hum: this dim sum brings the magic of hong kong to ottawa
the comforting chinese food from these spots shows why hong kong-style cooking is so beloved.
5 minute read
steamed chicken and mushroom buns, fried shrimp balls and sesame balls at cafe orient on somerset street.
tony caldwell
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cafe orient hong kong restaurant
808 somerset st. w., 613-563-2422, cafeorient.ca
baked brisket with curry sauce on rice at cafe orient, a three-decades-old bastion on hong kong cuisine on somerset street west in ottawa.
tony caldwell
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open: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
prices: dim sum dishes $6.50 to $7.50, most other dishes $13 to $18
t&t supermarket kanata store
300 eagleson rd., 613-270-9697, tntsupermarket.com/eng
barbecue pork buns from t&t supermarket in kanata.
peter hum
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open: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
prices: dim sum items $4.69, deep-fried whole chicken $12
when i returned to ottawa from hong kong in mid-november, i brought home as many culinary cravings as souvenirs.
during my five-night stay there, i ate incredibly well at places ranging from cheap, cheerful diners and dim sum joints to michelin-starred temples of gastronomy. since i’ve returned, eating hong kong-style food has been a tough habit to break, harder to shake than the jetlag.
missing my vacation eats so much, i dined multiple times at cafe orient on somerset street west, which has been a unique bastion of hong kong-style cooking in chinatown for three decades.
cafe orient on somerset street in ottawa.
tony caldwell
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i ate there just once before, blind to its hole-in-the-wall charm and hearty, soulful, unpretentious fare. now, cafe orient has risen on my list of chinese restaurants — yes, out of sentimentality, but also because i had some pretty good, short-order-style dishes from its dauntingly large menu.
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i’ll start with an account of my dim sum brunch, in part because ottawa recently lost two of its popular dim sum options — the yangtze restaurant in november to the mandarin ogilvie restaurant in june.
it should console yangtze and mandarin ogilvie fans that cafe orient’s dim sum, albeit served in much more cramped, plain, age-worn quarters, was quite tasty.
har gow dumplings at cafe orient.
peter hum
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items from the list of 30 or so dim sum choices, available all day, were made a la minute as ordered rather than served from a passing trolley. we thought highly of nicely chunky har gow (everybody’s favourite shrimp dumplings), fried shrimp wonton and fried shrimp balls, chiu chow dumplings filled with minced pork and peanuts, alluringly savoury and crisp-then-melty fried turnip cake, and pork-filled savoury triangles, which could more accurately be named savoury little pork-filled footballs.
i thought cafe orient’s congee (a savoury rice porridge that my parents called jook) was thicker and less slurry-ish than i like. i also wished for more condiments, like the ones at the hotel breakfast buffet congee bar that i visited in china’s guangdong province earlier in november. still, cafe orient’s more home-style, less fancy congee will do, and there are more than 30 different kinds, garnished with everything from sliced fish or seafood to preserved egg and minced beef to the more hardcore pork blood pudding- and offal-based choices.
shrimp wonton noodle soup at cafe orient.
peter hum
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for dinner at cafe orient, i enjoyed extremely tenderized slices of beef, drowned in sa cha sauce, a lightly spicy, umami-ish condiment, on wide rice noodles with a just-right texture. a “pork chop” dish featured thin, bone-in pork cutlets, tenderized, breaded and fried, with onion sauce on rice. both dishes, priced at $17, were gigantic.
another unfussy winner was baked brisket with curry sauce over rice ($18). in this casserole of sorts, the meat was well-trimmed, flavourful and tender, while the mild curry-covered rice was comforting. another dozen or so casseroles are available at cafe orient, and you can swap in spaghetti for rice, prepared in a way that might be sacrilegious in italy but quite normal in hong kong.
there are 50 noodle soups ($14 to $16) here to try. shrimp wonton soup with noodles ($14.50) had five plump and excellent dumplings and thin egg noodles to boast about, although its broth felt like something made from powder rather than from bones. those wanting a deeper culinary dive could try one of the curry- or satay-flavoured soups or the beef tendon, brisket and tripe soup.
beef and noodles with sa cha sauce at cafe orient.
peter hum
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i’ve also tried two of nine soups that don’t come with noodles, namely the shredded barbecue duck with orange flavour soup and the minced chicken with fish maw soup.
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the former was easy to like, with lean pieces of duck in a dark, earthy broth that hinted at bitter citrus. i went for the fish maw soup, made with pieces of rehydrated swim bladders that you will have to trust me are a delicacy because i had sublime fine-dining versions of such a soup in hong kong. the diner version at cafe orient was loaded with extra-chewy nubs of fish maw, which might expand the boundaries of your textural appreciation.
cafe orient also serves some breakfast staples of hong kong diners, so-called cha chaan tengs which are known to blur the western cuisine of hong kong’s colonial past with indigenous influences. in that respect, cafe orient belongs to the same culinary family tree as gongfu cafe on bank street. that more chef-y eatery in centretown is like a descendant of the cha chaan tengs that cafe orient more squarely represents.
so, like gongfu cafe, cafe orient serves hong kong-style milk tea, that sweet, creamy confection of strong tea, evaporated milk and condensed milk. cafe orient also serves hong kong-style french toast, although i couldn’t discern the peanut butter stuffing that is typical of that item.
julie ou at her restaurant cafe orient on somerset street.
tony caldwell
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at cafe orient, service from owner julie ou has been friendly and bilingual, meaning in cantonese and english.
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since my return from hong kong, i’ve also made several visits to the t&t supermarket that opened in kanata on eagleson road on oct. 24. it’s the second location of the loblaw-owned asian grocery chain, and it’s as large and impressive as its predecessor that opened on hunt club road 15 years ago.
i bought hong kong and chinese foodstuffs and products almost indiscriminately, from milk teas to pomelos (which were my desserts in china) to t&t-branded spice blends. i also took prepared food home from the t&t, from its steam-table buffet and dim sum counter.
since soups transport well, i took home tubs of hot and sour soup and imitation crab and fish maw soup. the hot and sour soup was fine, boasting the right bracing flavours, although it would have been better with some shreds of pork or even tofu for meatiness. the imitation crab and fish maw soup featured less fish maw than its counterpart at cafe orient, but its fish maw was also more tender.
congee at cafe orient.
peter hum
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the dim sum from t & t was generally respectable, especially given the $4.69 price.
a final find at t & t was a $12 box of papa crispy chicken. inside the box was a flattened bird, breaded, deep-fried and blessed with surprisingly moist meat that had been flavoured with garlic and even sugar. containers of chili-laced seasoning perked things up.
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no doubt missing hong kong makes me like cafe orient and t & t more. still, i think there will be satisfying items for all at both the restaurant and grocery store, even if you’ve never been closer to hong kong than chinatown or kanata.
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