I am frequently asked by readers and friends (and friends who are readers) about the authenticity of restaurants I visit. Was the pizza authentically Italian? Sounds like a good place to eat, Chris, but was the Thai food credible, by local standards?
No other culinary tradition seems to provoke this sort of enquiry more than Chinese food. You can barely finish typing the words “North Shore Chinese restaurant” without the search engine offering to auto-complete your phrasing with something about authenticity.
I cannot tell you what is authentically Chinese as I do not hail from that culture nor have I ever visited the country. Even if I could say the opposite on those two counts, would I be any better equipped to know what was authentic and what wasn’t? There are so many regional, seasonal and familial subcategories within Chinese cooking (as there are in most cuisines of the world) that what is authentic to one person may feel specious to another.
With this in mind, I am not able to tell you if Lao Cai ’s self-labelled Northern Chinese cuisine is authentic or not, but what I can say with certainty is that it is unlike any other food I have had in this city that bears the name Chinese.
Lao Cai’s meat, noodle and soup-focused menu is packed with fare unfamiliar to me and so I found my recent menu sampling both exciting and eye-opening as a result. This West Vancouver restaurant’s kitchen dishes up bold, smack-you-in-the-chops fare that is not for the faint of heart. The intense, flavour-forward dishes I tried, largely on recommendation from the friendly and helpful staff, bore no resemblance to the thickened sauce-laden, deep-fried, sweet and sour, inexplicably shiny fare that is too often dubbed Szechuan or Cantonese in this market.
Instead, I found meaty dishes with complex and unexpected flavouring components like vinegar, curry spices, cilantro, and peanuts. For example, my favourite dish of my Lao Cai meal was a cold appetizer of thinly sliced, ultra-tender beef with thin ribbons of onion, cilantro, and spices, sort of like a Northern Chinese riff on carpaccio, but with the beef served not as rare and without the requisite drizzle of oil. The spicing bore a resemblance to curry and I could discern notes of either fenugreek or curry leaves, and cumin. The dish was a revelation and was presented simply as described, unaccompanied by any sort of starch component.
One of the staff members told me, in response to my question about what defines Northern Chinese cuisine, that one distinctive attribute is a focus on noodles rather than rice. Indeed, not a single dish on the Lao Cai menu comes with or contains rice, though I was assured that some could be made available to me should I find it more familiar and comforting. Alas, I do not; a noodle-centric menu suits me very well.
A main dish of lamb soup was also a delight, with hearty, fall-apart chunks of lean lamb in a rich, lamby broth with greens and weighty, broad noodles that were both filling and texturally pleasing. If you are on the fence about liking lamb, this dish is not for you. Based on the intensity of flavour, it occurred to me that the soup stock’s central protein may well have been mutton, which I personally find welcomingly flavourful, but recognize is not everyone’s bag.
I was reluctant to order the sweet and sour pork spareribs as I assumed they would be of the variety common on many local menus, featuring a thick, sticky and decidedly sweet sauce, but the server was insistent that they were among the house specialties, so I gave them a shot. I’m glad I did. The dish included a generous portion of meaty spareribs in a thin, dark, soy and vinegar-based sauce that cut right through the rich and sometimes fatty texture of the pork. It was a preparation of ribs that I will seek out again, but next time with the accompaniment of a cold beer to offset the saltiness.
An order of steamed spinach in peanut sauce provided a glimmer of vegetable nutrition to the meal and resembled gomae in its preparation, except swapping out the thick sesame sauce for peanut. The spinach was just barely blanched and retained its bright green, earthy spinach-ness, which was nicely complemented by just the right amount of toasty, creamy peanut dressing.
A final dish of hot and spicy noodle soup was, in my estimation, not as successful as the others. The deep, brickish red broth with bits of garlic and herbs looked inviting but actually revealed unexpected fishy notes on the palate and was, perhaps, simply too stark a contrast to the other dishes to fit in the meal overall.
My menu sampling was $58 before gratuity and included free tea.
Lao Cai Chinese Cuisine is located at 130-1425 Marine Dr. in West Vancouver (the spot was formerly occupied by long-running operator Rose Thai). 604–925–9231. No website.
