ottawa foodies

I came to Yangtze with my husband and toddler looking to try their dinner combination but the $33 one is only available Monday to Thursday. We settled on the $38 dinner for two: hot and sour soup, 2 pork spring rolls, Yang Chow Fried Rice, General Tao chicken and spicy beef with mixed vegetables.

Overall, it was good. I am not sure how authentic the hot and sour soup was. It had shrimps, chucks of pork and a reddish due as the tofu looked...dyed. It tasted hot and sour.

The pork spring roll was drenched in oil. We soaked it out with our napkins.

The General Tao chicken tasted good.

The spicy beef was tasty and mostly Szechuan style although it did have a fair share of canned vegetables. Fresh veggies would have been great given that this was the only dish with vegetables.

This came with almond cookies and fortune cookies.

It was fine but not great. I will refer to my last post on Oriental Chu Shing across the street and claim it currently has the more authentic and less greasy Chinese menu.

Here is a picture if the beef rice rolls.

It's really hit or miss at this place. I have not been here got years as I was quite disappointed the last couple of times. My friend and I decided to recheck it out for dim sum recently and were pleasantly surprised.

Everything was fresh and warm and not too salty or gooey. Pictures is the pork Siu Mai (steamed dumplings). We also had the steamed rice rolls with beef (ok, not the best rolls but met my craving and warm with a sweet soy sauce and not a lot of oil), steamed beef ribs, BBQ pork bun, ha gao (shrimp dumplings), pan fried dumplings, sticky rice (huge with ok filling of pork and Chinese sausage) and a side of Chinese greens (ordered separately). Unfortunately, they ran out of egg tarts early on.

I'll come back to see if it is always like this now.

Went with a group of 9 friends to Yangtze this morning at 10:30am. I was a bit apprehensive bringing all my buddies out after read some poor reviews, but I had worried for naught! The food was all hot, fresh and really tasty. We might've gone a bit overboard ordering a first, but we ended up trying lots of pork buns, shrimp buns, pastries, short ribs, etc. I found everything to be lovely, including the sesame and coconut balls we had for dessert. For 9 people, the bill came to around $100, and we were all stuffed. To be fair, it was 7 ladies and 2 men, so we potentially ate less than a group of boys might've.... still, we were all jazzed to see how low the bill was after the food we had!

Would definitely return. The restaurant got CRAZY around 11:30am, as others have pointed out, if you go early to beat the after-church rush, you'll be happier! We got served maybe first or second as the carts left the kitchen. I'd definitely return quite happily.

We went with the family for dim sum late on Sunday (1pm). It emptied out quickly after we arrived, but all the regular items were availble. Food was great, and I left overly full since the kids didn't eat much. My wife who can't eat gluten ordered thai red chicken curry and it was both huge and tasty. We weren't expecting to get anything gluten free here but were told many items could be made gluten free. (obviously regular dim sum items are not gluten free).

My visit in February last year pre-dated the most recent review here but that was a *very* negative one, so I thought I would share my experience...

Overall: I have read a few bad reviews of this place but I liked it on the whole. I had a fairly nice dining experience and a couple of pretty decent dishes. My only disappointment was that items I had wanted to try and had seen on their online menus were not available at lunchtime when I visited. I will definitely go back to sample some of their other offerings.

Dishes: Steamed Squid and Steamed Beef Rib

Rating: 3 stars

My more detailed review can be read here: sybaritica.me

Was recently there for non-dim-sum for the first time in ages. I don't see it on their on-line menu, but I'm pretty sure that one of the things we had was sea cucumber and mushrooms in oyster sauce. (Other people did the ordering; I just sat back and watched.)

It was pretty darn good. Strike sea cucumber off my list! Like so many things, sea cucumber is a vehicle for texture, and doesn't really have a flavour on its own.

I totally agree, this is why I will give it another chance. I saw people eating fantastic looking dishes.

ilikerealfood, on your next visit I recommend trying one of the dishes that people here have enjoyed before. A quick search (ottawafoodies.com) indicates that nobody other than you has reported sampling Yangtze's Kung Po Chicken.

According to wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) Yangtze's version of the dish combines traditional Sichuan features (more expensive cashews as an option in place of peanuts) with westernized characteristics like leaving out the Szechuan peppercorns.

