This should get you all excited.
This post is not about just any restaurant.
This restaurant is the newly opened restaurant by the same people behind Lao Shan Dong.
A few weeks ago, I saw on Natalie’s Facebook of pictures of the food she had at a restaurant called The One. The pictures of the food was unique but I did not think more about it and thinking its just another nice Taiwanese restaurant. No plans at all in visiting.
Last week on the way home, I was walking past Lao Shan Dong when I saw a notice pasted at the door (above). Apparently, The One Restaurant is owned by Lao Shan Dong. I would not have visited if not for that sign. We knew that if The One has food half as good as Lao Shan Dong, this is going to be one successful restaurant in no time.
So Suanne and I immediately changed our Friday date plans to check out The One.
The One is located on Kingsway near the intersection with Imperial. It is just across the street of Pho Hong which we blogged about recently. There are ample parking spaces in the small strip mall it was on. But I do think that given the size of The One restaurant, it will be a challenge if they do have full house.
True to the theme outside, the interior is also adorned with tables and chairs in the clashing colors of black and red. The seats are plush but I do find some of them a bit small even for someone my size.
The interior is modern and spacious. It is also bright because of the ceiling to wall glass frontage on two sides of the restaurant. This is a refreshing difference from Lao Shan Dong which is always packed and cramped with nary a decor inside.
Nicole said that The One is upscale and indeed for a Taiwanese restaurant the likes of No 1, Beefy Beef, Corner 23 and others, this is definitely more upscale than them.
The One is opened for lunch and opened till late (to 2AM during weekends and 1AM on other nights).
The One is a Taiwanese Cuisine restaurant. So you get the same type of food you normally find in Taiwanese restaurants.
The menu is more extensive than the 3 pager above. I did not take more pictures because … well … I was afraid. I was afraid that they think we are spies from the competitors. So I only managed to take pictures of 3 pages. What I can tell you is that the menu is broken into sections of the following:
- Appetizer: marinated ear, tofu and stuff
- Noodles: what else … the same TBN from Lao Shan Dong!!!
- Dumplings
- Soup: what else too … the same TBN soup, sans noodles, from Lao Shan Dong!!!
- Meal Combo
- Hot Pot
- Fried Rice
On every page of the menu are the words “No MSG” … and that is good.
We did not get the TBN (short for Taiwanese Beef Noodles for the uninitiated) because we wanted to try their other stuff. But we did notice that they offer both the Beef Noodle Soup for $7.50 and also just the beef soup (no noodles) for the same price. I asked our waitress if the beef soup is more if don’t want the noodles. She sheepishly said you don’t get much more beef. She was honest.
Like all TBN places, they also have lot of drinks options … milk tea, bubble tea, coffee, fresh juice, herbal tea and slush. There is also a section for dessert and of course things like thick toast.
This was what I was coming for … and what I saw on Nicole’s Facebook.
Not knowing what to choose, I randomly chose the one called The One Seafood Hot Pot with Rice. This is $13 — quite pricey but it also came with a drink and a small dessert.
I thought the hot pot was unique and definitely bigger than most.
This is more like it … a boiling pot. Most other places have that token light at the bottom that does a little more than keeping the soup hot.
It was disappointing to learn that the soup base is milk. It did not occur to us to ask when we placed our order. Both Suanne and I personally hate milk as soup. As a matter of fact, Chinese rarely uses milk in cooking … did you know that? So you find that diary products are not big in traditional Chinese cuisine.
Normally Suanne would be the one who will finish off the soup but she declined saying that the one in Pearl Castle is better. Although it was not my fav kind of soup, I thought it was quite good.
The Hot Pot has a lot of ingredients. That included prawns, mussels, fish cake, tofu, very bouncy fish balls (which bounced across the restaurant when I dropped it on the floor), other meat balls and octopus.
The fish ball has stuff in it. I remember having this in one of the stalls in the Richmond Public Market. We like this a lot. It was kind of small … smaller than the ones we had in the Richmond Public Market for sure.
Here is the drink that came with the Hot Pot. It is an … Iced Plum Juice.
The dessert that came free with the Hot Pot is really small but unique. It is a green tea jello with osmanthus syrup.
Our waitress recommended that we try The One Sliced Beef in Pancake ($6).
Honestly, it was just so-so. The pancake was very dough-y as you can see. We expect it to be flaky and layered. There is not much of beef in it too. We tasted more of the sauce than any beef. What I do like is the green onion.
You be the judge … the picture above does tell a lot doesn’t it?
The Salty Deep Fried Chicken Nugget ($6) however was top notch. We were told we had to wait 5-10 minutes for this. When it came it was piping hot.
For $6, we find that this is a generous serving. The deep fried basil is a nice touch. The nuggets … perfect! The meat was tender, an indication that they did not overcook it which happens so often elsewhere. The texture had that perfect softness. The outer batter was light peppery with only a slight tinge of saltiness.
