Saturday September 8, 12:36 a.m.
I rather enjoyed the lunch that Sam had taken me and one other friend to the other
Thursday, so I decided to give
Yueh Tung another shot a couple of days ago. It's located just a few dozen metres north of
City Hall on
Elizabeth St. I got there at around
11:15; it doesn't open until
11:30, but there were already a few folks waiting until that big hand hit the 6. Judging by the veteran status of all of them, these guys looked like regulars. Beside the doors, there were a few articles raving about the food in the restaurant, especially for
the Hot N' Sour Soup.
A lot of that empty space you see there filled up quickly within 15 minutes. The service was pretty cordial...there were a lot of
"How ya doin'?"type greetings. Last time I was there with the others, it was nearly
12:30, so things were packed to the gills, but we were still seated quickly....just shared one of the big round tables with a couple of other folks. No problems with us...and that was something that was pretty common in the
izakaya in
Japan.
Now since I was all by my lonesome, I just went for the one dish....knowing what the portions are like in Chinese restaurants. I went for the dish that attracted me to
Yueh Tung in the first place:
Manchurian Chicken on Rice. For a little under
$7, I got a nice big plate of fairly spicy chicken in a thick sauce that smacked of soy and vinegar over a bed of fluffy white. And with a can of
Coke, I was making a nuclear bomb inside my GI tract. I do like
the Manchurian, but it's not perfect...I suspect that there are other better-tasting dishes on the menu, such as the aforementioned
Hot N' Sour Soup. It really just needs either a tad more vinegar or a tad more spice to really hit the peak. But hey, I came all the way downtown to try it again, so it's good enough by me. Next time, though, I will be ordering one of the other one-dish lunches. As for
the Hot N' Sour, I'll have to have Sam with me.
