Komodo

Komodo Restaurant
1031 Autumnwood Dr
204-253-3678 

August, 2021

Sometime back in history, a grocery store used to sit in this neighbourhood commerical lot--long before the days of the super stores that devoured the local markets.  As a restaurant, sitting right beside a mid-sized grocery store offers many benefits of spontaneous dining or takeout.  Now, for as long as I can remember, the former grocery store has stood as an abandoned shell, housing a couple of offices and a salon--not exactly a hub for heavy foot-traffic.  To make things worse, the restaurant sits on the sheltered side of the main building, shielded and hidden from all sides of vehicular view.  Despite that, Komodo Restaurant manages to maintain through the years.

I can think of two reasons why a restaurant with a dubious location like this survives:

1.     They serve fantastic food.
2.     They have a ferociously devoted following.

I often say, when reviewing Chinese restaurants, South Pembina Highway set a high standard for quality of food, thanks to the huge population of Chinese students and migrants living in the area.  There aren't many restaurants in the city that match the taste, construction or ingredients of South Pembina.  

Unfortunately, Komodo falls short of the standard as well, leading me to believe that devoted loyalty keeps the place alive.  That's not surprising since this isn't the first restaurant to which Windsorian folks have pledged allegiance.  Most Windsorians will tell you that Four Seasons serves the best Chinese (it does not); Southdale Village Family Restaurant serves the best diner food (it does not); and the local Salisbury House serves the best breakfast (ick, it's absolutely disgusting).  That's good for the neighbourhood restaurants, but not so good if you travel from outside the area and expect "the best..."

Starting with the Deluxe Fried Rice, which comes with, like most Chinese deluxe dishes, a trio of proteins including shrimps, barbecued pork and chicken.

The dish comes with good sized shrimps, likely about 30-count in measure.  They taste well cooked, juicy and not overdone.  Sadly, you only get three in the entire dish.  That's more than I can say for the barbecued pork, where everything that's here has been sliced into toothpick proportions.  That's yet better than the chicken, where the cubes measure no more than 5 mm in width, length and height--and there aren't very many of them.  Have a look in the photo, and be prepared to zoom-in considerably to see them.

The vegetables taste al dente, and have good seasoning.  In fact, all of the meats and vegetables taste well-seasoned, but the rice needs some help.  It has the colouring of the soy but needs more salt.  I would also add some more peas (look for the peas in the photo) for greenery and appearance.  

By contrast, the chow mein noodles come with great flavour on the ingredients, as well as the noodles themselves.  Most of the time, I like noodles al dente.  You often hear of Italian noodles made al dente, but not Chinese (in Chinese, gna-gnung, I guess?!).  Chinese noodles are often made well done, smooth and velvety (what the Italians would call mushy).  Chow mein however--literally meaning fried thin noodles--can be velvety or crunchy.  Lo mein sees the noodles boiled in broth, then mixed with the sauce.  Chow mein sees the noodles pan or wok-fried, but often, the frying process adds the sauce, and combines the ingredients.  That would yield smooth noodles. Alternatively, you can fry the noodles first, so they're crispy, then add the sauce afterwards, and serve immediately.  Much of the noodles would still be crunchy, before the sauce can make them soggy (sogify?).  Some Chinese restaurants cheat and used packaged, dried noodles, which has a different (plasticky wretched) texture all together.  

Komodo's noodles come velvety, leaving the crispy texture to the vegetables.  Both the cauliflowers and broccolis taste al dente--there's nothing more sad than soggy vegetables.  The nice-sized beef pieces come well-marinated and silk smooth, like the noodles.  The dish also has large sliced of onions and celeries; I would dice both of those vegetables into tiny pieces.  These aromatic ingredients pack a powerful punch of flavour; they taste better when minced and spread throughout the dish, rather than be concentrated in big bite pieces. The flowered slices of carrot add nice colour, but alas, these slices are way overdone and sadly soggy.

So far, we've had some good, some bad, now let's get to the ugly.  The Sesame Seed Breaded Chicken has lots of breading but no chicken.  It's an old Chinese trick to use a tiny piece of chicken, dip it in leavening batter, and deep fry until it blows up to look like you're getting big chunks of meat.  Then you bite into the ball and get a mouthful of dough with just a tiny morsel of meat.  In this dish, I can't find any meat--zero.

The stringy pieces taste stringy, although some have a nice crunch.  Even if I take the largest pieces and bisect them, I can't find any meat anywhere.  At best, they used the same diced chicken pieces that was in the fried rice; at worst, there's no chicken at all and they just used wads of flour.  To make things worse, the sauce has very little flavour--barely sweet and barely sour.  Sorry, but this dish is a mess.

A similar dish, the Soo Guy Chicken also comes in a sweet and sour sauce, although this is a pineapple-based sauce, rather than a sesame-based sauce.  Soo Guy [guy in Chinese is chicken, often spelt "gai."  I'm not sure what "soo" translates to--it could be water, or, the phrase "soo guy" could translate as a descriptive of someone who's a comtemptible ass.  Since we're talking about food, I'll assume that's not the proper translation (unless it was named after someone who was an ass--maybe General Tso was an ass and it's a parallel dish)].  Oh the joys of a tonal language!

A complete reversal to the sesame chicken, these pieces have huge chunks of white meat at the core.  Witness in the photo below, the cross sections show a thin layer of crispy batter and slabs of moist, white chicken meat in the core.

The pineapples definitely come from a can, bland, not sweet, flavourless and limp.  I don't expect a buffet Chinese restaurant to use fresh pineapples, but a bit of flavouring would go a long way to improve the tastes of the fruits (suggestions include sugar, honey, maple syrup, other sweetener).

In summary, Komodo is about as good as you can expect from a buffet-type restaurant (even though each dish was cooked to order).  There are hits and misses, but when they miss, they really miss.  If you continue to sample, you should find some hits--stick with them.  It's definitely not the superb quality of the food that keeps them alive.  I'll guess that the devoted, loyal customers found their favourites, and continue to come back.

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Ray Yuen, Pit Master / Grill Master
Certified Kansas City Barbecue Society Judge – Badge #97736
Certified Steak Cook-off Association Judge – Badge #7788
Canadian Barbecue Society Member