Cathay House

Cathay House

1631 Regent Ave West

204-669-1015

March, 2012

Restaurants come and restaurants go but the Cathay House has stood its ground for as long as I can remember.  Years ago (perhaps decades), Cathay was known as a good, but not a great place to find Chinese food outside of Chinatown.  Today, you can find Chinese restaurants everywhere in the city, but how has Cathay withstood the test of time?

A quick peek at some of the local reviews tells me not to expect much.  The complaints run the gamut of bad food, poor service and neglected establishment.  Approaching the threshold, I’m not sure what to think as the Oriental doors shiver in the absence of covering and paint—is the building a victim of abject neglect or does it await a proud new coat of colour?

Inside, the tall cathedral ceilings, the dim lighting and the center-court statue give the ambience of an Eastern temple.  The statue features a fountain with a continuous flow of water.  If you’ve ever visited Brussels, you’ve probably heard of the manneken pis, and it shouldn’t take much imagination to decipher the statue’s actions.  Let’s just say that our friend in the court looks like he’s doing a pretty good imitation of his Belgian counterpart.  If you look closer, he’s actually pouring water out of a jug, but it makes for some pretty good pre-dinner conversation anyway.

Warning:  if the constant sound of running water gives you “problems,” you should probably sit well away from the fountain.  The chairs by the restaurant perimeter look like they were recently purchased, while the inner sanctum chairs look more dated—not ratty, just old-fashioned.  The menu looks equally old-fashioned as it features the usual 100 or so dishes that you typically find on Chinese menus.  A quick count reveals 121 menu options.

Honestly, do you really need 121 menu options from which to choose?  Especially when most of the clientele only need to choose from the comforts of chicken balls, sweet and sour pork and wonton soup?  It’s a pet peeve but I wish Chinese restaurants would just offer the few demanded staples and take the time to come up with some original dishes for the rest of us to sample.  I won’t go into my rant about traditional versus Canadianised Chinese foods here; let’s just sum up that most of Cathay’s dishes are very Canadian in nature and origins.

We start with the egg rolls appetisers, which look more like fat springs roll than egg rolls.  Cathay’s version contains cloud ears (or wood ears), a greyish/dark brown fungus.  The description turns off most Westerners and it should.  Cloud ears have a deep woodsy taste that reminds of me of food that is past its prime.  There aren’t many members in the mushroom family that I don’t like but this is definitely one of them.  The Chinese use cloud ears in many dishes and I have yet to find an iteration I like.

Equally, I am unimpressed with the common way the Chinese prepare spare ribs, chopped sideways across the rib bones.  This normally leaves very little meat around the bones and a lot of cartilage matter.  To compound, Cathay’s plain sweet and sour spare ribs are desiccated dry and show little sign of sweet nor sour.  I would skip this dish next time.

I have another gripe about Chinese food preparation where restaurants bread and deep fry shrimps with the shells on.  In eating the fried shrimps, you need to peel off the breading before peeling off the shells, to finally get at the shrimp meat.  The reasoning is that the shells hold in the flavours and the juices of the shrimps through the cooking process.  I don’t buy it.  Shrimps taste naturally moist and flavourful so long as you don’t overcook them.  Cathay’s deep fried breaded shrimps come with no shells and are perfectly fried to give a wonderful, crisp layer of breading.  The nice-sized shrimps remain moist and soft on the inside.  Well done. 

The stir-fried beef and mixed greens comes equally well-prepared, with the beef showing just a little bit of pink, and the broccoli maintaining their crispness.  While I prefer the more traditional beef and greens made with gai-lan of yew-choy, the broccolis make an acceptable Western substitute.  

The diced chicken with vegetables and almonds features equally well-prepared chicken that’s just cooked to doneness.  The accompanying sauce acts as a wonderful gravy to douse over your steamed rice.  They probably could have cut back on the abundance of celery chunks, but they make for good colour nevertheless.  Although the menu advertises almonds, Cathay substitutes with peanuts, which is a huge disappointment (and significant saving on their cost).  

It’s no secret that fat = flavour and a common Chinese cooking trick is to pump up the fat for flavour.  As a cooking technique, stir-frying is supposed to be very healthy for you since you can cook large amounts with very little oil.  Now imagine if you cook it with lots of oil!  Both the chicken chow mein and the beef chow fan glisten sparklingly with grease, and they taste equally greasy as the noodles effortlessly slide down your throat.  Despite being over-fat, both of these are tasty selections.

Despite what some diners experienced, I find the Cathay House to have refreshingly pleasant and competent service (Chinese servers have a reputation for being rude), a nice atmosphere and good food.  The wine is crud but the cocktail list is extensive.  There are some small areas for improvement with the food but overall, we had a positive experience.

*** /5

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