Fun Playing with Soup and Fried Rice for Lunch at Wonton Gourmet

Wonton Gourmet continues to excel at providing Clevelanders warming, satisfying Chinese comfort food. This lunch, which took place while the weather was still bitterly cold and snowy, was perfectly balanced in flavor and texture and it tasted like it had come to my plate right from Guangzhou, China. (This next sentence is just an excuse to link my prior Wonton Gourmet posts - Wonton Gourmet (3211 Payne Avenue, 216-875-7000, no website), each of the last 8 words, and a couple of the upcoming words, has a link to a different FPWF WG post.)

My two lawyer-lunchmates had never been to Wonton before. They were delighted with the turnip cakes and chive potstickers.

 

What else could three ladies share for a satisfying and authentically Chinese lunch? Why - soup and fried rice. But this is not your corner Chinese take-out soup and fried rice!

 

Mustard Green Soup with Pork and Tofu, Salted Eggs 

 

This steaming hot bowl of soup, the "small" size, but more than plenty for the three of us, contained a richly flavored broth, which caressed intensely tasty (and green) mustard greens, tender pork, and creamy tofu.

 

Fried Rice With Salted Fish and Chicken

I seldom get to enjoy Wonton's fried rice, and that is my loss. Made in the authentic style - meaning no soy sauce, and probably fried in lard - this is what fried rice is supposed to taste like. And it tastes good!

 

The "salted fish" is actually a dried fish similar to the more Western (and therefore familiar) bacalao (Spanish), or baccalà (Italian). Originally developed as a preservation method, salting, drying and then reconstituting mild fish intensifies the flavor. This brightly flavored fish pairs well with the blander chicken meat and shredded lettuce in this dish. We all enjoyed it.

The portions, as always, were more than ample, and the leftovers came home to feed my husband. And so, another fun time playing with authentic Chinese food at Wonton Gourmet came to a happy end.

New Year's Day Fun at Wonton Gourmet, Asiatown, Cleveland Ohio

New Year's Day can be a strange time for us. My husband's mother celebrates her birthday on that day (this year was her 94th - and she's still sharp as a tack!). So, family doings sometimes get in the way of other social plans. This year, however, it was snow, more than commitments, that bollixed up the day a bit!

Thank goodness we scheduled a NYD meal with friends at Wonton Gourmet (Wonton Gourmet (3211 Payne Avenue, 216-875-7000, no website)(each of the last 8 words has a link to a different FPWF WG post) for the afternoon (and even with that, it was a struggle to get home in one piece). Among the new friends at our table were Greg and Sunny from Tremont's Ty Fun restaurant, which we have yet to sample, but which we have put on our list of New Year's Resolutions (which consists, BTW, of just that one).

We began with appetizers, which I've posted about many times before: turnip cake, chive potstickers, fish maw and conpoy soup. We also ordered the Cilantro Rice Rolls, which I decided to include in this post because they looked so good!

Also, with the first round of our order, we continued working our way through the newer Sichuan (or Szechuan) dishes depicted on the wall, a cold plate:

Hot Spicy Beef Two Ways 

 

This was a classic Chinese cold dish, and a time-honored way to use every bit of the animal. Tough, gristly meat and tripe were slow cooked for many hours, with spice and seasonings, then chilled and topped with an incendiary sauce featuring chilies and Sichuan Peppercorns. The result was tender and delicious and the plate was cleaned, even though neither Bob nor I would have listed tripe as a desired food before we tasted this.

We ordered 4 mains for 8 people and we still had a few leftovers!

Sichuan (or Szechuan) Hot & Spicy Fish

This dish brought the heat and the vinegar, as always. Fresh, crispy fish sat atop cabbage and below the chilies and delighted all of us.

Ma Lai Pork Chop

Given the name of this dish (Mai Lai means numbing and hot -- from Sichuan pepper and chilies), I expected a lot more heat than we got. Oh but the Umami of it all! I can't really describe it - but it was a taste and fragrance that made you want to just keep eating it. With a savory crunch and tender texture, to boot.

