Delightful hits, woeful misses at Cafe Asia

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/10/2010 (5836 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The simple white door gives no indication of what’s inside, and the long narrow corridor on the other side of it comes as a surprise, leading to an even more surprising sprawling space that is divided into two levels, with different eating areas. The gloomy lighting does little to cheer up a room that is done mostly in shades of brown — dark oak panelling, dark tables, dark chairs. Cafe Asia needs a shot of something to cheer it up — white tablecloths alone would work wonders. So, when it comes to the food, would more quality control and staff training in a restaurant that often has much to offer.

It took me a while to get back here after a lunch several months ago which, while edible, left me underwhelmed. And in a city with so many good Vietnamese restaurants mere edibility didn’t seem worth further exploration.

But the news that a cook from top-rated Viva had joined the staff convinced me it might be worth another go. And it was.

The kitchen’s performance was still erratic, serving up an unpredictable mixed bag. Some dishes were merely passable, and one bordered on the inedible, leading me to wonder if it had been made by a holdover cook from the past instead of the new one from Viva. Many others, however, were downright wonderful.

Tops among them, the dim sum which — although rare in a primarily Vietnamese restaurant — were good enough to hold their own against any in the city, especially those filled with shrimp, although the wonderfully flavourful gyoza pork dumplings was a close competitor. Pork siu mai seemed meatier than most, and although the tiny spare ribs were a tad chewy, the black bean and garlic sauce was tasty and less salty than most. They cost $3.30 each, but if you order four you get another one on the house. They are listed on a separate menu which, for some reason, isn’t offered automatically — we had to ask for it on each visit.

Those fine gyoza dumplings turn up in a larger portion among the appetizers on the regular menu ($6 to $9). I’d skip the bland salad rolls, which were overloaded with lettuce and vermicelli, but several others are worth ordering. Among them, charbroiled little pork patties, skewered kabobs of charbroiled pork or beef slices, and especially banh xeo, a turmeric-tinted, crisp rice flour crepe, folded around shrimp, slices of pork and heaps of bean sprouts, which you wrap with mint leaves and marinated carrot strips in lettuce, and dip in the fragrant nuoc cham sauce.

But details are where the devil dwells. Shrimp were top notch in every dish I tried, and the juicy grilled jumbos that topped a green papaya salad were no exception; but the papaya itself was watery, diluting a dressing that could have used more lime juice as well as some chili. Cabbage slaw with chicken sported a few herbs but almost no dressing. Vietnamese sour soup with shrimp had more flavour than either salad, but was still a relatively stripped-down version, with only perfunctory amounts of pineapple, tomatoes and bac ha (a.k.a. taro stem), and not enough tangy-sweet tamarind to spark the broth.

Most main courses cost from $7.50 to $9.50, with 10 per cent off during the month of October. Some portions were small — my bunch could have eaten twice as much of the terrific flavour-packed udon noodles, stir-fried with beef and strips of cabbage. There was a lot more of the deluxe chow mein, which was tasty, but — apart from the shrimp — more standard than deluxe.

Two chicken entrées, however, were both excellent and generous: the misleadingly named butter chicken — chunks of chicken coated in tapioca flour that were irresistibly crunchy and tasty (the butter part referred, apparently, to the few slivers of onions that had been sautéed in butter); and curried chicken with potatoes in a relatively gentle, coconut-rich curry sauce, with hints of lemongrass.

But did the hand that made those savoury little dim sum ribs also make these dreadful and not-much-bigger entrée ribs? There was far more bone than meat, and what little meat there was was tooth-challengingly tough, awash in a caramel-flavoured sauce that might have been interesting if it had been less soupy.

There was no difficulty in communicating with our servers, who were pleasant but not Vietnamese, which was part of the problem. They didn’t know enough about many of the dishes, and were unable to ask the cooks who, it seemed, were unilingually Vietnamese.

Some misunderstandings — all during the course of one visit — bordered on farce. First, the marinated pork chops we’d ordered turned out to be unavailable, and the server — without asking us — turned up with an unidentified pork dish to replace it (which we refused). Next, we were told that our order for marinated beef cubes got lost on its way to the kitchen, and besides, there were none anyway. The last straw — a whole fish, fried so crisp we had trouble cutting through the skin, and which, when we did get through, turned out to be half raw. To the restaurant’s credit it was removed from the bill.

Nevertheless Cafe Asia is definitely worth a visit. Not every dish may succeed, but many more of them do than don’t, and those that are good are so very, very good.

 

marion.warhaft@freepress.mb.ca

Cafe Asia

1811 Portage Avenue, 415-7949

Licensed

No wheelchair access

Three and a half stars