Hits the Spot

What: Various menu items
Where: Emerald Chinese Restaurant (Mississauga)
Cuisine: Chinese
Affordability: $10+ per dish

Pointers:

If you are craving greasy, salty, and overall bad for you Chinese food that’s good, this is for you.

We were craving deep fried pork belly but all the regular Filipino restaurants in Mississauga that we would trust to eat at has already closed for the night. We ended up at Emerald, which someone recollected to have deep fried pork belly so we gave it ago. This place hit the spot, alright! The pork belly had crispy skin but had a moist and succulent meat. Paired with fried rice and scallops, we were convinced that the badness in all of this was good. We also had the corn soup, which was just really there to start with. We were here for the grease.

Would we recommend Emerald? Sure, especially if you had been drinking. You need the grease to dilute the beer anyway. Just go with the expectation that service may be slow. Different servers were serving us and that may have confused who was ordering our food in the kitchen and who was bringing it out.

The Dox: Part Deux

Name: The DOX Restaurant and Lounge
Where: Kingston, ON
Cuisine: Canadian/American/Regional
Affordability: $10 – $30 per entrée

I decided to give The DOX another chance at impressing me during dinner service. I felt it would be rather unfair to give them a critique for a breakfast service that seemed very generic.

I was sat right away, as the dinner service has just started. I picked a table by the windows that had a nice view of the lake. Since I was staying at the hotel, I was offered a complimentary appetizer with my meal. I ordered the Blacked Atlantic Scallops, which I was told would be a bit on the spicy side. I ordered it anyway as the other selections seems too filling to be followed by a full dinner. I couldn’t imagine the kitchen being busy since I was the only patron at this time, however, my appetizer took it’s time getting made and making it to my table.

Blackened Atlantic Scallops

I was excited when it finally arrived at my table; probably partly because I was really hungry at this point or because of it’s presentation. The so-called tropical salsa set in the middle of the plate was nice. It didn’t seem that they opened a can of fruit cocktail and try to pass it off as homemade as detailed on the menu. But I didn’t really know if I were to dip my scallops on it, as it was not a cream base; it was chopped tropical fruits that could potentially be eaten separately than accompanying the scallops as intended. And I did just that but not before trying the blackened scallops with it. The flavours of the tropical salsa didn’t really go very well with the blackened scallops. It didn’t heighten or underline any notes of the scallops’ flavour. All I noticed was it decreased the overpowering spice of the dish, which was probably what it meant to do. The scallops were too spicy for my liking. They were not curry-like spicy, they were pepper-spicy. It was just hot and burning on your tongue without offering any kind of other flavour. The consistency of the scallops was okay, but I’ve had better and the sizes were too small. Coined as “Atlantic Scallops”, I think Digby (Nova Scotia), the scallops’ capital of the world, would not be so pleased to be associated with this dish. Digby Scallops are not only usually large in size but they are also very plump – the ones I had when I was in Digby anyway.

Maple Mustard Chicken

The main course arrived with an equally presentable plate. I had ordered the Maple Mustard Chicken from the Chef’s Creation Menu with seasonal vegetables and steamed basmati rice. It was a 6oz chicken breast, pan seared and brushed with maple and two selections of mustard. The chicken was good. It was moist to the bone, and the maple and mustard glaze had an interesting pairing, making it sweet and tangy at the same time. However, I wish I had ordered a different carbohydrate or my meal. The basmati rice was not cooked or seemed done right. Some of the rice was hard as if half cooked and some were soft and overly moist. It was still very starchy which indicates that it wasn’t rinsed well. It could very well be the brand of the rice but if I were paying a pretty penny for my meal, I would expect a good quality basmati.

Overall, the meal was in the same level of disappointment from the breakfast dish. There are many other restaurants in the area within walking distance from the hotel that offers much better dishes for better prices. The meals at The Dox, I feel, were more of a trap to the hotel guests offering the convenience of not needing to go out to eat, and the complimentary appetizer seemed liked a good deal. Of course, something free always has a catch.