New Food to Play With at Wonton Gourmet, Cleveland, OH

When I first started dating my husband Bob in 1991, I told him that the only way I'd consider moving from New Jersey to Cleveland was if Cleveland had a good brewpub and a Chinatown. The fact that I moved to Cleveland four years later is a testament to both Great Lakes Brewing Company and Cleveland Asiatown. I have posted numerous times about Cleveland Asiantown's best Chinese restaurant, Wonton Gourmet, which provides authentic food, mostly Cantonese.

My primary complaint about the state of Asian food in Cleveland has been the lack of authentic Sichuan (or Szechuan) cuisine. Well, based on what I saw and tasted while recently celebrating a good friend's birthday at Wonton, that situation is being remedied.

Thomas, the proprietor and head chef at Wonton, is adding a selection of Sichuan dishes to the menu! I foolishly neglected to photograph the listings on the wall, so I can only show you the one Sichuan dish we enjoyed at the birthday lunch - but since Thomas asked me if he could keep the extra copy of the Asian Bistro menu I had with me (from my last post on Chicago eats), I think we can expect the Wonton Gourmet selection to expand!

And so - we enjoyed another Chinese feast at Wonton Gourmet! First - mostly the usual suspects for appetizers, but a couple of twists:


Cold Jellyfish with Pickled Vegetables and Seasame Seeds

I've never been a huge fan of gooey jellyfish - I've always preferred this delicacy served hot and crispy. But this time - I realized the secret to enjoying this dish - getting some of the pickled vegetables in your mouth together with the jellyfish strands. You know what? It's darn tasty that way! Even Janbo, who was very shy about letting jellyfish past her lips - enjoyed her taste.


Steamed Rice Rolls With Shrimp


Chive Potstickers


Turnip Cake


Steamed Rice Rolls with Green Onion and Cilantro

I much prefer these rolls to their stuffed cousins.

These nibbles were followed by a soup course:


Fish Maw and Seafood Soup with Conpoy (Dried Scallop)

Delicious, as always. The maw adds texture more than flavor, and the conpoy gives a huge hit of the sea!


Oysters with Black Bean Sauce


Golden Tofu Coins with Seafood, Fish and Vegetables

Our server passed our table while delivering a plate similar to this to the table next to us; he said that we had to try this dish today. As always, he was right! I don't know how they get silken tofu to be so firm and crunchy on the outide, while it remains pudding-like on the inside.


Sichuan Spicy Fish

Several folks in our group had already tried this dish on a recent visit, but I hadn't been to Wonton since they started serving the Sichuan dishes.



Exquisitely fresh filet was married with both chiles and Sichuan Peppercorn for a blazing, mouth-numbing experience. I can't wait to try the other Sichuan dishes listed on the wall!


Sauteed Snowpea Leaf with Garlic


Ningko With Shredded Pork

These toothy house-made rice noodle ovals make me swoon with delight every time I eat them!



The contrast of toothy noodle and crisp vegetable is irresistible!


Mai La Ong Choy

This item was also one of the "new" dishes. The Ong Choy was stir fried with a light yet assertive sauce, and lots of ginger - though it looks a lot like the garlic pea leaf dish we'd had earlier - the taste was completely different.

We completed our meal with a birthday cake one of our friends bought at the bakery at the West Side Market. It was a marvelous repast - and I hope a harbinger of spicy fun to come!

Yet More Fun Playing With Food at Wonton Gourmet

A friend emailed me last week that his aunt, who lives in Columbus Ohio, would be visiting him this weekend, and that he'd been itching to get her to 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). Did we want to join them? Why, yes!

Thomas, the proprietor, and his wife Shirley, were glad to see us. As the four of us settled in, he asked if we wanted to try a cup of strong Hong Kong style tea. We said of course!



Hong Kong indeed - this beverage tasted like a direct connection to Hong Kong's past as a British colony - it was almost like English Breakfast Tea. The addition of condensed milk was the initial give-away, since many Chinese are lactose intolerant and would never reach for milk on their own. The bold taste was different from most Chinese teas I've tasted, and Thomas's recommendation to add sugar was very well taken (and you never add sugar to Chinese tea). A lovely way to begin our dining experience!

We began with our "must have" starters - Chive Potstickers and Turnip Cake.





Dumpling heaven!





Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. Yum.

This next dish is one I've wanted to try for a while. The Chinese characters literally translate to Jin yin (gold-silver) dan (egg) xian cai ( Chinese spinach):



Thomas translates this dish as Eggs Two Ways and Chinese Spinach in Soup.



The "two ways" are salty eggs and 1000 year old eggs.



A visually striking dish - this dish packed a flavor wallop.



I found it a little too infused with a sulfurous smell and taste for my palate, however. I am very glad that I got to try it, though.


Salt Crusted Mixed Seafood





Calamari & Scallops & Rice - oh my!


Ong Choi Sauteed With Garlic

A perfectly prepared version of this Cantonese classic.


