More Fun Playing with Cantonese Food at Wonton Gourmet

June 15 was Fathers' Day. For Bob, whose dad passed away many years ago, it was a day for gardening. My Dad is in New York, nearly 500 miles away. So, Father's Day wasn't even on my radar when I selected the date for a lunch at Wonton Gourmet. Though we started out with nearly a dozen people planning to join us - once the reality of the day set in, they started to drop out (understandably). By the time we got to the appointed day and time (Sunday at 1:30pm), our group was down to four people. But that was probably a good thing, considering that the place was packed when I arrived, and that they didn't want to reserve a big table for us because of the holiday.

Wonton Gourment has become my favorite Cleveland Asiatown restaurant. I knew it was a good sign, the first time I ventured here, that I observed Michael Hong, Chef of the wonderful Siam Cafe (3951 St. Clair Ave., Cleveland, OH, (216) 361-2323) dining at a nearby table! Wonton Gourmet is located at 3211 Payne Avenue, Cleveland (no website, (216) 875-7000).

Some of the servers remembered us from previous visits, and the owner, Thomas, stopped by every table to ask how things were; he seemed genuinely delighted that we enjoyed the food so much. We dug into the menus, and decided to order one course at a time, so that our small table wouldn't be buried in plates! We started with a selection of Dim Sum items. Though the selection is small, Wonton Gourmet does them extremely well.


Chive Pot Stickers





These fried pockets were stuffed with fresh Chinese chives, shrimp and just a little pork. They were served wok-hot and had a bit of a stiff texture from the shrimp. Yum!


Turnip Cake



I've had Dim Sum in NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, New Jersey, Guangsho (China), Hong Kong and Cleveland. This is, bar none, the most exquisite turnip cake I've ever experienced. As I wrote about it here, it is crispy on the outside, and incredibly creamy on the inside - more like a pudding than anything else. It does not need any condiments (turnip cake is usually served with Hoisen sauce - but Wonton Gourmet wisely serves it just as it is).


Steamed Cilantro & Scallion Rice Roll



This ubiquitous delicacy is usually presented (and is available at Wonton Gourmet) stuffed with shrimp or beef. The rice noodle is rolled around the filling and served over a slightly sweet, soy-based sauce. Something just told me we needed to try it without the filling - and that something was right. The taste of the fresh herbs and the chewy noodles was accented by the sauce - and each mouthful was a delight.


Sui Mai (Steamed Pork and Shrimp Dumpling)

Sui Mai is another of those ubiquitous Dim Sum items served by any restaurant that serves Dim Sum. I usually don't care for them - too much frozen shrimp for my palate, and not usually at the freshest. We were determined to order them - as happened last time, the server warned that they take 15-20 minutes - but we were not in a hurry!



This version was topped with a bit of roe (not sure what kind). It had a firm texture - probably from the mushrooms that seemed to replace a lot of the shrimp. I actually liked it better than most Sui Mai, despite the mushrooms, because of that firm texture, deep pork flavor, and, especially - it was so amazingly fresh!



We followed our Dim Sum with a soup course.


Chinese Chive Dumplings in Soup







The pristinely clear pork-infused broth contained little to distract - the toothsome dumplings (amazingly similar to the Chive Potstickers - it wouldn't surprise me if they were the same dumpling), Gailan (Chinese Broccoli) and scallions. A simple, brilliant dish.

We decided that two entrees would be plenty for the four of us, considering the volume of food that we had just consumed.


Wet Black Pepper Beef & Spaghetti





No kidding - the menu has a whole section of dishes "Over Rice or Spaghetti," though this dish came from a wall menu (thank you Stuart for the translations)! Stuart had warned us to expect a very wet dish over rather mushy spaghetti. But this dish was sublime! An unidentifiable, Western-seeming pasta cooked al dente, tossed with tender beef, chunks of onion, scallion, bean sprouts and coated with a brisk Hong Hong-style black pepper sauce that moistened, but did not drown the dish.



In order to get the full effect of the pepper, you really have to eat this dish the Chinese way - out of a small bowl, which concentrated the aromas and flavors, and with a fairly large bite at a time (everyone at the table finally got the pepper rush - it just took the others a little longer because they ate it from a flat plate in daintier fashion). Black Pepper Sauce is one of those Chinese foods I crave, because few places make it (or make it well).


Oil Fried (or Wok Tossed) Grouper Balls



I was expecting something more dumpling-like - but this dish did not disappoint on flavor, texture or freshness. Chunks of fresh fish were battered and deep fried, then wok-tossed with crisp vegetables, a light "velvety" sauce, and lots of garlic. This was a perfect contrast to the spicy noodle dish!



This meal delighted all four of us, and we agreed to return for more soon! It is a real treat to be able to play with authentic Hong Kong style food right here in Cleveland, in a clean and friendly restaurant.

Three of us visited Koko Bakery (3710 Payne Ave, Cleveland, OH, (216) 881-7600, link to menu here) after, since Tom and Kay had never been there before. I left my camera in the car, but wished I hadn't - the joint was rocking! Koko is a Shanghai-style bakery - to the left, a wall of traditional (and not so traditional) Chinese baked and fried buns, stuffed with everything from Char Sui pork to Ham & Eggs. Then, a cooler with steam buns, for take out. The front counter cases carried elaborate Western-looking pastries, and a few Eastern surprises (pork bread?). The menu includes a selection of rice plates, sandwiches and salads, and Taiwanese and Korean desserts. There is a large selection of Bubble Tea and Shaved Ice. I was pleased to see them so busy; Cleveland has lost a couple of Asian bakeries in the past few years, and this one is locally owned and operated. Koko deserves our support.

