{"id":437,"date":"2008-09-14T20:22:52","date_gmt":"2008-09-15T03:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=437"},"modified":"2008-09-24T11:52:47","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T18:52:47","slug":"xiang-cuisine-burnaby-bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2008\/09\/14\/xiang-cuisine-burnaby-bc\/","title":{"rendered":"Xiang Cuisine (Burnaby, BC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on August 21st (and 12 years of being together).\u00a0 I was ill for our first wedding anniversary, and our second was a so-so dinner with Miriam after a doctor’s appointment, so we were determined to have a romantic dinner alone<\/em> this year.\u00a0 We were in British Columbia and our host offered to babysit.\u00a0 We had plans for a lovely seafood meal in downtown Vancouver but fate intervened again and Miriam was ill the night before.<\/p>\n

A few days later, all was calm and we opted for something closer to where we were staying.\u00a0 The place we chose turned out to be perfect.<\/p>\n

The Xiang Cuisine
\naka Alvin Garden<\/strong>
\n4850 Imperial Street, Burnaby, BC Canada
\n604-437-0828
\nCredit and debit cards accepted but only if your bill is over a certain amount ($30?).
\nReviews at Chowhound<\/a>, DineHere<\/a>, EatVancouver<\/a> (with photos of the menu (old version)), and some lovely pictures<\/a> (pre and post-renovation but with the newer menu).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Xiang is this hole in the wall just east of Vancouver.\u00a0 They renovated a few months ago (based on the pictures I’ve seen, it’s looking much better) and changed their name to Alvin Garden, though they seem to use both names.\u00a0 We walked in to find a pleasant interior with two rooms of tables and no white faces (a good sign).\u00a0 There were some larger groups as well as couples there, and both fit in well.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t call it particularly romantic, but it had the right feel to it for an anniversary (or even a date) and you could easily carry on a conversation.<\/p>\n

Our waitress was nice and knowledgeable about the food.\u00a0 Despite warnings from other reviewers about poor English skills, we had no trouble communicating.\u00a0 She seemed perplexed though when we asked for no meat (in particular, no pork).\u00a0 Other reviewers report similar experiences: they ask for no meat and are told it won’t be as good, but it turns out to be excellent.\u00a0 We had no trouble finding several dishes to try and going egg-free was easy too (she just steered us away from a couple of dishes).\u00a0 Dairy-free is pretty much a given in Chinese restaurants (authentic ones anyway).\u00a0 Forget about gluten-free; we didn’t even try.\u00a0 I can eat gluten once in a while, so I didn’t worry about it (but I avoided the leftovers so I wouldn’t have gluten two days in a row).<\/p>\n

Not being familiar with Hunan cuisine, aside from knowing it’s the hottest food in China, we didn’t order correctly.\u00a0 We should have had a raw (or at least cold) salad to balance out the heat.\u00a0 And we got way too much food.\u00a0 Our dishes could have easily fed four.\u00a0 Nor did we eat it right.\u00a0 You’re supposed to put some rice in the little bowl they give you and then put food on top, eating the rice as it gets soaked with sauce.\u00a0 Since our bowls still had soup, we used the plates.\u00a0 If anyone laughed at us, they were discrete.<\/p>\n

We started with soup, broiled fish with chili.<\/p>\n

\"Broiled

Broiled fish with chili soup<\/p><\/div>\n

At $18.98, this seemed like quite an extravagance, until we saw the pot.\u00a0 We could have served 8, as part of a larger meal, and it had a fair bit of firm white fish.\u00a0 Our waitress warned us this one would be hot, and it was blistering.\u00a0 I had trouble eating it, though I kept doing it since it was so good.\u00a0 Michael wasn’t fond of the style of putting dried chilies on top as he prefers his heat more integrated.<\/p>\n

Our other dishes were fried eggplant with black bean sauce (top left of picture, $8.90); Hunan style shrimp (bottom right of picture, $14.90); steamed dried tofu with special chili (bottom left of picture, $9.90); and a pot of rice.\u00a0 We both prefer our food lowcarb, which everything was, but wanted the rice to soak up the amazing sauces and, in my case, reduce the heat level.\u00a0 I can’t recall which of the dishes normally have pork in them, but ours came meat-free.<\/p>\n

\"Michael

Michael enjoying Xiang's offerings<\/p><\/div>\n

The eggplant was like silk and melted in our mouths.\u00a0 It was the only dish we managed to finish.\u00a0 It and the shrimp were our favorites.\u00a0 The chili sauce on the shrimp was similar to the soup’s but the heat was more a part of the dish and wasn’t as intense.\u00a0 We loved the crispy edible shells.\u00a0 I ate the tofu without the sliced jalapenos and found it to be a nice contrast to the tomato\/chili based dishes.\u00a0 It had some heat but was fairly mild.\u00a0 The chewiness of the tofu was also a good counter to the softness of most of the ingredients in the other dishes.<\/p>\n

Xiang passed the girlfriend-cry-test, which is now the wife-cry-test.\u00a0 That’s where if I take a single bite of something and tears start rolling down my face, then it’s hot enough for Michael.\u00a0 Part of my anniversary gift to him was choosing a restaurant where I knew he’d have the heat he craved, and the joy of watching me suffer with delight.<\/p>\n

Michael had a Chinese beer ($4.50) and I had a glass of sweetened and chalky soymilk ($1.50), mostly because I needed something to dial down the heat.\u00a0 Dessert was pumpkin cake (egg-free) which turned out to be 4 large glutenous pies, filled with a bit of pumpkin and fried.\u00a0 They had a mild flavor, not as sweet as most Westerners would expect of a dessert, but complemented the meal and had a definite addictive property.<\/p>\n

So this turned out to be a fairly pricey meal for us, but worth it due to the special occasion and the massive amount of leftovers we carted home.\u00a0 Although any size group (or solo diner) can get a great meal, Xiang seems best geared for large groups who will share the oversized plates and get the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of dishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on August 21st (and 12 years of being together).\u00a0 I was ill for our first wedding anniversary, and our second was a so-so dinner with Miriam after a doctor’s appointment, so we were determined to have a romantic dinner alone this year.\u00a0 We were in British Columbia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,26,32],"tags":[48,96,7,6,11,51,77,33],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canadian-restaurant","category-food","category-restaurant","tag-asian-food","tag-canada","tag-dairy-free","tag-egg-free","tag-lowcarb","tag-photos-family","tag-photos-food","tag-seafood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}