4 Seasons (takeout only)

4 Seasons
Southdale Centre
10 – 35 Lakewood Blvd
Tel: (204) 254-2221
Fax: (204) 256-9139
http://www.4seasonschinesefood.com





January, 2011

We don’t order in very often, and it’s even rarer that we order Chinese food. If you search around Winnipeg, you can find “authentic” Chinese food, but when you order in, you have a fair chance of getting “Canadianised” or “Americanised” Chinese food. I used the phrase Canadianised Chinese food quite often, so it’s about time I give a brief explanation.

During the construction of the cross-country rail lines, large numbers of workers passed through small towns. Chinese immigrants settled in many of these towns and opened restaurants. Authentic Chinese ingredients were difficult to obtain so restaurateurs used readily-available ingredients. Moreover, native Chinese foods have flavours that Western society may not embrace easily; serving palate-friendly dishes often meant overhauling the ingredients and the cooking methods. The evolution of the Canadianised dishes disseminated through the continent. Its popularity and the absence of native Chinese foods led Canadians and Americans to embrace this new strain of Chinese food as representative of food in China. Ironically, the industrialisation of China has led the Chinese to embrace Western ways and Western Chinese food is making its way to the motherland.

So what are some fundamental differences between Chinese food in Canada and food in China? Canadianised food uses vegetables as garnishes and highlights, while Chinese food features vegetables as the main ingredients. The Chinese use very little meat, although seafood often appears. The Chinese stir fry and steam many of their dishes while Western Chinese stir fry and deep fry their dishes. Most Chinese food is quite healthy, using very little oil and salt; Canadianised food uses heavy amounts of salt, oil and MSG (although recent health issues have curbed MSG usage).

If you read any of my past reviews, you may suspect that I’m not a big fan of Canadianised Chinese food, and you’re right. The health issue is a small part of it, but my biggest complaint is that it’s just not good! How many times have you ordered chicken balls to find a sliver of chicken meat buried in a boulder of batter? Regardless, I understand that a tremendous market exists in Winnipeg for ersatz Chinese food so I throw my humble opinion in.

Plodding into unknown territory, I do a Google search for good Chinese takeout and numerous hits show 4 Seasons as serving Winnipeg’s best takeout. Seasons is basically a takeout/delivery only restaurant, with no accommodation for restaurant dining. They have a comprehensive and easy-to-navigate webpage for ordering, which I highly recommend you use (see link above).

We start with barbecued pork slices and mini spring rolls as appetisers. Walk into most Chinese grocery stores and you can find a meat counter serving bright red barbecued pork. Normally, the pork tastes deliciously juicy and sweet, but Seasons’s pork tastes flavourless and dry. The spring rolls have nice flavour but when they say mini, they mean MINI! These cigarette-sized rolls won’t take up much room in your stomach so feel free to order the larger serving.

The lightly-battered, deep fried shrimps have nice flavour, but alas, most of the taste comes from the battering and you barely taste the shrimps. They’re a little overdone, but nothing like the shrimps you see under the buffet sunlamps that have been tanning for hours.

I mentioned earlier that most chicken balls should be called batter balls; Seasons’s chicken balls should be called chicken balls. A thin layer of batter covers the generous chunks of chicken. While you get plenty of chicken, this dish too is over-fried and thus, the white meat tastes dry and overcooked.
Perhaps Seasons’s best dish, the beef and broccoli comes stir fried in an oyster sauce. This selection is a little light on the beef but both the beef and the broccoli are perfectly cooked. The beef shows a slight touch of pink while the broccoli tastes deliciously al dente.

Egg foo young is a somewhat authentic Chinese dish that is basically an omelette. Good foo young comes silky soft and melts in your mouth. Our foo young is prepared adequately but the quantity of barbecued pork is lacking.

Chow mein is another authentic Chinese dish, although the Chinese don’t add chicken very often. The standard chow mein dish comes with softened, thin noodles (mein) that is pan fried (chow) to give crispness. Stir fried vegetables in a gravy-like sauce are poured over the noodles to complete the dish. Seasons’s makes a pretty good sauce, although again, the amount of chicken is light. However, instead of soft, fried noodles, the standard dish comes with packaged, dried, dehydrated sticks (I can’t call them noodles) that remind me of matchsticks. I didn’t even know what to do with the package until someone told me that this is the noodles. Folks, this selection makes an absolute and abject travesty of what chow mein is supposed to be. I want this review to remain G-rated so I stop talking about this dish now.

I tasted some very bad Canadianised takeout in my life and 4 Seasons isn’t terrible; it isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible. The food tastes better than what you find at most Chinese buffets, but if you must order takeout, try Indian.

** /5

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