Fu Yuan Xiang - Northeastern Chinese and a Shanghai Surprise
Just thinking about Fu Yuan Xiang gives me serious cravings. Our first time in this Verdun, or as I like to call it now Chinatown3, restaurant started out a bit shaky, but as soon as we had tucked into our appetizers, I was already planning my next visit.
This place makes some hearty, savoury and cockle-warming food. Northeastern Chinese food, to be exact. The chef is from Liaoning. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the menu they give you, that’s the white people menu. If you want the good stuff, you’re going to have to work a little bit to convince them you want to eat “Chinese food”. We had a bit of a hard time convincing our waitress that what we wanted was the food the Chinese patrons were ordering and not General Tao’s chicken or Pad Thai.
“Are you sure you want Chinese food?” she asked us with a dubious look. Yes we were. We wanted the gorgeous cold dish the other table was having. The dish was La Pi, wide mung bean noodle with cucumber, carrot, pork, wood ear and sesame dressing. It was superb. I’m a huge fan of Chinese salads and this one did not disappoint. Next we had eggplant fritters stuffed with pork and served with a dipping salt. It was tremendous; silky, savoury and the seasoned dipping salt made it come alive. After that came the soup with pork spareribs and Chinese sauerkraut. Because, apparently, a meal without soup is not a meal. It was a savoury broth with lots of suan cai (Chinese sauerkraut), bean thread (could have been sweet potato) noodles and a few spareribs for added porkiness. I didn’t know before then that the Chinese even made sauerkraut, but now I’m a fan. The soup was very vinegary. My dining companion was particularly enamoured with it, and I enjoyed it as well. Some green onion pancakes were ordered to round out the meal. After all that yumminess we were positively stuffed so we had call it quits. We left the rest for our second visit.
The second time I went was with another dining companion. This time the waitress needed no convincing and understood that we were there for the good stuff. So, because you must have a soup, we ordered the Chinese mushroom and chicken soup. Loved it. Then, at our waitress’ suggestion, we got the pork skin. That one wasn’t a great success. Not that the congealed collagen with bits of pork skin wasn’t tasty, it was very porky, and the texture certainly was interesting. It kind of melted into velvety broth as our mouths warmed it up. However, the portion was just too much for two people so we hardly made a dent in it. Yu xiang pork was better than average, but nothing to shout about. And then there were those mysterious bamboo steamers we saw on other tables.
“Do you have dumplings?” I asked.
“No we don’t make dumplings,” our friendly waitress replied.
“Then what’s in the steamers?”
“It’s a kind of steamed bread with meat… and soup inside.”
“Like, xiao long bao?”
“Yes, you know xiao long bao?”
“We’ll have one of those!”
And so we did, and they were delicious. Now, I would never have suspected that this place would serve xiao long bao since it’s a Shanghai specialty, but it just happens that one of the girls who works there is from Shanghai. So there you go. The buns (because they’re not dumplings, remember?) had a nice thin layer of dough, that was indeed reminiscent of a bao dough, standing in as a dumpling wrapper. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I’ve never had xiao long bao outside of Montreal so I can’t really speak to the authenticity or relative awesomeness of this dish. What I can say is that they were very delicate, savoury and soupy. And you have to get them out of the steamer quickly or risk them sticking to the bottom and tearing as you take them out. Our luck with that was varied, but we did pretty well most of the time.
Now here’s a quick run down of the other dishes we’ve tried there. Mixed vegetable soup is a winner with big chunks of veggies and great broth. Salt and pepper shrimp had different and interesting batter, but was too oily. Wonton soup (from Chinese menu) with big pork-filled wontons was a delight. Sweet and sour pork was more sour than sweet with a light gingery sauce and crispy coating. That ones a keeper. Fried green beans were not as intense or as dry as the usual Sichuan versions, but nothing to sneeze at either. Braised pork bone (spine) eaten with complementary plastic gloves was not as perfumed as the one I’ve had from Qing Hua, but is still a intensely meaty dish I would order again and again.