Hong Kong Style Fried Chicken

Eat your heart out, Colonel Sanders - this is how fried chicken should taste. Crispy skin, plump flesh, and juicy when you bite it.

As wonderful as all of the preceding goodness was - the best thing we ate today was the last thing we were served - Oysters "Hong Kong Style" with Spicy Black Bean Sauce!



The oysters were cooked (Chinese rarely eat anything raw). These were the biggest oyster shells I'd ever seen - all the better to hold more of that fabulous sauce!







The Black Bean sauce combined with the oyster liquor to make a dish greater than the sum of its parts.


Oyster Meat & Sauce Over Rice

Heavenly! And the sauce was so tasty - first I started dipping chicken pieces into the pool of sauce in the oyster shell - then I emptied the oyster shell's contents right onto my last bits of rice. It was magically delicious!

Wonton Gourmet remains my number one Asian restaurant in Cleveland. I am pleased to report that progress continues on the posting of photos with menu items and English descriptions - so it is even easier to explore Hong Kong culinary horizons if you choose. We had so much fun playing with our food today - my friend's aunt says she'll be back to do it again!

樂趣演奏用食物 for Chinese New Year 2009

As the two week Lunar New Year holiday comes to a close, we were pleased to be invited to a Chinese New Year Banquet at our Cleveland favorite, Wonton Gourmet (3211 Payne Avenue, 216-875-7000, no website). They managed to squeeze almost 50 people into the small restaurant. We were delighted to see the progress being made on the conversion of the wall menu banners to photographs with English descriptions - all of this wonderful food will be that much more accessible to everyone once the project is complete.

Dinner commenced with soup:


Fish Maw and Mixed Seafood Soup





Soup with Red Vinegar Added


Turnip Cake

Thomas, the owner, shared part of the secret to the deliciousness of this dish - the dough is steamed for three hours!


Stuffed Crab Claw



This was crisp and tasty.

Edited to add: How Did I Leave Out the Potstickers?





All meat, and delicious! And - with dipping sauce:




Assorted Cold Appetizers

Some of our tablemates were completely unaware of the place of cold dishes in Chinese Cuisine. Some of us had tasted the Braised Beef and pickles on this plate two weeks ago. This time, instead of pig intestine, we had braised roast pork as the second meat, and in the center, the pickles were topped by braised jellyfish, which is not my favorite preparation (I prefer my jellyfish crispy). The meats were redolent of star anise and very fresh and tender, and the pickled vegetables were delicious.


Sea Cucumber with Braised Mushrooms, Baby Bok Choy and Gravy

Sea Cucumber has never been my favorite; mushrooms are on my "ick" list. Neverthess, I tasted it. The braise of the dried Chinese Mushrooms infused the Bok Choy and gravy with lovely flavors, which I enjoyed very much. My small nibble of the sea cucumber was a sufficient portion of that delicacy for me, however.


Lobster Stir Fried With Ginger



This dish was fabulous - from the fresh and tender lobster meat to the velvety sauce. This plate was cleaned!


Steak with Black Pepper Sauce

I remain a perpetual sucker for Black Pepper Sauce, and Wonton Gourmet does it well.




Mixed Seafood with XO Sauce

XO Sauce is made from conpoy, or dried scallop; it infuses the entire dish with a seafoody glow. The squid was exceptionally tender and tasty, and the bittermelon was a great contrast to the seafood flavors.


Hong Kong Style Fried Chicken

These were communal plates, folks, so I didn't feel right moving the shrimp chips out of the way so I could photograph. It was pretty funny - there were three of us photographing this set of dishes, and at least one more food photographer at the second table doing the same. Anyway, this chicken was superb - the skin was thin and crisp, and the flesh moist and juicy.




Dipping Salt (aka MSG) For Chicken


Tai Pan Mai Fun



The stars of this dish were the house-made fish cake and the strips of melt-in-your-mouth lap cheong sausage. Mai Fun is, of course, thin rice noodles - and a noodle dish is traditional at Chinese New Year.


Fried Pork Chop with Sweet Sauce

This meat melted off the bone and melted in the mouth. Yum.


Fried Grouper with Hot and Sour

This dish apparently took the place of the more traditional steamed whole fish course - and that was fine with me! I don't know where Tom gets it - but his fish is always amazingly fresh and this grouper was no exception. The deep fried morsels were stir fried with pickled vegetables (hence the "sour") and chili sauce. I think this was my favorite dish of the evening.





There was a long pause after the fish course (which is traditionally last or next to last at a Chinese Banquet) and we thought we were done (everyone in my earshot sounded very full). Then, a last savory plate came to the table:


Chinese Eggplant with Chicken and Fresh Basil



Another perfect combination of flavors and textures.

After another pause - dessert was served:


Hot Sweet Soup with Mango and White Fungus



I enjoyed the taste of this - but could only manage a few bites. I was FULL.

I swear that I am not a shill for Wonton Gourmet - but I guarantee you'll have fun with the treats being served there!