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!