With the Lao Shan Dong name behind The One, we expected this meal to be perfect. It wasn’t bad at all but the two out of three dishes just fell slightly short of expectations.
We saw the neighboring tables having that huge bowl of Taiwanese Beef Noodles soup. The bowl looks bigger than the biggest in Lao Shan Dong. Maybe we should have stuck to the basic and gotten that instead.
The prices are not bad. Just $25 before tips. We will definitely be back to check out their other dishes … and the TBN too.
Great find Ben ! I’ll have to check this out some day when I can take a loong lunch. Do they have the standard beef noodles and with same prices like their regular location ?
Ooops sorry, I missed the menu pics above. Prices seem about right, but lack the “small” size of regular LSD location.
Ah! What a coincidence. I recently went to a restaurant and had beef rolled in a pancake as well, and felt completely the same way about the pancake. I wonder if anywhere around Vancouver does the flaky pancake thing right. The one I tried though I think had a little more beef than the one I see in your picture. Ah well. : )
Peaceful Restaurant on W. Broadway btwn Cambie @ Ash does a very good one, and the beef is nicely flavored with cumin. See Ben’s review here:
http://chowtimes.com/2010/01/21/peaceful-restaurant-on-west-broadway-at-cambie-vancouver/
Ah, icic : ) Thank you LotusRapper.
Ah, but their Shao long bao is no good ;_; That’s a shame.
I like Peaceful’s XLB. To each their own, I guess. Lin’s on Broadway @ Granville is slightly better:
http://chowtimes.com/2009/12/30/lin-chinese-restaurant-on-broadway-and-granville-vancouver/
Golden Great Wall, also on Broadway @ Heather is pretty good for XLB, even though they present themselves as Szechuan cuisine.
Generally speaking, Greater Vancouver has no shortage of very very good northern/Beijing, Shanghai and Szechuan restaurants to choose from. We are the benefactors of a great diverse city 😀
Haha thanks for the credit Ben but I think you called me Nicole a few times in your post. =P Unless you were talking about someone else. Haha it’s ok though. I really think this is a good restaurant and that their prices are decent. However, it is slightly hidden/tucked away compared to other restaurants on Kingsway. =( Glad you enjoyed it!
Ahhhh … sorry about that Natalie. LOL! My apologies.
Great job staying on top of things in Burnaby. This is now my Friday Lunch destination this week!
I foresee a Burnaby/Metrotown Chowtimers group lunch about to happen one of these days …….
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Went there today for a light lunch, as I had some (special occasion) cake at the office not long before that. Ordered the spicy fried chicken nuggets appetizer and the green onion pancake, as snacks. The chicken was moist, not greasy, well-spiced and fried without a hint of grease. The GOP was one of the best I’ve had in recent memory.
Ambiance was great and quiet (12:30-1:30pm), service was attentive and polite. I would return in a wink over LSD simply because it’s more tranquil here and easier to get a table amidst the lunchtime rush.
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Is it some what kid friendly?
I like the fact that they don’t use MSG.
Hi Karen: Yeah, it is. I find that The One is kid friendly. Ben
So we went there last Friday at 6pm. Good thing we did as by 6:30pm they were full.
Their drinks were awesome! Big glasses and tasty. I had the strawberry milk and it was delicious.
We ordered the Salty Deep Fried Chicken Nuggets and they were well worth it. We also ordered some dumpling, but they were so spicy. We needed some rice to eat with them.
One thing that was strange, is that they didn’t give us any plates to use for the appetizers. And the napkins were like what you get at McDonalds. When you have a kid, you need a lot of napkins, so it would have been nice if they had been more absorbent. We ended up bringing our own booster seat which we placed on the bench seat. The individual seats wouldn’t fit, as they are club chairs.
Our party was 4 people with one toddler. Three of us ordered hotpots and the other the wonton. Holy smokes, if we had realized how big the servings were, we would have shared the hot pots. None of us finished and we were so stuffed.
We will definitely visit again.
How old is your kid, Karen ? Did they offer a booster or highchair ?
I always bring a small tote bag of the “essentials” for my kid when going out, and being the overly-cautious guy that I am, I have at least 2 packs of wet wipes travel packs in there, cuz like you say, you need a LOT of napkins ! 😉 What else is in that tote bag, you ask, hehehe ?
– 2 “Light My Fire” sporks (spoon + fork). Greatest utensil for kids. $2.50 each at Mountain Equipment Co-op
http://i.treehugger.com/images/2007/10/24/light-my-fire-spork-group.jpg
– kids’ small drinking straws
– sippy cup with lid
– hand sanitizer
– disposable bib (IKEA, McDonalds have them)
Hmm, very interesting Ben. I went last night and had the exact same hotpot but they did not serve us the drink…
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A bunch of friends and I went to this restaurant just yesterday. My friend ordered a hot pot and it did not come with a drink nor a desert. I personally thought the price was a bit over priced for the kind of food it is. The food was only ok, but I do have to agree the nuggets were the best dish we tried.
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