Top Gun J&C Restaurant - Review 2

Restaurant: Top Gun J&C Restaurant

Cuisine: Chinese/Asian/Dim Sum

Last visited: February 21, 2010
Area: Richmond, BC

Unit 2020 Excel Centre, 8766 McKim Way (2^nd floor)
Range: $20-30

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 5 (moved up .5, tried more stuff)

Service: 4

Ambiance: 5

Overall: 5

Additional comments:

• Part of Top Gun Group
• Considered a high end dim sum restaurant
• Traditional and creative dim sum dishes (mostly traditional)
• Japanese sushi and sashimi available
• Cantonese cuisine
• Discount if you arrive before 11am
• Ordering form service
• Busy, but plenty of seating
• Fancy set up
• Private room available
• Breakfast/Lunch 9:30am-3pm
• Dinner 5:30pm-10pm
• Closed Wednesday
• Reservations recommended
• Some parking available

**Recommendation: Steamed Diced Pork & Shrimp Dumpling, Baked BBQ Pork Bun, Deep Fried Fish Ball w/Clam Sauce, Steamed Beef Ball, Fried Vermicelli in Homemade Style, Pea Tips and Geoduck rice rolls, Steamed Sponge Cake, Red Bean Almond Tofu with Amaretto, Fried Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf

Top Gun J&C Restaurant is part of the Top gun Group so it is considered a higher end dim sum Restaurant. It competes at the level of Kirin Restaurant and Rainflower Chinese Restaurant.

So I’ve been here numerous times and this was my second visit for a continuation of Chinese New Year brunches.

The 1^st Chinese New Year brunch review at Top Gun J&C Restaurant.

The dessert at Top Gun J&C Restaurant.

On the table:

Pan Fried Radish Cake 3.5/6

• Or pan-fried white turnip cake. (Not sure what it’s called on the menu) $4.75?
• This is a traditional dim sum dish to order during Chinese New Year; although it is also a common dish all year around.
• It’s made in house and available ‘raw’ or not pan-fried (to give as gifts) during Chinese New Year and other traditional Chinese holidays.
• It’s a bit sticky and gluey in texture. It’s made of shredded radish of Chinese daikon, which is neutral in flavour. It’s not spicy and not really sweet either. The radish cake is very soft and the flavour comes from the bits of sausage, dried shrimps and Shiitake mushrooms they add to the mixture.
• The ones here are good, but I’ve had better. They’re a little firm and not soft and creamy enough and the edges could be fried crispier. I could also use more Shiitake mushrooms in the mixture.
  

Pan-Fried Taro Cake 3.5/6

• $4.75?
• This is another very common dish to have during Chinese New Year that is also available all year around.
• It’s almost like the pan fried radish cake but it’s a bit drier and starchier in texture. It’s more potato like and not as creamy.
• It’s a savoury cake made or shredded taro root (which is basically a starchier potato-like vegetable), rice flour, Shiitake mushrooms, sausage and maybe some ground pork as well.
• I actually think they did a better job with these than the pan fried radish cake, however I’ve had better of these too. These ones were a bit too firm again. They are firmer than pan-fried radish cakes, but even relative to other taro cakes they’re still a little too firm and a bit too dry.

Scallops and Black Wood Ear Mushroom Rice Rolls 4/6

• $7.50
• This is one of their specialty items and I haven’t seen them offered anywhere else.
• They’re a bit expensive, but that’s because there are huge scallops in them! They’re big white fresh scallops, not dried ones. Although it would taste delicious with some dried scallops in there as well.
• I wish I got a picture, but you can see the big round scallops underneath the rice roll skin.
• I’m not sure if black wood ear mushrooms were the right match – the crunchy texture (cartilage like) kind of threw me off with the soft yet meaty scallops. I would have preferred Enoki mushrooms instead.
• They didn’t have much black wood ear mushrooms in there anyways though.
• I found it a bit bland and the only flavour was pretty much the sweet soy sauce and natural scallop taste.

**Pea Tips and Geoduck Rice Rolls 5/6

• $7.50
• It’s pretty much sautéed pea tips and geoduck wrapped in rice rolls.
• This is another specialty item that isn’t offered anywhere else. It’s their in house recipe and not traditional, but still very good and very gourmet. So it’s a bit pricier again.
  