We determined to have a noodle dish for New Year's, an Asian tradition that reaches around the entire continent - we asked our server to recommend a good NYD choice, and having narrowed it down to three, we asked Sunny to decide. We were all delighted with his selection!

 Tai Pan Chow Mai

This rice noodle-seafood stir fry paired perfectly with the firestorm of spice on our palates from the Sichuan dishes.

 Finally, in recognition of both our need for vegetable input, and the resemblance of green leafy vegetables to money (another New Year's good luck food):

Sauteed Snow Pea Leaves with Garlic

Our server had recommended these - they  had a fresh-picked taste and texture, and  tasted delicious with the gentle garlic sauce treatment.

The snow was totally out of control by the time we headed home - after slipping and sliding on the highways and our local streets almost all of the way, we decided to wait until the next day to see Bob's Mom. We were also so stuffed from this feast that we put our traditional pork roast and sauerkraut dinner off for a day as well.

Wonton Gourmet continues to consistently deliver truly authentic and tasty Chinese food, and we enjoyed playing with every dish! I again encourage you to pay them a visit, and to venture, as least a little bit, into the world beyond your usual Chinese restaurant fare. It's fun!

Fun Playing with Sichuan Food and Fish Heads at Wonton Gourmet

The Saturday after Thanksgiving found us once again visiting Wonton Gourmet, in Cleveland Asiatown. 3211 Payne Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114-4505, (216) 875-7000. After sampling the Hot & Spicy Szechuan Fish on our last visit, I was determined to try more of the new Szechuan/Sichuan items Chef/Owner Tom has put on his wall menu.

We succeeded in trying two "new" dishes, one old favorite, and one milder, more Cantonese style dish recommended by our wonderful server. Wonton Gourmet scores again - and Tom says that due to demand from his Chinese customers, there will be more Szechuan delights showing up on his menu soon!

Szechuan Eggplant

We've had this before, but one of our companions was hankering for it. Spicy, yet rich in flavors and textures - I dream of getting my eggplant like this in my home wok, but it isn't going to happen. Wok Heh demands many more BTUs than my current stove will ever know.

Hot & Spicy Beef

This dish more than lived up to its name. Though you see the red chilies - it is the numbing Szechuan peppercorn that makes the dish special.

The layer of cabbage underneath the beef also enhanced the dish with a crunchy texture, and a bland foil for the heat.

I expected this dish to be the same preparation as the fish dish I'd sampled earlier; the last 4 characters of each dish's name are the same. Looking at my photos of the menu signs, though,

 

I realize that the beef dish has 2 additional characters, and the fish dish 1 additional character. This might explain why the dishes looked so similar, and were "spelled" so similar - but yet tasted very different. Any character readers out there who care to shed some light on this??

Anyway - returning to our lunch:

Hot & Spicy Szechuan Pork with Noodles

The flavor profile here was also Szechuan, but distinctly different from the chili-centric beef dish. It was more of a hot-sour, with a distinct marine flavor that Tom identified as shrimp paste. Very tasty - but very Chinese. I found it a little strongly flavored for my palate, though I did enjoy it.

Our last selection was recommended by our server, who knows we love the "real" stuff, and who has never steered us wrong!

Braised Salmon Heads with Ginger and Scallions 

Ok, so the name of this dish may not make you hungry. Forget "heads" and think "cheeks" - halibut cheeks, beef cheeks, pork cheeks - some of the most succulent meat in the animal kingdom is found in the cheeks. And so, we practically leapt to try this dish, and we were well rewarded for navigating around and through the bones.

 

A hot wok had crisped the skin, and the light sauce melded with the ginger and onion flavors while allowing the salmon to remain the star. You really have to eat this dish with chopsticks to negotiate the many bones - but it is so worth the trouble!

There are two other Szechuan items - a pork chop dish and a cold beef with two flavors - that we did not get to sample (and also spicy pork maw, which is not one of my favorite things, though I will probably try it at some point) - guess it means I need to go back to Wonton Gourmet again soon, to continue playing with Szechuan flavors not heretofore seen in Cleveland!

