I am a procrastinator … it’s in the genes. I know that. But the thing is that I remember what I said I would do. It might take me a long while but I will eventually get down to it. Like saying “let’s do it in a couple weeks” … and carrying it through in seven months. That is me. That is Ben.
I had been talking to Christina and ET of Doesn’t TasZte Like Chicken about organizing a gathering since last fall. This time I carried through. So, I organized one with the bloggers that I had met at one point or another before. Being the organizer, I went with the choice of a restaurant that I know will work … that I had been there before, knows the menu, not too expensive and will meet the demands from bloggers.
So we met at Long’s Noodle House. See my previous review here. Suanne made the reservation a few days before. With Long’s you want to make sure you make a reservation because they are always packed for dinner. Moreover, their restaurant is small. When Suanne made the reservation, she tried to order some of their dishes that need to be ordered at least a day ahead but they were too busy to entertain her at that time. It was no big deal because all their other dishes are pretty good.
Wine Chicken … $6. This is my favourite dish in Long’s. I’ll not expand on this as I had already blogged about this dish before.
The dish above is the one which won the “Most Innovative Dish” award last year. It is Crispy Rice with Salted Egg Yolk. It is an unique dish but is somewhat simple dish too to me. I am quite surprised that a dish of such simplicity could have won the most innovative dish award.
The Xiao Long Bao was quite good. Not as good as those we had in Popular Chinese Cuisine.
I enjoyed this the most — and the rest hardly touched this. That is really fine by me because I get more share … he he he . I cannot remember what this is called now but it has a strong rice wine flavor to it.
Fish (don’t know what fish … bass?) and cloud year. Love the contrasting black and white. Love the contrasting texture. You will like this.
This one is some Szechuan dish with the characteristic boiled beef and reddish oily broth. There are vermicelli underneath this.
The eel was a disappointment — everyone agrees so. Not worth the mentioning really. It does not resemble anything at all to a dish with eels and really we can’t pick out the eels too.
This is a humongous piece of pork. Very caramelized, with bones and perhaps the shoulder. The sauce is excellent with rice.
I think this one is some gluten dish.
And ended up with some red bean cakes.
Sorry, we were so busy talking we did not take notes and by now all the details of the food we had is a distant memory. We had a great time for sure. I thought we had excellent service and much more than our previous visit. After all, there were at least five SLRs trained on the good each time a new dish landed on the table. Normally Sandy (the waitress) would shoo people away as soon as she can so she can turn the table around faster for the other customers. This time she left us alone … no, she does not want to stroke the ire of food bloggers, does she? Certainly not with Sea salt With Food, I’m Only Here for the Food, Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken, Sherman’s Food Adventures, Eating Club Vancouver and Chow Times around. LOL!
I was wondering when you would put this one up, hehehe. About the pork’s feet, what are you talking about? I took my (big) share of pieces! And, oh, it seems you “forgot” the picture of the greens. ^_^;;;
Again, thanks for inviting us and organizing this. For next time, it seems Alvin Garden has been selected. Hope you like spicy food!
Hi KimHo: We are so behind on our postings that we still have about 3 weeks of backlogged postings. Everything got bunched up when chowtimes went off line. Better late than never … Ben.
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What? The next meeting has already been set!? How come I don’t know about it? I’m left out! =(
TS, you’re always out of the loop! LOL… Yes, Alvin Garden, I will set the date ASAP. We should invite more people too. Make it a power meal! LOL…
Hi Sherman: Ooo … Alvin is just walking distance from work. Never been there before but I heard good things about them. Excellent choice.
Ben
Give all the credit to Kim. He suggested it… I like spicy food, I can’t wait!
Hey first time commenting there. I really like going to Long’s. I’m surprised that you didn’t like the eel dish. I’ve had the same dish elsewhere and it’s just like this. I saw plenty of eel meat in the picture too!
Hi Joyce: I figured that black thingy was the eel but it tasted and looked more like cloud ear than it is an eel. Ben
Hi Joyce, you are right, there was a lot of eel. However, it just didn’t taste like anything. The dish was a bit bland. I guess for $14, we were expecting something better.
Ah gotcha. That’s too bad. You know what, it probably has to do with the fact that they were frozen. I’ve had it when it’s made of fresh eels and it’s great.
Yes, that probably has a lot to do with it. Fresh is always better.
I highly recommend Alvin Garden. Great spot for a Food Blogger’s Summit.
I must eat there the next time I’m in Vancouver. The pork looks amazing, and the salted egg and rice dish sounds really interesting. Was it crispy?
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