Tonight we decided to go out and celebrate my wife’s birthday by having messy seafood for dinner. By messy we mean messy and one can only do this over at Saigon Star Restaurant located in the Richmond Hill.
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| Grilled Pork Neck Meat |
We had reservations for 15 people and they accommodated us rather quickly. The place is packed and bringing a stroller and/or huge pieces of equipment is strongly not recommended. After cramming into our seats we ordered probably the best stuff on the menu and of course their signature Curry Crab Dish. We went with the Grilled Pork Neck Meat, Grilled Prawns, Charboil Oysters, Pineapple Fried Rice, Shrimp and Mango Salad and Pad Thai. We multiplied everything by 2 so that we had enough food for everyone.
The Grilled Pork Neck Meat arrived first and it wasn’t all that bad. Like ribs, the meat was very soft but a little fattening. It tasted quite good. The good thing was that there are no bones so no need to try to take the bones out of your mouth.
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| Shrimp and Mango Salad |
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| Sauteed Curry Crab |
The curry crab arrived next. Now one can order this dish with bread, rice or Chinese pancake. The curry sauce is very similar to the Japanese sauce that was posted on this blog a few days ago where it is only mildly spicy. The messy part is getting the meat out of the crab shell. Eating Crab can be messy already but eating crab with curry sauce is even messier. They do provide wet naps for you. The crab tasted pretty good. No complaints here. The curry was wiped up with the bread and pancake.
The shrimp and mango salad was next. Personally I liked this dish because with all the seafood on the table, it was refreshing to have fresh mango with a little lemon sauce to offset all the seafood. Fairly light, the salad had a bit of zing to it. A nice touch and good contrast for what was to come on the table.
The pad thai arrived next and that too was not bad. It is not heavy and oily like some other pad thai’s I’ve have had in the past. The noodles were nicely prepared and it does fill your stomach pretty good. It is comparable to original pad thai from Thailand.
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| Pineapple Fried Rice |
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| Vegetables |
The pineapple fried rice was next and this too was nicely done. The other problem with this dish was that our dish had quite a lot of pineapples in it while the other table’s plate did not. I had a couple of bowls of this as it was too bad at all. One can certainly taste the pineapple in the dish and the rice again wasn’t too oily or heavy.
The last two dishes arrived and probably were the most heaviest and expensive foods that they had in the restaurant. The prawns were huge. They came out with what looked to me some sort of meat sauce on top of them although the origins of the sauce is unknown. However when one bites into the prawns, one can not mistaken the mushiness of the prawn. As one friend put it, they took the prawns out, they thawed and then they threw it back in the freezer. It was not that good. Couple with mixing the huge amount of “meat sauce” over the membranes of the prawns really made this a not so great tasting dish. Appearance wise was good however given the price one pays for a prawn which was like $11 bucks for one, one needs to say that this was a failure.
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| Pad Thai |
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| Cho Lon Grilled Prawn |
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| Charboil Oyster |
The oysters were not that much better as there was way too much garlic on top of them. The oysters themselves were okay and medium in size. However one can see the amount of oil and garlic sauce on top of the oysters which killed almost all of the oyster taste. It’s like taking a jar of Lee Kum Kee garlic sauce and dumping it into your mouth and then eating a small bit of oyster to go with it.
It was my first time there surprisingly however many of the friends who were that night had been there numerous times. They say tonight the food was only average and I must agree with that assessment. Actually many came out somewhat disappointed. The service was okay. I know on many other sites people have complained of being rushed out of there however that was not the case that night. Each person paid $43 dollars for their share of the meal. There was plenty of free parking available. The plates were huge but quality was lacking. For this I give this place a 3 out of 5.
Saigon Star Restaurrant
330 Hwy 7 E, Richmond Hill
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