Oh yeah, maybe I should tell you something the atmosphere and all that jazz. The place has a clean modern look to it, but it’s very bare-bones. There’s a big flat screen showing Chinese television and films. The lighting is bright but not harsh. Some nights you’ll see entire families eating there complete with kids running around and wreaking havoc so be prepared for that. Otherwise, just sit back, let the servers explain the specials on the blackboard and help you with your order and remember to order soup.
Fu Yuan Xiang
4424 Wellington, Verdun
514-762-4335
Metro De l’Église
By SnackHappy
on Feb 10, 2010 01:35 PM
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Thank you snackhappy! I am grateful you live in my neighbourhood.
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Thanks, hala. Although I did live in Verdun many years ago, I don't live there now. I am however very interested in its Chinese restaurant scene. There seems to be a lot going on and much of it remains unexplored. I'm very curious about the Taiwanese place on Wellington near the metro. And there's another place where the windows are always steamy that seems to make Chinese snack foods. It all certainly warrants some investigation.
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oh man I knew I should have tried harder! I have been here twice and been so disappointed both times! I ordered chicken with schezuan peppers and spinach the first time, and received chicken with green peppers with just normal black pepper in the sauce! I was home by the time I opened it and realised that I had received the "white people" version.....
SnackHappy - help me! How did you convince them to give you the good stuff?
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The way we did it was to point at other tables and ask for the same. Then we asked the waitress to help us choose some "Chinese" dishes. It did take a fair bit of convincing. I still don't know everything that's on the Chinese menu. I only know the dishes we've tried. I think your best bet would be to ask about the specials on the blackboard and go from there. I do hope one day to go in there and have them walk me through the Chinese only menu, so I can have a better idea of everything they serve.
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wow! i have to try this out, this place is next to my buddy's place.. guess i'll have to brush up on my mandarin (took classes 3 years ago..) so they won't serve me the "white" menu (although i'm vietnamese, who knows what stunt they will pull on me!)
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Did you eat there recently? I noticed in another post you said ''when I come back to Montreal''.
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I haven't eaten there since around christmas. I've had a very busy first few weeks of the year and doing this write-up had to take a back seat to other more urgent things. I'm in Barcelona right now, and will be out of the country for the next few months. I just hope Fu Yuan Xiang is still there when I get back.
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GREAT report, SnackHappy, it reads like a love story with added tenderness and a touch of drama!
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What porker said. You's the houndiest. Am really looking forward to trying out Fu Yuan Xiang.
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i just went there today and despite the fact that i'm asian, my buddy is caucasian and they still gave us "white people food". I had to convince the waitress that we weren't here for general tao. We decided to order the sichuan style chicken (they said it's VERY spicy), the spicy cabbage, the xiao long bao and eggplant with brown sauce.
I have already had xiao long bao in toronto (what we had in toronto was soup that was gushing in our mouth, burning and scalding the mouth) and i have to say, i was very disappointed with their xiao long bao. There was no soup inside, but the flavor was there though
The so called "VERY SPICY" sichuan chicken was not even close to be spicy. Although it had alot of dried pepper (we specifically said we wanted real peppers, not ground black pepper), it wasn't even spicy. The chicken was inconsistant, some bites were bland, others were too salty
The cabagge sauted with pepper was a bit more spicy, but it's no eyes tearing spicy. I think it went well with the chicken.
The sauted eggplant in brown sauce was REALLY sweet, which kind of threw me off.
All in all, I would give this restaurant the benefit of the doubt since they really thought i was a true banana that didn't know what real asian food and my caucasian buddy was into general tao (he is the most asian caucasian that i know). The waitress said next time she will make things spicier.
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I'm very sorry you and your friend had a bad experience there. If you ever do go back, I would stay away from the Sichuan food and stick to Northeastern dishes. I wouldn't go in there expecting a lot of heat, either. If you want spicy, you'll be better served by the Sichuan places in Chinatown2. I don't think Northeastern food is known for its spicyness and I don't think this place does Sichuan food that well. I think their signature dishes are the La Pi, Pork Bone, Xiao Long Bao and the soups. If you do insist on having something spicy, you should order the mixed vegetable soup which comes with pieces of hot green pepper.