More Fun With Wonton Gourmet's Food, and A Call-out of a Critic

In the one and one half years that I've been writing this blog, I have done my best to keep it honest and serious, but light and non-confrontational. However, a Metromix review of Wonton Gourmet that was brought to my attention on April 15, 2009 is so unfair and unsubstantiated, that I feel like I must use what little bully pulpit I have here to call it out for what it is: a bunch of crap. You may read Patrick Maycock's complete review here. I ask Mr. Maycock two questions: have you actually eaten at Wonton Gourmet (not just take out) and, what the f*ck were you writing about???? It's surely not the same food that I've been eating there for the past year.

You start by saying "Wonton specializes in a great selection of Hong Kong-style wonton noodle soup. The menu’s claim of “the best wonton noodle soup” may be a bit over-zealous, but the offerings are still among the best you’ll find in Chinatown" (emphasis mine). You then go from "best" to "look elsewhere" with some of the worst gibberish I've ever read.

Now, I had never heard of this restaurant or the people who own it before the first time that my friend Stuart brought me there in March 2008. Even though I have become well acquainted with owners Tom and Shirley and some of the employees there since, I would never allow that to color a review, because I value my credibility. And Wonton Gourmet is certainly not perfect. But it consistently delivers (to our table, not our home) the best Chinese food in Cleveland, and some of their dishes compare favorably to Chinese food I've eaten in Chinatowns in New York, San Fransisco, Toronto, Texas, Hong Kong, and the People's Republic of China.

Surely, Mr. Maycock, you were not writing about the same restaurant that I have eaten and posted photos from no fewer than nine times in the previous year? You accuse their food of lacking in quality (but laud the quantity), when it seems from your review that all you tried was the Americanized take out (or was it the uber-cheap lunch special?). Or did you even try that - your review does not specify any particular food items that you tasted.

The following photos are from two lunches - April 4, 2009 (prior to the April 15 Metromix review) and April 25, 2009. The first photo - from the latter visit - demonstrates that this restaurant gets more than 80 percent filled at lunch - and they turned the entire room about three times while we were there (11:30am-1:30pm):



We were seated at the front table, so this is about 90% of the room - and the last few tables to the left were also full. Note that the clientèle is mostly Asian - an indicia of authenticity and freshness. Moreover, no one seems to be missing the kitsch that covers the walls and collects dust in many local Chinese restaurants and take-out joints, as the Metromix review suggests. The photos on the walls make the authentic Chinese dishes accessible to all, and are certainly welcome decor to this Westerner. And the lack of chockes means that the room is clean in every sense of the word.

Returning to April 4, we began our meal with Chive Potstickers:



These were delicious, as always.


Chinese Donut with Rice Noodle in Soya Sauce

The sauce is the secret ingredient that brings together the neutral noodle and the crunchy, savory donut. Yum.


Turnip Cake

Seems that we order this almost every time - it is incredible not only in its taste and texture, but its consistency. This shot reveals the inside - a little porky goodness!


Shrimp Dumplings in Soup

Tasty soup coddles freshly made dumplings. As I've mentioned before - the shrimp dumplings themselves are not my favorite, because they are made with standard food-service shrimp, which to me tastes like chemicals. But everyone else I've dined with loves them. The chive dumplings are made with the same shrimp, yet are usually very palatable to me - I'm guessing that the chive taste has something to do with that.


Pork Chow Mein

This is what an authentic Chow Mein looks like. No packaged, deep fried "noodles" here! Thin egg noodles are made into a "noodle pancake" ("chow mein" means "fried noodle") that is crispy on the outside, but toothy on the inside! The pancake is then topped with a stir fry of velvetized pork, crisp vegetables, and a mild sauce. This dish is called something else on the wall menu to distinguish it, I'm sure, from what's on the take-out menu.



This version brought back memories of my trip to China almost ten years ago! This is a dish that is all about textures - the velvety meat, crisp vegetables, crisp but toothy noodles, and the way the sauce cuts across and through and marries these textures together - you simply have to try it to understand it!



Tom found it a bit mild for his taste - but a bit of chili oil (a condiment on the tables) solves that!


