So the old South Ocean Seafood is gone! I was never a big fan of South Ocean since I wouldn’t care how cheap their dim sum was if it was of poor quality. My mom suggested to check out the new restaurant in case they have any new deals.
The restaurant is now called Dragon Group Seafood Restaurant, which is a direct translation from their Chinese name, ???. I suppose ‘Dragon Group’ sounds better than ‘Dragon Meeting’ or ‘Dragon Gathering’… I like ‘Dragon Club’ but it might sound a little too gangster?
The decors are definitely much classier now. They even have their own branded napkins. But I can’t say I’m a big of the colour brown-beige colour scheme, which makes the dining room a little darker.
So they did have some specials for their grand opening. The Steamed Dungeness Crab with Sticky Rice on Lotus Leaf was $38.80. Not exactly a killer deal but it was a big dish for 2 people. And all we needed else was a plate of green vegetable stir fry as greens are always important on our family dinner table.
The crab was over 2 pounds and tasted well. But cooking seafood such as crab or lobster in a Chinese restaurant kitchen is pretty forgiving – they just have to make sure the seafood fresh. All they need to do is not overcooking it, and the quality product would just do the rest of the work itself. The sticky rice did absorb the flavours from the crab and garlic, and was quite tasty. The only issue was the vegetable in the rice. The bits of corn, peas and carrots were still pretty raw. They could have blanched or sautéed the veggie bits for a couple minutes before putting in the rice.
We picked the Tong Choy with Garlic Stir Fry ($14.80) as our green veggie dish. Tong choy, or sometimes called ong choy or water spinach, is one of my favourite green vegetables. The pleasure of eating it usually comes from the crunchy snap on the fibery stems. The leaves of this vegetable however are super delicate so the timing on cooking the whole plant is very tricky – you don’t want to overcook the leaves and you don’t want to undercook the stems. They definitely nailed the execution here – both leaves and stems were perfectly cooked, and garlic flavour really came through.
We were offered some Sweet Red Bean Soup for dessert. Why would we say no to that? 🙂
We enjoyed our dinner. The whole crab was cooked properly, and the sticky rice underneath was a treat as it absorbed the flavour from the crab. They also nailed the tong choy stir fry, which is usually a tricky dish. The service was decent as well as our waiter was pretty attentive. This is no longer the cheap old South Ocean Seafood, so expect the price to be dramatically higher. But if they offer special deals on seafood, definitely take advantage of that!
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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dragon-Group-Seafood-Restaurant/621874217991446
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