ottawa foodies

I forgot to mention that this place offers no-MSG dishes.

For those who are allergic to MSG, you can tell the server that you are allergic to MSG and they won't put any MSG in the food. When our friend ordered the food, he told the server to ask the chef NOT to put any MSG in the dishes. He also said "less sugar, less salt, no MSG". They are very accomodating.

We went to our friends' house in Orleans for dinner (I thought it was a pot-luck dinner and I brought two plates of homemade potstickers as my contribution.) When we arrived at our friend's house, they told us that they had reserved two big round tables at "Eastern City" to eat. A treat for every one for the Christmas holidays!

This is my first visit to Eastern City. My friends told us that they go to this restaurant very regularly since it is so close to home.

You can see the photo for each dish our friend ordered below. I like their "Peking duck" and soup very much. Other dishes are okay. I forgot to take the photo for the "soy sauce chicken" since my stomach was so full already. I think our friends ordered too many dishes. At the end, I just can't eat the delicate "soy sauce chicken".

Note: When we went back to our friend's house, we had the soft and silken "Tofu pudding" (aka tofu flower) fresh from Toronto. Another couple just came back to Ottawa from Toronto and they brought the tofu pudding from Toronto. Oh! That was sooooo delicious. I think only Yangtze serves hot "tofu pudding" in a wooden bucket for dim-sum. Our friend also gave us the recipe for "egg tart" after we tried her hot "egg tart" just coming out from the oven. It was a great meal!

Good meal, good friends, and great dessert. Life is good!

Every one likes lobster. Here is the "Lobster with Ginger & Green Onions".

This is the "Hot Pot with Bean curd and BBQ pork with other vegetables". In the winter time, you want every dish to be steaming hot.

This is the "Steamed Sea Bass with Ginger and Shallots".

Cantonese like to cook fresh fish using steaming since this cooking method lets you enjoy the delicacies of a fresh fish.

This is "Pork with spicy salt". The taste was not bad. You need to eat more rice to go with this dish.

Note: This is a very popular dish for Chinese.

This is the "deep fried sweet and sour fish fillets". I don't know what type of fish. But I guess this is a popular dish for Canadian customers.

This is the stir-fried Choy Sum with beef slices. Taste was not bad. Although the beef was very tender, my taste bud told me that the baking powder used for the beef is a bit more than normal.

Note: I was told that most of the restaurants used baking powder to make the beef more tender.

According to my taste buds, the Peking Duck at Eastern City (東城軒) is very good when compared with other Chinese restaurants in Ottawa. (After I tried the Peking Duck at Beijing Tian Run, I was quite disappointed since many people told me that their Peking Duck is the best in town. I really don't think so.)

We tried the 2-course meal Peking Duck: first course was served with the crispy skin and steamed flour pancakes, green onions and sweet hoisin sauce. You place pieces of duck skin on a pancake, adds a bit of hoisin sauce, and onion. The mixture is rolled up and eaten.

The remaining duck meat is usually chopped up, stir-fried, and eaten wrapped in fresh lettuce.

Note: If you go for the traditional 3-course meal Peking Duck, the third dish is the duck soup cooked from the bone. However, if you go for the 2-course meal and you know the owner or server well, they may give you the remaining bone to take home so that you make broth at home yourself.

This is the seafood and tofu soup. Very delicious! This big bowl can serve 8 people.