• The geoduck is a type of clam, so it almost tastes the same. It’s chewy and they don’t overcook them here, so they are still tender. They give you lots too and they’re cut in nice bite sized pieces.
• I really liked the pea tips in here. A unique flavour combination that worked well. It was a very hearty stuffing for the delicate rice rolls, but I still liked it. Lots of textures – soft, chewy, crunchy. I liked it! The ingredients held well with the sweet soy sauce you eat them with too.
• Good example of messing with a good thing…and it actually working.
  

**Fried Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf 6/6

• $10.95
• This is also quite pricey, but it’s good and they execution is done really well.
• It was very fresh and made upon order. I liked the presentation as well.

• It’s a pretty big pot of fried rice with pieces of salted egg yolk, scrambled egg, pieces of white meat chicken, baby shrimp, a few minced up Shiitake mushrooms, and sliced Chinese broccoli stems.
• It was very flavourful rice and has the same flavour as sticky rice. It’s not sticky though and the grains are separate. They did a great job with the frying.
  

• The yellow pieces that look like squash is the salted egg yolk. I love these! It maybe an acquired taste though. It’s very dry and very crumbly in texture. It’s quite firm and it has a very potent salty flavour. It almost has a bean like salty texture and tastes like fermented food. Well it is – it’s a salted duck egg (did I lose you!? I didn't want to say it and scare you off...) but it's a preserved duck egg. It’s the same egg they use in the centre of Chinese moon cakes.
  

**Steamed Sponge Cake 6/6

• $4.50
• This is a very popular Chinese dessert served during dim sum.
• The one here is very good! It’s hot, fresh, and made upon order.
• It’s very soft, light, fluffy, and very lightly sweetened.
• It tastes like egg rolls or Chinese egg balls in sponge cake form.
• It has a slight almond-y flavour and I loved the presentation! I’ve never seen it served like this. I ate the middle part…I usually don’t care for this dessert…but this one was great! A lot of Chinese people love it.

Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle

Restaurant: Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle

Cuisine: Taiwanese/Noodle Shop

Last visited: January 30, 2010
Area: Richmond, BC

Unit 2800-4151 Hazelbridge Way (In Aberdeen Mall)
Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2

Service: 3

Ambiance: 3

Overall: 2

Additional comments:

• Specializes in Taiwanese beef noodle and soup bowls
• Taiwanese/Chinese (China) chefs/cooks
• Fresh, made upon order
• Homemade, everything made from scratch
• Handmade noodles, dough etc.
• Prepared in small batches
• Large selection of drinks (bubble tea, brewed tea etc.)
• Selection of desserts (shaved ice, Frappe Bliss)
• Large selection of tradition Taiwanese snacks
• Very long line ups at peak hours
• Open/display kitchen
• Lots of seating, quick service
• Popular to locals/Chinese
• Lunch and dinner
• Offers snacks and bubble tea
• Private room available
• Open 7 days

**Recommendation: Noodle topped with ground pork sauce, Pan fried ground pork cake

Chef Hung is getting slammed left, right and centre.

Yes, it’s a bit overpriced, but they do give you a lot of meat. Yes, it’s not worth the long line up, but it might be worth checking out if there is no line-up and if you’re still curious. Yes, it’s overrated, but do I regret trying it? No, because I still had to see what the hype was about; and when there’s a 30+ min. line-up for over a month now…they must be doing something good right?!…errr maybe not…nonetheless I tried everything I wanted to try to make sure I wouldn’t have to line-up again to give it another chance.

For me it was a cross of Taiwanese and Shanghainese food, and in this case I could get better of each cuisine elsewhere. The broth just wasn’t as flavourful or rich to match the authenticity of Taiwanese or Shanghai cuisine. They’re charging a couple dollars more than Japanese Ramen Noodle places and a lot more than Wonton Noodle places and the food is surprisingly bland. The portions are really deceiving because it’s a big bowl with not a lot of noodle, yet a significant amount of meat. The noodles are deceiving too because although they don’t give you much, but they really expand and fill you up fast. You have a choice of either flat noodle, thin noodle or vermicelli and most people seem to be getting the flat noodle.

I do appreciate how everything is homemade and fresh, but the flavour just wasn’t there. It is a relatively quick eat – after all the line-up doesn’t die down during dinner. They’re not rude about it and there’s a lot of staff so the food comes fast and they don't hesitate to ask when you need your bill.

