ten ren's tea time

[repost from chanlindsay.blogspot.com]

Dinner tonight in Richmond Hill (yes, twice in the span of a week). At Ten Ren's Tea Time, on hwy 7 between Leslie and Bayview. Service was mediocre at best, with servers who didn't speak Cantonese (Mandarin & broken English only). At least the managers were full of smiles, and slightly apologetic. Food was interesting: but seemingly more conceptual cuisine than actual culinary art - the flavours of the different teas that were supposedly in all of the dishes was subtle, very very subtle. But the prix fixe menus (with actually quite a bit of choice) were well priced (mostly 15 or 20$) and multi-coursed (a tiny salad - made up for with a tasty dressing, soup, main dish with rice, dessert, and tea - but by tea, since it is a tea house, there were plenty of interesting choices). I think the wonton soup was with a hint of jasmine (I've forgotten now) - which came through the broth-from-a-can taste; pleasant and interesting. The pu-erh beef brisket was tasty, but didn't taste, to me, of pu-erh at all - a little bit of a disappointment, because it's the stuff I grew up on, my family's tea of choice. A new tea in my books to close the meal: tian-mu (mountain fog? I think that sounds somewhat like a loose translation) . The leaves are apparently picked in the early morning dew on this mountain... and the vagaries of that hearsay make me want to become more of a tea drinker.

And now I'm going to sleep through all of that caffeine.