Happy Few Years

I came to Ottawa for the Lunar New Year. Tuesday night, I had a family dinner consisting of mostly various kinds of rolls. For Wednesday, I went with some friends to celebrate New Year's Eve at Sea King. This Chinese restaurant on Merivale Road was a throwback to the no-frills Asian spots of olde. Since most places, especially in Toronto, have upgraded to "minimalist Zen" thanks to cheap material, there was some bemusement at the decor. The main area, packed with families, was more welcoming that the "private rooms". These windowless chambers felt more like police interrogation rooms.

The dishes were also old-school, with an emphasis on seafood. They were all edible but I found them mostly lacking in taste and presentation. Both the congee and the stir-fry had that oily slickness. One small stand-out was the "fried noodle basket"; it tasted fresh and didn't have the stale oil flavour. The whole chicken looked great, head and all. But it was simply cold meat and did not benefit much from the green-onion dipping sauce. The final dish was pork and jelly-fish which at least had interesting texture. You don't have to go trendy hipster, but the "traditional" Chinese restaurants in north Toronto, especially Markham, would take this spot to (old) school.