On the table:

Champion beef shank with noodle in soup 2.5/6

• Champion beef shank with noodle in soup $10.95 – Flat noodle
• For $10.95 I should be getting either a big portion, or really amazing noodles and soup. I got neither. This is their hot ticket item and it was only ok. That’s kind of embarrassing.
• If I only order this I’d be really disappointed because this itself isn’t worth the wait. The bowl is big, but not the portion too.
• The broth was very basic and light and almost watered down in taste. It wasn’t very flavourful and the beef taste wasn’t as potent as it looks for sure.
• The noodles were great though. They’re cooked in small batches just until al dente. This is a tricky word – al dente is actually more “undercooked” than one may think. So these noodles come across as undercooked but they’re not. They’re chewy, hand made and it absorbed the flavour (as little as it had to offer) of the soup well.
• They do give you a lot of meat though. The beef shank is quite tender, could be tenderer, and the fat is almost interwoven in layers.
• They also have 2 slices of seared beef which is individually hand seared with a torch. This part was good as well.

**Noodle topped with ground pork sauce 3/5

• Noodle topped with ground pork sauce $6.95 – Flat noodle
• Beef is their specialty, yet this pork noodle bowl was better! I still like it better at other authentic Taiwanese places though – like Lao Shan Dong in Burnaby, or even Zephyr in the Sky in Richmond.
• This noodle bowl is only supposed to come with a little soup, just enough to wet the noodles and then some. The soup again is a bit bland although it looks rich. It’s sweeter, saltier, thicker and richer than the soup in the beef bowls.
• They give you a lot of ground pork which is quite tender and lean. It’s actually quite chunky and not minced like other authentic Taiwanese places would serve it. It’s pretty good though, very marinated, but not saucy and it could have been saucier. I think there were bits of tofu in it, but it wasn’t apparent.
• I do like the al dente chewy and slightly hard noodles. Although I think the thin noodle would have matched the dish better since the meat was ground.

Marinated Beef Crispy Pancake 2/6

• Marinated beef wrapped in crispy pancake $5.95
• This dish is much better at Shanghainese restaurants.
• It was a homemade crispy pancake/crepe rolled with marinated beef slices, green onions, cucumbers, and Hoisin sauce.
• It looks better than it tastes. The pancake part was good and crispy and there was lots of filling, but the dominant taste was raw green onions.
• I could barely taste the meat, and it was very crunchy but there was too much onion and they needed more cucumber. It was slightly spicy from the onion overload.
• Overall it was a bit dry although not oily, but I needed more Hoisin sauce for sweetness and more flavour in general.

Fried Chives Pancake 1.5/6

• Fried chives pancake (2 pcs) $3.95
• This was stuffed with vermicelli, chives, and scrambled eggs.
• The pancake was a very thin crepe and not crispy but soft. It was quite floury and left a powdery layer on my lips.
• The filling was a bit oily and bland with a slight white pepper taste. If anything else it tasted like sautéed onions, with just the natural flavour of the onions and nothing else.

**Pan-Fried Ground Pork Cake 4/6

• Pan fried ground pork cake (2 pcs) $3.50
• I think this is the best thing I ordered and it was worth it. If anything I would come back for these if there was no line-up and it was convenient.
• They dough is homemade and it’s very crispy and thin almost like dumpling skin but more doughy.
• It was the most savoury, but not necessarily flavourful and I wonder if it would be more flavourful than the beef cake. After all the pork noodles were more flavourful than the beef was.
• The pork was really juicy and when you cut into it the juice even leaks out. It reminded me of those Pan-fried Shanghai Pork Buns.
• They’re very crunchy too because they mix the pork with green beans.
• They’re made completely in house and you can watch them doing it. They’re very oily though, but I would order them again.

Pan Fried Sliced Radish Cake 1/6

• Pan-fried sliced radish cake (2 pcs) $3.50
• Ok, no. I like the sliced radish in pastry they serve for Shanghai dim sum better than this.
• I really like radish too, but this was just really bland and fishy tasting. It was fishy tasting because they put some dried shrimp in it as well as Chinese mushrooms although it was way too little and you couldn’t taste them.
• It was packed with filling and really juicy and crunchy, but the dominant flavour was just fishy.
• This was also very oily and I preferred the pork version hands down.
  