So, yeah, try another menu item next time. There are no good restaurants -- only good dishes. :-)

I've been wanting to try this place out for a while. The reviews on this site seem pretty consistent so, I thought I was in for a treat. Unfortunately my experience was a huge flop. This is not to say I will not try this place again, but I ordered the wrong thing and it was totally disappointing in almost every way.

To make matters worse I saw people around me enjoying amazing looking dim sum, and pretty snazzy Chinese dishes. First of all, I noticed that the menu was huge and for many of the dishes, there is no description of what the dish entails. Being cautious, I ordered something I have eaten many times before. It was a toss up between General Tao and Kung Po Chicken. I decided to go for the Kung Po.

While ordering there were serious communication issues. I ordered the kung po and I was asked if I wanted rice. The problem was that the waitress spoke with such broken English that I couldn't understand what she was saying. After a few tries I finally understood. I didn't need rice, but I was worried that the dish might be small and rice would be necessary. So I asked how small the Kung Po chicken would be, the waitress motioned that it would be no larger than the size of her hand. In retrospect I realize she didn't understand me and was showing me how big the rice was. Oh well.

As a starter I ordered a veggie spring roll, which was pretty good. It was large, and it was packed full of goodies. No complaints there.

Still a great choice for cart-based dim sum! We used to go to Mandarin all the time, but in recent years their quality seemed to drop so we're back at Yangtze.

Overall, I'd say the serendipity and immediacy of cart-based dim sum is still more appealing to me than the made-to-order version at Hung Sum, even if the quality is necessarily not quite as excellent. There's a place for both though and thankfully we have choice! :-)

Yangtze is my go to for Dim Sum!! My husband, daughter and I go at least once a month on late Sunday mornings. Although I love Yangtze and have been going there since I was a little girl, are there any other places in Ottawa worth trying?

As a general thought, slamming all dim sum in Ottawa based on one bad experience is kind of like slamming all Pixar movies because Finding Nemo made you seasick.

Kins: I fear that 1pm is fairly late for Dim Sum in many places in Ottawa - there isn't the sheer number of people such as in Montreal and Toronto to make it last to 3pm. If you want Dim Sum and the place is empty, don't - it means the main crowd is done and all you will get are leftovers, possibly an hour old and, as you found out, not very edible. You need a full room of happy customers and constantly-fresh selections rolling about.

My first Dim Sum experience was at Yangtze, possibly close to 20 years ago. I can't really remember, especially as I didn't like shrimp then. But you can try a number of places nearby as well, but mostly, try it in the mid-morning.

I'd never had Dim Sum before going to Yangtze, but I was excited to try it. I've also encountered most of the items separately through the years.

We came in at 1pm, and we were the only ones there in the very large restaurant. I wasn't even sure they were open. The lady who greeted me was interrogative and rude, but assured me they were open.

All of the steamed items were terrible, probably the worst cooked dumplings I have ever had. They tasted like chewy wontons filled with a cornstarch and flour broth, made from old dish water.

My girlfriend hasn't been able to eat a dumpling since.

I'd love to try Dim Sum again, but probably not in Ottawa, if this is the best, or close enough to the best that it can offer.

The only saving grace was the pork bun, which was edible, though I can't compare it as it was my first time trying it. My girlfriend has had Dim Sum and pork buns before, found most Dim Sum inedible, and the Pork Buns pretty bad compared to the places she visited in Toronto.

I went to Yangtze yesterday for my first dim sum experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Our group chose from the carts that passed by our table. The items we picked included spring rolls, shrimp and pork dumplings, shrimp and pork rice noodles, fried tofu, fried wontons and steamed beef balls. I was the only one interested in trying the chicken feet but since no one was interested in sharing with me I passed this time. Desserts included bbq pork buns and lemon tarts. I tried a bbq pork bun but I didn't like it at all - the bun was too sticky and gooey and the pork filling was too sweet. But I loved all the other dishes and I look forward to future visits. I am in awe of the amount of dim sum items available and everything was fresh and piping hot.

