadian sweet and sour stuff..

I'd love to try some real authentic Chinese food in a clean restaurant at a good price, but does this exist in Ottawa? Does anyone know a good restaurant?

Thanks!

Hi kate1! The short answer is that there are no truly authentic Chinese restaurants in Ottawa (any Chinese person will tell you that the nearest authentic place is in Hong Kong, or at the very least Toronto). The longer answer is that you can do much better than the chow mein, lemon chicken, guy ding, chicken ball stuff...

We have two separate tags here for Chinese-ish food:

* Chinese-Canadian ottawafoodies.com/tag/97
* Chinese ottawafoodies.com

The pure "Chinese" tag is the one that will get you closest to what you seek. Within that set, I'd suggest browsing the reviews and looking at the ratings. Most of them are in Chinatown. Mandarin Ogilvie is in the east end, New Hong Shing is in Nepean, and Fortune Express is in Kanata. I really like Fortune Express for a number of reasons and I think it would be a great introduction to more authentic food. It's clean too, which is a bonus! There are lots of great food photos, mostly from Ashley, for that place: ottawafoodies.com/vendor/308

HI kate 1. I hardly have the idea about the Chinese hotels in Ottawa. But yes i can explain you about the quality of the Chinese food and its taste. well i believe that Chinese food is a real good food to eat.
because it is healthy and testy too.
it is made up of the whole wheat. No additional thing is added in it. which makes it healthy. As well as it contain the semi boiled vegetables which are too good for the health.
Apart from that. the Chinese food is so yummy and testy.
i simply love Chinese food.
i like many dishes in the Chinese food which are world famous like as
hakka noodles, choumin, chilly chicken, chicken lolypop. and the list is so long.
Its a good and yummy food at glance.

You can always ask around as well (within the Chinese community). There used to be a fast food chinese place in the Park Lane mall in Halifax that would make real chinese food on request even though it was not on the menu.

ottawa has no real/good/kinda-good chinese food. however, i'm new in town. been here for 4 months. had dimsum at the two places so far on summerset just west of bronson. downright wrong. so far, ottawa's food is making me sad. i hope to turn this around. my apologies to everyone if i've offended yous.

If that's true, why is it that there is no authentic Chinese food here? Is it access to ingredients? That would be surprising in this day and age. Many years ago a Chinese friend of mine and his family (from HK) took me out to Fuliwah (don't think it exists anymore). The restaurant was full of Chinese people and they sure as heck were not eating sweet and sour chicken balls. Is there some 'third cuisine' filling the void between 'authentic Chinese food' and the North American version? My limited understanding is that Chinese food is pretty regional (like Italian), so I don't know how this might play into it.

I'd like to think that Northern Han is pretty authentic. Just my 2 cents!

I've been to a few Chinese Restaraunts in Ottawa that have a seperate menu in just Chinese or have a 'Specials' sign listed only in Chinese.

Jadeland 9Jadeland) and Royal Treasure (Royal Treasure) and Mays Garden (May's Garden) come to mind.

Are there 'Real Chinese Food' dishes promoted to just people that can read Chinese ?

Captain C - You might be on to something... I've always wondered this myself. I used to frequent a restaurant in the west end that specialised in Canadian-Chinese food, and I thought the food there was great. The place was packed with Asian-Canadians, and as someone once told me that is always a good sign. Anyhow, they had a practice at this restaurant of having a "Specials" board in Chinese... and I can tell you that what the Easterners were eating looked nothing like what the Westerners were having. I always wrote it off as a case of "you wouldn't understand" (like turtle soup or such). But maybe it really is just one culinary style vs another... true Chinese vs Canadian Chinese being served under one roof... with none the wiser.

Close to 20 yrs ago, I had a close friend who fled China during the Tiananmen protests and found himself in Toronto w/ little money but many social connections. He brought me to a food court (basement of Dundas and Spadina ... i think now closed) and pointing to one of the cooks at one of the dingier stalls, explained he used to be one of the top chefs in the Party. Aside from the political-economy of immigration, the other lesson i took away from that was that good Chinese food lurks in lots of places. And, as my friend reinforced over and over, the best way to discover it is to make friends w/ people of Chinese descent and get invited to their home (or out to dinner w/ them).

As a tangent, how does one go about defining "authentic" cuisine anyway? What are the defining characteristics of a food or taste that's authentically [fill in blank]? For example, must it be recognized as such by members of that same community (nationality / ethnicity / language group)? Is it something your mom cooked? Is it something recognized by the Chinese Communist party (or other officialdom)? How many generations does it take for a given dish or taste to become "authentic"? Is authenticity like a set of russian dolls ... e.g., dependent on who's doing the defining / tasting? (i'm falling asleep at work ... :)

ha, ha, the dingy place in the food court on the lower level sounds exactly like the place in halifax !

