Is it really about You?

This is one of those visits that needs to be filed under “What was I expecting?” Yes, it’s a restaurant in a casino and somehow it never occurred to me to consider the noise.  Then again I was imagining an enclosed space and not something porous right next to the slots.

YouYu is the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino’s Asian offering. Its menu is fairly modest, but they do try to cover some South Asian dishes such as samosas and butter chicken.

It’s a venue designed to fill a need for those wanting to take a break from the floor and then quickly fill up so you can get back to the machine you were playing. 

“Quickly” being the operative word here because even the service feels designed to have only your best gambler interests at heart.

I’m not a gambler, so I settled in and ordered a number of items and emphasized that I wanted my appetizers first. You shouldn’t have to state this, but for some reason, I just had a feeling that items would come out based on the whims of the kitchen. I wasn’t entirely wrong.

In short order, the Szechuan Spicy Pork Dumplings arrived. The wrappers were thick and pasty with a filling that was neither spicy nor particularly flavourful.

In terms of taste, the shrimp spring rolls were a step up, but with little filling and at $6 a piece, fell short of being a value proposition.

Soup dumplings can always be a bit of fun to eat when you can pick them up. These were stuck to the parchment and tore, spilling their contents. The ones you see pictured here were the replacement order and while there was little soup, the wrappers were tender and the minced pork was nicely seasoned.

The biggest surprise came in the form of duck soup. The broth was delicious with hints of five-spice. It wasn’t overly salted and more shocking still, the duck had been roasted on that day. Too often (because duck can take some time to roast properly), it’s roasted in advance, which means once in the fridge, it can take on an oxidized quality.

There was a generous amount of this tenderly cooked duck. While I was grateful for the freshness, I did wish there were more vegetables to balance the experience.

For those looking for a sentimental experience, the Yang Chow rice was properly prepared and will remind you of a good fried rice from your favourite Chinese take-away. That includes the dominant flavour of supermarket soy sauce from a Canadian brand such as China Lilly or Wing’s.

You may not think this colour is found in nature, but it’s a fairly accurate approximation of pink Dragonfruit skin. I’m just not certain that this is how the colour in this dessert was achieved. 

Strangely, I found it to be tasty enough but more like a pudding than a pannacotta with the mango puree being a highlight.

Service on this Saturday afternoon was good when we were attended to by server Johnson. The server who initially seated us was later happy to come by to present me with the bill. The room was largely empty so it was remarkable how difficult it was to get her attention throughout the sitting.

I know we have readers who were fans of the very good Dhruvees restaurant on Beechwood and while that restaurant has closed, you can say hello to the former owner, Donald Wingell, at the Hard Rock food venues. He's taken on the role of Executive Steward, overseeing all restaurants.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Original Local Beer is becoming a local favourite

There’s no denying the success of Western Canadian restaurant chains like Joey’s, Craft Beer Market, Milestones and Local. They’re also the chief tenants of what Ottawans still fondly refer to as Lansdowne Park. 

Since my return to Ottawa and the start of Capital Eats, I’ve often heard restaurant servers tell me that their “house brew” is made by Local Beers at 411 St.Laurent Blvd. That left me a little confused. A Vancouver-based restaurant chain making beer in Ottawa?

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one and this Ottawa-based brewery added “Original” to the name to distinguish itself from the Vancouver-based restaurant.

Read the entire review

QUICK BITES

• Capital Eats is pleased to announce that you can now also find us on the Ottawa Tourism Website. 

• In bizarre news Olive Garden is set to open a new restaurant in Ottawa. [CTV]

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