Hong Kong Style Fried Chicken

If you tried to get this as take-out (and it most assuredly is not on the take out menu), it would probably be limp and yucky by the time you took it home and served it. Served to our table hot from the fryer, however, this is an exquisite example of the genre - moist delicious meat surrounded by crispy skin - I don't think any of us even used the seasoning salt (MSG) that came on the side with it.


Ong Choy with Garlic

This is your basic stir-fried Chinese vegetable - hot, cooked yet with a little bite, and tasty.


Oysters with Black Bean Sauce



Fresh, fully cooked jumbo oysters pair perfectly with a spicy black bean sauce - and thank goodness for the rice to soak up the rest of the sauce!

This repast fed about 7 people and there was a little left over. We paid about $15 each, including a generous tip. Everyone at our table loved everything - the food was extremely fresh and served up hot.

I was fortunate to dine there again this past Saturday, and again there were 7 of us at the table.



I keep taking pictures of the turnip cake because it's so good!


Scallion Pancake

Another lovely dim sum type item - a little greasier than I remembered it from the last time I had it at Wonton, but delicious.


Roast Pork Ramen

This should have been the same dish as we enjoyed on March 29:



But for some reason they used the Udon noodle. It was still definitely the Ramen broth, with a slight fish flavor reminiscent of the Japanese version of this dish, and topped with strips of Nori.



Udon noodles notwithstanding - it was delicious!




Three Shrimp Dumplings in Soup

Again, this is a dish that everyone but me loves, for the reason I stated above - the shrimp is just too chemically for me.


Szechuan Eggplant with Pork

Here, perfectly caramelized eggplant pieces with a bit of "wok hey" smokiness, yet still deeply purple (thanks to the heat of the stove - I can never get this at home; the skin cooks too much by the time the middle gets caramelized) - combine with crunchy snow peas and carrots (and I think there were mushrooms in there too, but my dining companions saved me from them, LOL), velvety pork slices and spicy sauce!


Authentic Orange Beef

The caption underneath the wall photo of this dish uses the word "authentic" - and indeed, this was not your typical Americanized take-out orange beef smothered in sickeningly sweet, neon-orange goo. Strips of pounded steak are breaded and fried until crunchy, then stir fried with a mildly sweet sauce redolent of real orange (and orange peel - which adds a slighly bitter flavor element in addition to intense orange-ness). You can see bits of peel on the dish - labor intensive, but worth it. We finished every drop! I did find it amusing that they used American broccoli on this "authentic" dish - I need to check the photo of it next time I am there.


Oysters with Black Bean Sauce

These seem to have become a great favorite of ours - probably because they are so good!



We were amazed at how well we had ordered - we finished everything and were sated without being stuffed.

Well, I don't know which Wonton Gourmet Peter Maycock visited, but it sure as heck isn't the same one that I frequent. It angers me that he accuses them of having "devised a strategy" to "[o]ffer ridiculously huge portions of so-so Cantonese food for cheap. The result, depending on your budget and tolerance for taste, will vary." Though I've never eaten the Wonton "lunch special," in my experience, you get what you pay for. If true, this is no different than the Hunan in Richmond Heights - you can get a cheap, filling, so-so Americanized lunch for less than $5. But if you are willing to spend a little more, you can order from the Chinese menu for about $9-12 per dish and have great food. I suspect it is the same at Wonton Gourmet. To posit this as some sort of rip-off is just wrong.

I just hope that anyone out there who might be put off from Wonton Gourmet by a review that doesn't name a single specific dish, and that focuses on the least significant aspects of the restaurant's business (ie - takeout - the takeout menu has no Chinese characters on it, yet you saw who was eating there last Saturday - what does that tell you?; and the "Lunch Special") will go and give it a try for themselves. Thomas and Shirley will welcome you and they and their staff will give their all to ensure that you enjoy your food, regardless of how authentic you want it. Oh - we paid about $13 each for our meals last Saturday, including tax and a generous gratuity (adding it up and splitting the check as we'd split the food - its how this kind of food is meant to be enjoyed). We always have fun with the food at Wonton, from the most authentic dish to the occasional fried rice or egg roll. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.