T. H. Dang Restaurant

Photo from Google Maps

T.H. Dang Restaurant

1425 Pembina Hwy

http://thdang.food62.com

204-415-5588

September, 2021

ALLERGY ALERT!!

We had some communication problems right from the start.  I ordered A3, X101, X105, G110 and R96.  X105 is a Spicy Combination Chow Fun.  Asian restaurants usually have a number of staples that go into their combo or deluxe dishes.  I asked for clarification of what comes with this dish.  Ingredients include barbecued pork, chicken, egg and squid with assorted vegetables.  I specified that I do not want squid.  

Somehow, the restaurant misunderstood me into thinking that I wanted four dishes of X105.  When I emphasised that I wanted no squid, she asked if I wanted no squid on four dishes?  I said I want only one dish.  

When I picked up the order, I was stunned to see that the amount due was $130.  I asked if it is correct that four dishes and an appetiser should come up to $130?!  They showed me the order and it reads 4 x 105!  

We agreed that I would take two of the X105 dishes, and they would retain the other two.  When I opened the bags, this is the first tray I see:

Directly below this tray, was another tray that simply said 105.  

I opened the container and transferred half of it onto a plate.  As I said earlier, this is the Spicy Combo Chow Fun dish.  Chow fun is typically a wide, velvety-soft, rice (white) noodle.

As you can see in the photo, the noodles look thicker than chow mein noodles, but they are nowhere near the width of chow fun noodles.  As well, they're quite yellow, making me suspect they're egg noodles, rather than rice noodles.  

The shrimps are nice size, probably jumbo 16/20 count (between 16 to 20 shrimps per pound).  They also cooked the shrimps perfectly, just done, crunchy and moist.  The vegetables, mostly cauliflour and broccoli, also come perfectly cooked, fresh and al dente.  The onion and celery are diced smallish, which is perfect.  I don't want big bites of the aromatics--they should be small to accent flavour, rather than dominate.  The barbecued pork doesn't have as much food colouring as you often see (since it's not neon red).  It's also a bit lacking on flavour and a tad dry.

When they say "spicy," they mean SPICY!   I'm a severe spice-head and I find this dish screaming hot!  If you're timid about hot foods, I would not select any of the dishes with the hot pepper on the menu.  Pardon me while I wipe the sweat off my face.  

The menu lists "sate" in the dish and "sate" in Vietnamese cuisine refers to the sauce being spicy and garlicky--and there's a huge underlie of wonderful garlic to these noodles (not to be confused with the peanut-based "satay."

Finishing my plate, I take the tray and transfer the remainder into a resealable container.  As I pour it in, I look in  horror at the loads of squids at the bottom of the tray.  Now looking close at the photo, I see a piece of squid near the top of the tray, right in the centre.  When I first approached the dish, I never would have suspected there would be squid, so I didn't look for it.  Now it's crying at the top of its lungs, "see me!"

Now I think when they asked me if I wanted four dishes, they meant, "do I want no squids in all four of my X105?" When I answer that I only want one X105, they interpretted that I only want one X105 with no squid, and the rest contains squids.  Probing through the "no squid" container, I find no squid.

Okay, so it's an honest mistake in translation.  However, if you have a severe allergy to an ingredient, do you want this kind of misunderstanding?  I emphasised three times "no squid."  Still, here I stare at squid.  My dogs will love their dinners tonight.

The chow mein has the same vegetables as the "chow fun," and all the good things that apply to the chow fun veggies also apply to the chow mein veggies, although a few of the celery strips are longer than I prefer.

Quite often, Chinese beef stir-fry dishes come with heavily marinated beef, resulting in the texture being velvety soft, and the site melt-in-your-mouth.  The beef here tastes considerably coarser, with seared edge, rather than a velvet touch.  Still tender, it also has great flavour.  The noodles taste soft, taking on the wonderful flavours of the sauce.

If you're a foody, you should already know what umami is.  For those who don't, it's simply the fifth taste, in addition to sweet, salty, sour and bitter.  It's hard to explain what it is--umami is a complexity of depth, richness and deliciousness within foods.  Fish sauce is one of the ingredients that adds instant depth to dishes and activates the umani receptors on our tongues.  As a cook, you must be careful with fish sauce.  In the right amounts, it adds a dimension to foods; overdone, and instantly your dish stinks of fish (not in the nice way).  

They're a bit heavy-handed on the fish sauce.  Before I open the container, I can smell the fish.  The noodles taste excellent, but the smell takes away from the taste.  It's a balance and this balance tipped too much to the fish side in these noodles.

When I was young, chow mein noodles came as soft or crunchy.  Soft meant that the chef boils the noodles until they're just cooked. Then they cook the sauce and ingredients, and flash-fry the noodles into the sauce afterwards.  Crunchy meant that they would take the boiled noodles, strain them, then pan fry them until they're deliciously crunchy to the bite.  The sauce would go on top of the noodles.

Sadly, today, crunchy noodles means that they give you a bag of pre-fried noodles that taste more hard than crispy.  It's a sad shortcut that wrecks the concept of crunchy chow mein.  I have yet to see a restaurant in Winnipeg that cooks crunchy chow mein the way it's meant to be cooked.  Unless you like those bags of instant noodles, always choose soft when ordering chow mein.

Moving away from noodles, the Combination Fried Rice comes with shrimps, egg and barbecued pork.  

The shrimps in the rice dish are just like in the noodle dishes, plump, juicy and well cooked.  I wish they would have used the same vegetables as the noodle dishes.  Instead, we find the frozen bags of mixed vegetables that have long beans, peas, cubed carrots, corn and the dreaded lima beans (I hate lima beans).  The previously frozen vegetables are, of course, soggy and soft with little flavour.

I like the addition of mushrooms, but of all the non-button mushrooms, straw mushrooms are probably my least favourite.  I find straw mushrooms a little too earth and woody tasting. 

The rice itself tastes fine.  I would like to see the pieces of barbecued pork chopped smaller, so you get more per bite, rather than a few large pieces.  

Moving to the Sesame Chicken, the pieces of chicken appear quite small and considerably darker than what you normally expect of chicken.  

There isn't much breading, which is good, but there also isn't much chicken, which is not so good.  When people order pure chicken dishes, they expect a lot of chicken (even if it's the kind with tiny morsels of meat and huge pockets of breading).  I expect a lot of people would be disappointed that this dish has more vegetables than chicken.  

The sauce has a sweetish edge, but by no means the degree of sweetness that you expect out of sesame chicken.  Noticeable, it is quite devoid of sesame flavour, both from sesame oil and sesame seeds.  Curiously, the dish DOES NOT come with white rice.

For appetisers, the Vietnamese spring rolls come very well made, ultra-crispy and not fatty at all.

Not a lot of flavour to these guys but the texture makes them fun to eat.  The vegetable mixture is quite dense, making it difficult to delineate the individual ingredients.

T. H. Dang makes good food--the overall quality is quite high.  There are some potholes but in general, there's some good stuff here.  It's no secret since the small, austere dining room sits packed quite often.  I'm a bit concerned for my friends with allergies.  

Asian restaurants on or near Pembina Highway mostly have high standards, thanks to the large Asian population at the UofM, and thanks to their high expectations.  Dang meets those expectations but if allergies affect you, there are plenty of other places nearby that make superior food as well.

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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