Dessert

Mango Shaved Ice 4/6

• $3.50
• This dessert is from Frappe Bliss - a franchise, so they just bought the machine that makes it.
• There is an actual store front for Frappe Bliss in the Aberdeen food court upstairs and it’s better there because you get more variety for toppings. Toppings here are limited and +$1 each.
• This dessert is still amazing and it’s a pretty decent bowl for the price.

Tropika Restaurant - Richmond

Restaurant: Tropika Restaurant - Richmond

Cuisine: Malaysian/Thai
Last visited: January 9, 2010
Area: Multiple – Richmond, BC (Aberdeen Mall)
4151 Hazelbridge Way
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 3.5
Service: 2.5

Ambiance: 4

Overall: 3.5

Additional comments:

• Specializes in Malaysian/Thai fusion cuisine
• Bordering on Chinese, for me it's Chinese inspired too
  
• A lot of things taste the same - lots of dried shrimp paste
• Chinese operated, could be even Chinese owned I'm not sure
• Great presentation for drinks
• Great for large parties or groups
  
• Go when it's not as busy
• Extensive menu
  
• 3 locations in Vancouver and lower mainland
• Long line-up and wait for Richmond location
• Spacious, seats plenty
• Attracts Chinese
• Popular for seafood
• Won awards
• Reservations recommended

**Recommendation: Roti Canai (but mine wasn’t goo on this occasion), Terung Udang Kering, Sambal Bunchies, K.L. Crab, Tom Yum Kung Soup (not all items are in this review)

Tropika is a small chain restaurant with 3 locations in Vancouver, BC – one being at The Aberdeen mall in Richmond. I decided to go to the Richmond location, and to my surprise it was a full house. It seats plenty and there was a line up and wait list at 6:15pm so I had to wait until 7pm. We were seated at the very back of the restaurant at this random fold out table and chairs that were used just to satisfy the dinner time rush. (I would have rather waited for a proper seat, but I was arriving late for dinner).

Tropika serves Malaysian and Thai cuisine, however I find it more on the Chinese side than authentic Malaysian and Thai fusion. I mean there are some Malaysian and Thai qualities to the food, but it is very Chinese inspired at the same time. I missed the use of fresh basil, limes, lemongrass (Thai) and cinnamon (Malaysian). Maybe it’s because I started this blog that my standards have changed a bit, because I remember liking Tropika more.

Overall the food tasted pretty good, but I just felt like everything started to taste the same – a lot of dried shrimp, some fish sauce, and a lot of oil. I also don’t recommend coming when it’s busy because the quality of food was affected. They do have an extensive (and literally heavy) menu and I only touched upon it. I’ve tried several other things on their menu so what I ordered on this visit isn’t really what I would recommend. I just wanted to try something new. It would require at least 2 more visits for this to be a fair review.

On the table:

**Roti Canai (Malay Bread) 2/6 (on this occasion)

• Malaysian bread served with curry sauce. 2 pcs $5.90
• This is a type of grilled flatbread similar to the Indian paratha bread. It’s very buttery, and it’s almost stretchy and chewy.
• It’s one of their most popular appetizers and I think they just made a batch and put them under a heater because mine wasn’t that fresh. It’s wasn’t fluffy, and it was actually quite stale.
• The curry sauce was watered down. It’s definitely not the same curry sauce they serve with their curry dishes. I could tell because I went to another Tropika location (Cambie) right after this dinner and tried their chicken curry.
• The curry sauce they served with the roti was luke warm and the flavour was mainly spicy. As it gets cold, the flavour gets sweeter and not just spicy. It was made with pureed onions, chili powder, fish sauce and some curry paste.

Satay Sticks 3/6

• Minimum of 6. Your choice of chicken, pork, or beef with peanut sauce $7.20 Each $1.20
• The satay sticks were dinky looking to me. It was dark meat chicken and it was a bit fatty, but at least it was grilled nicely without drying out.
• The peanut sauce was not very creamy, but very chunky. I liked the texture because there were lots of coarsely chopped peanuts. It’s a great sauce in general, but it’s on the sweet side here. It was almost like there was too much honey or Hoisin sauce in it. I think it was more honey. It was a bit oily too. I like the peanut sauce at Paratha Man better.