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that's what my friend and i concluded. During the dinner we said, "dang.. we should have printed your OP and then order EXACTLY what you ordered", which i what we are planning on doing next time (maybe in a couple of weeks.. chinese new year is tomorrow and i'll be stuffing my face). I fully trust your judgement and I will not give up on this restaurant ;)
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I finally went back to Fu Yuan armed with SnackHappy's advice. One problem though - it was Friday night and only one other table was occupied, and they hadn't received their food! So I couldn't check out what other people were eating and order from there!
That said, since my last visit, there is a new waitress and her English is much better than the other girl's (who is still there) and she seemed happy to translate the specials board for us. Other things that have changed since my last visit - complimentary prawn crackers were brought out at the start of the meal, a new book-like menu, and nicer crockery.
We ordered the cumin beef, the salt and pepper seafood (prawns and calamari), the La Pi and the Xiao Long Bao.
The La Pi was definitely the highlight, so refreshing, lots of different textures, and really great value for $7.50! I think this will definitely be a go-to dish on a hot summer's night!
I have never had "real" Xiao Long Bao but I enjoy the soup-like dumplings at Qing Hua. This version tasted delicious, I especially liked the fresh ginger flavour that shone through, but, as per a previous poster, they seemed entirely lacking in soup! They didn't stick to the steamer basket either, since they had a thin circle of carrot (I think) underneath each dumpling to prevent the sticking.... so I am not sure where the soup went? Flavour-wise though, no complaints!
The cumin beef - I didn't really know what to expect, I had only heard about Cuisin Szechuan's version through this board, so thought we would try it. It was nice but nothing special. The quality of the beef was quite average. My dining partner thought it tasted kind of Mexican, since it was beef, onions and green peppers, with the cumin - all we needed were some tortillas for some fusion fajitas!
The salt and pepper seafood was good but not fantastic. The prawns were better than the calamari, as the batter was nice and thin. The batter on the calamari was too thick, though I should note that the calamari was cooked perfectly, was not tough or stringy at all. The flavouring again was good, but this dish could be really improved by cutting the amount of batter. The thinly sliced cabbage underneath the seafood was a nice foil to the oil and salty though.
So, overall this visit was much improved from my last one and I would like to continue to make my way through the list of specials (we were only two last night!) particularly trying some pork dishes and tofu dishes. I asked about the eggplant dish that was mentioned up thread but they didn't seem to have it available. Next time!
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Just a little update. I dropped in Fu Yuan Xiang last night for some take-out la pi and noticed that they have a new menu with pictures and items that weren't on the old French/English menu like the la pi and Shanghai soup dumplings. I didn't see the big soups and pork bone on there, although I perused it very quickly. They've gone from one to three boards of specials including one with only noodle dishes. I didn't have time to ask about the noodles, but I hope to be able to check those out soon.
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Update: I just called, and they told me they don't have Xia Long Bao anymore. Do you guys know if this is a permanent thing?
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They changed ownership/management in the first couple of weeks in January. A friend reported that they had already made menu changes (the fish and chilies now comes with tofu flower, like at CS) and I guess this is one of them. She did report that they had shanghai dumplings in spicy garlic soup but I don't really know what they are meant to be or if that is a well known dish?
I haven't been myself yet so this is all second hand information. I will probably go in the next couple of weeks and can report back on the new menu
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Update: after a couple of attempts (they had a problem with their plumbing after the cold weather a week or so ago) I have finally tried the revamped restaurant. And I love it! It seems to be run by the same people/people affiliated with Cuisine Szechuan - the menu is the same font and has many, if not all of the same dishes. I tried the dumplings in house chilli and the hot and sour Chinese cabbage. I was a little worried when they set down a fork in front of me, but the dishes were deliciously seasoned and spicy, with a good amount of chillies in the cabbage. And though I am never sure exactly what other people mean when they speak about wok hei, the cabbage sure had an extra something - a slight smokiness perhaps - that was very good!
Heartily recommend!!
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