Good Earth
1849 Portage Ave
204-889-8880
November, 2011
Winnipeg has no shortage of bad buffet restaurants and many
of them serve Canadianised Chinese food.
You know what kind of food I’m talking about. Traditional Chinese food does not include
sweet and sour chicken balls, or fried broccoli and cauliflower, or chop suey
(a convenient way to get rid of yesterday’s leftovers), or the ubiquitous
fortune cookie—yet these are staples to most takeout, delivery or buffet
meals. However, there’s probably more of
a market for these kinds of dishes than there is for our traditional Chinese
food, so you can hardly blame restaurants for mass-producing this slop by the
truckload. The Good Earth’s menu
features many traditional dishes but the buffet is definitely Canadianised.
The fried rice, chow mein and wonton soup are the only
somewhat traditional dishes on this buffet, and even these dishes have large
rootstocks in western cooking. The
wonton soup broth tastes absolutely bland and flavourless but they make nice
and plump wontons. Now imagine putting
your big vat of wonton soup at the end of the buffet table; what do you think
happens? Right, people fish out all the
wontons and leave the broth. If you want
to try the soup, make sure you keep alert to when they replenish the pot—you
don’t want to drink the broth without the goodies.
The fried rice barely outdoes the broth for flavour but the
chow mein tastes rich and delicious. The
lightly fried noodles glow with a wonderful tan colour, but they don’t
glisten. Many Chinese restaurants
saturate their noodles with grease to augment flavouring but Earth’s saves you
the cholesterol count by holding the fat.
Similarly, most of the Earth’s stir fried dishes are well
cooked without excessive fat. The
beef-fried veggies come perfectly cooked, crispy and juicy. They lightly fry the broccoli and
cauliflower, leaving them rich in nutrients.
Questionable buffets leave their foods to bask in heat lamps, leaving
them desiccated and fossilised. The
Earth rotates its food regularly to ensure that most of the vegetables stay optimally cooked.
Unfortunately, not all of the meals stay as moist. The breaded, fried veal and the breaded pork
taste well overcooked and dry. The
chicken balls are better prepared but they’re still hit-or-miss. If you hit, you get a ball full of chicken
breast but if you miss, you end up with a large wad of dough enveloping a
sliver of meat. I recommend you stay
away from the deep fried options and stick to the stir fried.
As I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of bad buffets and
just as many bad Chinese restaurants.
The Good Earth is not one of them.
They have some problematic dishes but largely, the food tastes
good. Yes, it is Canadianised, but it’s
good Canadianised. Don’t let the beat-up
sign and dingy exterior fool you. Inside,
you find a warm and welcoming dining room that resembles a skiing chalet. Most importantly, you find the owners dashing
about, with a genuine concern that you enjoy your meal.
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