We finally went to Yangtze for Dim Sum this morning, and it was as fantastic as all of those little thumbs up led me to believe. Everything was piping hot and fresh and oh-so-tasty. We were starving, so I totally forgot to take pictures and just dug right in. My favourites by far were the deep fried pork and shrimp dumplings, but I also enjoyed the roast pork baked buns as well. The only thing I was slightly disappointed with was the BBQ pork sticky buns, which is usually a favourite of mine. They were a little cold and perhaps a little too doughy. I could have probably made them myself. otherwise, everything was awesome. Even the tea was above standard, compared to your typical chinese restaurant fare. The one slight negative will in no way prevent me from returning to Yangtze again in the near future and consuming copious amounts of dim sum. A new favourite! Thanks for the recommendation fellow foodies!

Visited this place this past Sunday. We tried stopping by Mandarin Oglivie at 10:00am and discovered they were not open and did not have any signs mentioning when the restaurant would open.

Pretty standard fare for Dim Sum for what I can eat. I have a pretty minor seafood allergy so I have to avoid eating shrimp and fish as much as possible. But what they did have was delicious.

They also brought a garlic chili sauce that was like sriracha but tasted fermented and brought it without me having to ask. Bonus! Not sure what it actually was though.

I had a variety of pork dumplings, both steamed and fried. I also sampled their spicy chicken which was lightly breaded and delicious. I've heard people comment elsewhere 'was that chicken?'. Yes it was chicken, just thigh meat, which gwailo aren't used to eating.

Their beef noodle (au yuk cheung fun) was absolutely incredible compared to the dim sum I've had in Hamilton and Toronto (not a lot of Dim Sum back in Detroit). Most of the time the beef in the noodle tastes like dogfood at other places. Here it was savory, meaty and the noodle was not overly slimy.

Their steamed bbq pork buns (char sui bao) were excellent as well, although I had to request them by name for them to bring it out. Word of warning though, they give you two in a steamer tray because they are huge, around the size of a tennis ball.

A warning to people heading there anytime until the end of the fall: They are building that ornate gate about 30 meters from the building so the street is inaccessible.

Finally somewhere in Ottawa to get xiao long bao! These were quite decent -- a nice introduction if you've never tried them and a much shorter drive than Toronto. :D

The Crab Meat and Sea Foam soup is so good I can't stop eating it! Sea Foam is actually fish maw (swim bladder) -- it has no flavour, only texture.

Can't remember the name for this dish, shrimps stir-fried with cashew nuts in tomato sauce. The dish can definitely increase your appetitie. Try this.

My friend always told me that there are few dishes that Yangtze is very good at. Yangtze's Fried Lobster with Ginger & Shallots is one of the MUST ORDER dishes. Seasonal price. Be reminded that the order of two lobsters in one dish is pricy (around $50+).

This is the deep-fried tofu (the tofu in a tube and not the square shaped one). A little bit spicy and taste was good.

Note: My friend warned me not to order the Deep Fried Mashed Bean Curd at Yangtze. So, we ordered something different instead.

This was the Stir-fried baby bok choi with mushroom slices. I don't know the name of this mushroom (this kind of mushroom is very popular within Chinese community). But they really look like abalone.

Oh, this is my favourit dish at Yangtze! (and I do love this restaurant overall - my family has been coming here for 25 years)The sauce is light with a delicious ginger flavour, and the snow peas are always perfectly cooked, retaining their bright green colour and crunch. The chicken is, as advertised, tender, moist and delicious. Overall a gorgeous dish.

A word of warning - one evening I went to Yangtze specifically to get this dish and their house fried rice (which is also delicious). However, the waitress beguiled us into ordering one of the combo meals for two - with spring rolls, soup, and some other deep fried appetizers. Well, after eating all that, we were stuffed by the time the chicken with snow peas arrived!! So we had to take it home.

I ate it the next day, but it was not as good as when it is fresh...what a disappointment! So, just remember that if you go to a restaurant craving a particular main dish, don't be fooled into buying unnecessary appetizers - you'll just spoil your appetite.

duck with taro!?!
my mom used to make that
must try next time I am there

Fried Duck Stuffed with Mashed Taro is another Yangtze's specialty. However, I was surprised and disappointed that Yangtze used platstic plate for this dish! Don't appreciate the portion considering the price they charged.