I picked up a package of Cranberry Cookies for after dinner and wished I could think enough about food to get something else - but Wonton Gourmet had filled me up with goodness and there was no room left, even to think about food. I'll need a return trip to play with the food at Koko's!

Fun Playing with Goulash Soup and Homemade Bread

I've been so busy that I'm a week behind in blogging - and we got to play with some wonderful food over the past week! So, bear with me!

Bob likes to cook up a big pot of something on Mondays, so he doesn't have to cook dinner every night. Last Monday, he picked up our copy of Best of the Midwest by Linda and Fred Griffith, which I had been perusing for an event I'm catering soon. He took one look at the recipe I'd tagged, for "Goulash Soup," and knew we had to have it.

Bob has been a bread baker for many years. Recently, he tried a new trick - breaking up a standard recipe of dough into four equal parts, and refrigerating three of them until needed. This allowed us to have hot-from-the-oven bread with each dinner of the soup with minimal fuss, and also effected portion control (it is easy to lose control around a freshly baked loaf of bread).


Bob's Whole Wheat Bread

1/4 loaf worth proofs.







Unfortunately, Bob make the soup while I was work, so I have no "how to" photos. The dish consists of ingredients you might expect in a goulash - with one notable omission - Hungarian Paprika! Fortunately, we still have a good supply of our homegrown stuff in the freezer from last summer, so that was no problem. Also incongruous to my Jewish palate - crisped bacon in addition to beef stew meat. It was simply delicious!





Like most stews, this one was better the next day. And like most stews, the contents soaked up a lot of the liquid as each day went by - it became more like goulash than soup. But that was ok with us!


Reheated After a Couple of Days in the Fridge

We love Linda and Fred's cookbooks - they give us wonderful ideas for playing with our food!

Fun Playing with Soup!

I think that a well done soup is the ultimate comfort food - especially in the dark coldness of winter. Over the years, I've gone from the famous red and white label cans that Mom would make, "progressed" to non-condensed cans, and tried Tabatchnick's, which comes frozen and is made with all natural ingredients. When I get sick and crave chicken soup, I've always searched throughout the town I live in to find great chicken soup. Still, no soup is as good as homemade - and at the risk of showing a little ego here - no one's chicken soup is as good as mine! Still - true soup chickens are hard to come by, and sometimes, one just wants a great bowl of soup without the time and work of cooking it. But where to go? And what about other varieties of soup?

Cleveland is blessed with a number of restaurants that make excellent soup. And we have a Chinatown that can dish up awesome soups 24/7. But what about take-out in the suburbs that is reasonably priced and always ready to go? There is a chain that is relatively new in Cleveland, Zoup, that claims it "makes all of its own soups using the highest quality, all-natural meats and vegetables, and the most appropriate (even if they are most labor-intensive) techniques . . . . " I've tasted Zoup's products twice, and while there was "nothing not to like" - there was nothing to bring me back - there was no question that the soups were commercially prepared (as they must be, for this concept to work) and tasted commercial to me.

Enter a new business that opened right in my home town of Solon Ohio: The Soup Pot. The Soup Pot serves 10 varieties of made-from-scratch soup every day, in addition to a small selection of salads and breads. Breakfast was in the original plan, but was apparently not well patronized, which is a shame because I for one would love to see how they prepare kasha for breakfast!

So yesterday was a very strange day - started in such a great mood, then slipped on the sheet of ice that was the bank's parking lot before I could even get out of my car at about 8:15am and wound up sitting on the ice for a while before someone helped me up (it was too slick for my boots to get a grip). Now sore and cranky, I left the office early and hungry, craving comfort and sustenance. It was about 3:30pm when I wandered into The Soup P0t, not at all sure what to expect.

This small store is cleanly scrubbed and bright. But the first element to engage my senses was the amazing smell of soup cooking - not from a mix, or a freezer bag - but from bones and flesh. The smell assured me this was the real deal.

I struck up a conversation with the owner's mom, who's name I didn't get. A pleasant lady with a Russian accent, she encouraged me to taste the soups, and I sampled three of them. Since I couldn't decide, I wound up bringing home 2 8oz containers. I passed on the crackers, and the server apologized that they had run out of bread, which would normally come with the soup.

My husband agreed that these soups were fantastic - the flavors leaped out of the bowl mixed with intoxicating fumes - this is the kind of soup I have craved! Loaded with genuine mouthfeel from real ingredients - it helped to pull my lousy day out of the gutter.


Turkish Meatball Soup

This wonderful soup was accented with a little lemon and wonderfully fresh and tasty meatballs. You could even tell that the carrots were processed in-house and were not from a bag of shreds.




Cheddar Corn Chowder

Not what I'd normally expect from a soup of this name - a very soup-like consistency (chicken broth, according to my server) packed with flavor and just a hint of the cheese. Yum.




The third variety that I tasted at the store was Chicken Paprikash. It was loaded with shreds of fresh chicken and quite tasty.

Now that I've found the family-owned-and-operated Soup Pot (in my own back yard to boot) - I'll be back! They are open 7 days a week and are located in the Solar Shopping Center, a few doors down from Giant Eagle. This independent provider of lip smacking comestibles deserves the support of anyone in the Greater Cleveland Area who loves great soup! Because as much fun as it is to make soup from scratch - The Soup Pot lets me play with great soup without having to cook it!