Stir-fried Radish Cake 3.5/6

• Stir fried steamed radish cake with shrimp and Chinese sausage $4.25
  
• It also had minced Chinese mushrooms, water chestnuts, dried shrimps and some Hoisin sauce as the marinade. It was all mixed together and formed into a dome shape and they top it off with 2 shrimps $4.25
• This was recommended by our server; otherwise I would have looked past it.
• It was almost like Malaysian dim sum! It was a cross between pan-fried radish cake and sticky rice you would find at Chinese dim sum.
• It has a very mushy, gummy and almost sticky in texture - but it’s supposed to be. It’s almost like a thick and chewy mashed potato, but it’s not starchy although filling. I like the sweetness of the Chinese mushrooms, creaminess of the radish and refreshing crunch of the water chestnuts (although there wasn't much of that).
• The sausage and dried shrimp brought salty flavours, jerky-like, and the Hoisin sweetened it all up a bit. There was a slight pickled taste and I don’t know where that was from. Overall the fish was quite interesting and tasty.

Sambal Egg 3/6

• Deep fried gourmet egg topped with Sambal sauce $2.00
• It’s not always deep-fried, but it is here and that’s part of what makes it different and good.
• The egg has a thin deep fried layer that reminds me of dried tofu skins. It wasn’t as crispy as it should be and I think they had premade a bunch.
• Sambal is a chili paste sauce and I don’t even know if this one was homemade. I feel like it was jarred Sambal sauce. It was a spicy, a bit sweet, but they gave us too much oil and too little pasts. The egg is supposed to be stir fried and fully coated with sauce, but becuase there wasn’t enough sauce it was a bit dry. Usually this dish is a 4/6.

**Terung Udang Kering 5.5/6

• A Troika specialty. Rated as one of the best eggplant in the city by some local food critics. Our eggplant dish is stir-fried in Sambal sauce and sun-dried shrimps with a touch of sesame oil to make a refreshingly extraordinary experience. (Description from menu) $11.95
• I have never ordered this before and I was unaware that it had won so many awards. It was really good, but it’s also something that comes up often in Asian cuisines so I don’t feel like it was EXTRA spectacular here. I mean it was delicious, but “best eggplant in the city” is a bold statement.
• It was almost like braised eggplant because it was so juicy and tender and had absorbed so much flavour, like a sponge. It literally melted in your mouth and was almost creamy in texture and stringy.
• The eggplant was spicy, but not too spicy and there was some green onion it is as well. It was sweet, spicy, and salty from the dried shrimps and fish sauce. The dried shrimps have so much flavour and they were almost deep fried because they were a bit crispy. It was so flavourful and well infused in the dish it actually gave it a very nutty taste…especially combined with the sesame oil.
• My only complaint is that it was very oily. I mean really the sauce at the bottom was so oily and my lips were super greasy. It would deter me from ordering it again though. It was really good.

Hainanese Chicken 1.5/6

• The pure flavour of the chicken is specially enhanced by the components of our chili sauce and Hainanese Chicken flavoured rice (which can be ordered separately) to create exciting flavours. (Description from menu) Half $7.95 Whole $12.95
• So what it actually is is a chicken boiled in a rich chicken bone stock that’s served cold. The oil it releases in the stock is then used to cook the rice that accompanies the dish. The condiments are peanuts, cucumbers, chili sauce and ginger oil.
• This is actually a Chinese dish that originates from Hinan, China but it is often associated with Singaporean or Malaysian cooking.
• First off I’m not a big fan of this dish in general, unless it’s from Admiralty Chicken. This is the best I’ve ever had Hainanese Chicken.
• I don’t think it was made well here. The chicken was moist but not flavourful as it didn’t absorb any of the flavours of the stock. It wasn’t as slippery as it should be too. It's not spicy, it's only spicy if you use the chili sauce it comes with.
• The ginger oil wasn’t fresh either and tasted like they used old ginger root to make it. There was no green onion in it either.
• Hainanese Rice: the rice was pretty good. The literal translation is “oil rice” because of the way it’s made. Don't let that freak you out though, it's not really oily, although it does use oil. It’s just very rich in flavour. $1.75/bowl
• Coconut Rice: the coconut rice here is good and you can smell the coconut milk more so than actually tasting it. $1.75/bowl