My friend discovered the "secret menu" when one day he saw someone eating something that looked really good, so he went over and asked him which menu item it was. That's when he found out it was from the 'secret menu' - and you had to know what to ask for.

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AH HA !!!!
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So there are 'Secret Menus' in Chinese.

Maybe listing Braised Pig Uterus (see picture) on the English menu may turn us Westerns off.

You sure that picture isn't Kraft dinner? Looks a bit like mac and cheese to me (with the white cheese).

Yes.... it does look like Kraft's White Mac and Cheese. It must be the cutting up and braising that made it look like this.

I've actually seen raw pig uterus before (in a Chinese Grocery here in Ottawa) and this is the real deal. The container I saw looked like this picture.

I'm sure there are other dishes that would not be popular with Western culture.

good to see the Captain made it back from boozefest in one piece. This thread was aching for some good photos. :)

Speaking of such.... Is it legal to serve dog here in Canada like in Guangzhou ?

Who says what meats are legal and what ones are not ?

Maybe dog appears on those "Secret Menus".

Altough I did have 'Elephant Nose Soup' once, I never tried preserved dog meat ..... yet. (see picture)

so, how is the dog flattened like that? (I'm vegetarian, but curious as to the technical details.)

They must dry this dog in a similar manor of making the dried duck.

They remove the guts, feathers(fur), and bones leaving just the meat, skin and remaining bits to dry.

The picture is of dried ducks. Ther are very common in our Chinese grocery stores here in Ottawa.

But I still want to know if it is illegal to eat dog here.

Cap'n, according to wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) it's legal as long as the dog is killed and gutted in front of federal inspectors. Not sure how you might arrange for that though...

New User 1130, no comment, except to say that whole wheat and Chinese food have about as much to do with each other as soy sauce and German food. :-)

What exactly is authentic Chinese food... as a Chinese person myself, I don't know the answer to this question? I don't think there's really an answer. There are "traditional" Chinese dishes, but authentic, I guess, would be using Chinese techniques with Chinese ingredients? So... I guess there are a lot of authentic Chinese restaurants in Ottawa... meh... just my two cents... just don't order chicken balls...

"peterrabbit" comment about Chinese food in Ottawa is quite true. This is why we often go to Toronto to eat better Chinese food. (I still have more photos I took from Toronto.)

But I do recommend Mandarin Ogilvie to you to try out. The food there is not bad. You can try their version of Thai style fried shrimps. Don't forget to order Char Siu (BBQ pork) there. They have hired the barbecue chef from Jo Moon Ting (Jo Moon Ting ). Too bad for Jo Moon Ting!

For each Chinese restaurant in Ottawa, you got to know what dish the chef is good at and you make your menu selection accordingly. For example, when you go to Yangtze, you order their fried Lobster with ginger and shallot (Yangtze). When you go to Chu Shing, you order their BBQ chicken (Chu Shing). When you go to Fortune Express, you order their crispy beef with sesame seeds (Fortune Express ).

Caption Caper, the Chinese restaurants you recommended (Jadeland, Royal Treasure, Mays Garden) have been deleted from my list. LOL.

I really like Oriental House on Elgin. Some things are hit and miss (egg rolls, spring rolls), but others are fabulous, especially the one of the ginger dishes, with huge pieces of ginger, served in broth. And the spicy crispy beef, which at times is spicier than it is crispy.

I recently was at Jadeland and they definitely have an extra menu I couldn't read--I don't do mandarin or cantonese! The specials on the board were in english and Chinese. My Asian friends like Jo Moon Ting, Jadeland and Fortune Express in Kanata. I like to try authentic but being a victim of north american style Chinese food I still like lemon chicken...sorry....

Here is one of Brother Wu's (Brother Wu ) 'secret' menu.

Can anyone please translate parts of this. Any really interesting dishes like 'snake eggs' or 'moth wings' ?

Here is another one of Brother Wu's (Brother Wu ) 'secret' menus.

I wonder if there is any 'elephant nose' soup on this one ?

To read it more clearly here it is here ---> www.brotherwu.com

never order a set meal written in english.
i also cannot imagine what "orange chicken" would be (brother wu's menu)
scary!

Brother Wu is run by Taiwanese folks as far as I know. My wife is Taiwanese and thats the impression I got when she was speaking with them... I don't understand a word they say :-)

Orange chicken is just tenderized chicken with orange zest and vegies. Kinda tastey, not authentic.

Oh... and if you really want is translated, I can ask my wife.