Red Star Revisited

Since Friday was the last day when we could have dinner together as an extended family, we returned to Red Star Seafood Restaurant for dinner.  Of course, it's a no-brainer that one should have seafood when in Vancouver, so this time there was a greater focus on seafood this dinner.  There were some other dishes that were seen in the previous entry for this restaurant, so I only photographed the untried ones as highlights.

Soy Sauce Chicken

First to arrive was Soy Sauce Chicken as an appetizer.  It was served with a shredded onion and ginger relish-like condiment.

Pork & Papaya Soup

A serving of Pork & Papaya Soup.

The soup was next, and it was a neat surprise for me.  Cantonese cuisine has used fruit in the past as part of savoury soups, such as the Chinese Pear Soup, and normally I'm just tolerant of those soups, but this one, incorporating papaya, was more than just tolerant.  The sweetness was subtle and complemented well with the pork base.

Oysters with Ginger and Green Onions

A look inside one of the plump oysters.

One of the main dishes ordered was one of my favourites since childhood, Oysters with Ginger and Green Onions.  The oysters used in this dish were particularly plump and they were delicious.

Steamed Snow Crab with Garlic

Of course, this was the feature dish of this dinner, Steamed Snow Crab with Garlic.  It wasn't peak snow crab season at the time, but it was still worth ordering this dish.  Fresh food is beyond compare to frozen, and it's especially true of seafood.  The flavour of fresh snow crab was so much richer than the frozen kind, and the garlic helped accentuate that flavour.  The juice was also rich, and I had to take care to not spill any from within the crab legs as I gently pried the meat from the shell.

Stir-Fried Grouper with Broccoli and Yellow Chives

Another dish we had was Stir-Fried Grouper with Broccoli and Yellow Chives.  The fish was cooked to the right level of tenderness.  Of course, I wasn't a fan of yellow chives mainly because the flavour was much stronger than regular Chinese chives, and it probably didn't help that my parents insisted that I have some when I was a kid since it tasted stronger and was more expensive than Chinese chives.

Baked Crab Fried Rice

This was also a delicious but rich dish, Baked Crab Fried Rice.  The creamy "tamale" of the crab in the shell was incorporated into the sauce, along with mushrooms and crab roe, topping the rice within the shell, along with pieces of crab meat that was beginning to form a new shell underneath the older hard one.  Though the flavouring wasn't overpowering, it felt filling, so I only took this dish in moderation.

Fortunately there were plenty of hours between the end of dinner and my outing with my parents on Saturday the following day; I needed to have as empty a stomach as possible to take on the food we were going to have during our outing, not to mention the fresh local fruit we bought to snack at our grandparents'.  I'll be splitting my Saturday outing into two entries... stay tuned!