Asian Idol worthy of worship

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/11/2009 (6144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THOSE who don’t keep track of the restaurant scene and turn up at the above address expecting to eat at Oceana will be in for a big surprise.

Oceana is long gone, replaced by Idol Asian Cuisine, with a decor that is also totally different. Serene and understated, exemplifying a less-is­more philosophy, the walls of this long, windowless room are done in the palest of celadons, with even paler blue on the faux windows and the blond­est of wood trim. The only occasional spots of bright colour come from a few of the track lights.

All the tables have built-in sunken grills, which is the reason why I chose to review Idol before some other Asian restaurants, i.e. the fact that it features something new to the city — a fixed-price Korean barbecue.

Not just a few dishes, in this case, but all you can eat from an enormous selection of meats, seafood and veg­gies, all brought to your table to be grilled. They go for $16.99 or $18.99 on weekdays, and $18.99 to $20.99 on weekends, depending on the number of choices. There’s also a smaller lunch version for $11.99.

Cooking on those sunken grills takes a bit of getting used to. You can’t baste the ingredients as you could on one of those solid convex grills, and the wooden tongs supplied for turning the ingredients are a little awkward — I found it easier to manage with chop­sticks. All that being said, it’s a fun experience, and most of the ingredi­ents are good.

Some were surprising, in a good way, and if only we had remembered the all­you- can eat rule we might have asked for more of those: The delicate white bass, for instance; the shrimp (un­shelled and unbeheaded), the tender (yes!) calamari; the rib eye beef; the ultra-flavourful pork belly; the slices of lamb; and the spicily marinated chicken wings.

Some were surprising in a not-so­good way: the bitter-tasting liver and the slices of raw tongue, which were impossible to grill to edibility.

An unexpected nice touch was the complimentary panjam Korean ap­petizers — kimchee, peanuts, shred­ded daikon and particularly delectable pickled seaweed. Also two kinds of sushi, which were just so-so, but what the heck, free. The lettuce — for wrap­ping the grilled items, we assumed — came in pieces too tiny to wrap anything.

But although my initial reason for choosing Idol may have been its Korean barbecue, what really put it on my special map was the Chinese food of my second visit. There are three different menus: one that lists the ingredients for the barbecue, another that offers mostly familiar Chinese standards, and a third which might start you off on an intriguing culin­ary adventure — ask for it, the one the Chinese clientele orders from.

The chef comes from one of the northernmost Chinese provinces (just as cold as it gets here, our waitress tells us), and many of his dishes are unlike any others in the city. And most of them are fascinating and delicious.

Although colour photographs were of some help, ordering the often unfamiliar dishes was a tad daunting, especially when our friendly waitress tried to steer us away from the kinds of dishes she was afraid that we (the only non-Asians in the place) wouldn’t like, such as dishes she thought might be too spicy-hot for us (although those marked with a single pepper symbol turned out to be just nicely tingly), or dishes made with unboned chicken (about which she couldn’t have been more wrong, since on-the-bone is how I like my chicken).

But once she understood that we were truly interested in authenticity, it was clear sailing.

Top choice with my bunch was the sweet-fleshed slices of white bass, lightly battered and deep fried, in a sauce similar to but much subtler than the usual sweet and sour ($12.99).

But others were almost as delicious, notably two of chicken on the bone: a cold appetizer of chicken in a peanut­infused sauce, topped by a crunchy sprinkle of chopped peanuts ($6.99); and the xinjiang chunks of chicken with hand-made rice noodles, aromatic with star anise and with enough chili to bite back ($14.99).

Another winner was the dry-cooked little squiggles of cumin-spiked lamb with shreds of onion ($10.99).

There was a gorgeous mixture of eggplant stir-fried with wedges of po­tato, squares of red pepper and plenty of garlic ($8.99). And we also loved (although our waitress initially had doubts that we would) a fascinating dish of various Chinese mushrooms with sheet jelly, which turned out to be near-translucent aspic-like squares with a soft, almost noodle-like texture ($6.99).

Two items didn’t live up to the above standard. Little cubes of skewered beef were occasionally dry and tough — tasty, though, and therefore not a complete dud (six skewers for $6.99).

The only total disappointment was salt­and- pepper seasoned fried shrimp — heads and shells intact, like those we’d had on the barbecue, but unlike those, flabby and, in fact, almost mushy ($14.99). For dessert there are cubes of toffee-coated pineapple (or bananas, alternatively), which come hot to the table, with a bowl of cold water, into which they are plunged, both to cool off a bit and to set the glaze. A lovely finale, and at $9.99, generous enough to defeat four of us.

With more time I would have been up to trying the braised pork ear with cucumber, or the tendon with hot sauce.

I suspect, however, that the fried pork intestines and the braised lamb entrails might have tested my dedica­tion to authenticity.

Service is charming and helpful. A note to night owls — Idol is open until 2 a.m. nightly.

marion.warhaft@freepress.mb.ca

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