The Green Onion Pancake (蔥油餅) at the All Happy Family Restaurant was novel in shape, and surprisingly good. It got a 5 out of 5 Rating.
I wasn’t especially impressed with the All Happy Family Restaurant when I visited it in Edmonton, Alberta. It wasn’t terribly clean, for one thing, and I was disappointed with the Happy Family Fish Maw Soup, which was not as advertised on the menu. The one bright spot in the meal was the rather unusual Green Onion Pancake, which turned out to be among the nicest I have had thus far.
I wasn’t especially impressed with the All Happy Family Restaurant when I visited it in Edmonton, Alberta. It wasn’t terribly clean, for one thing, and I was disappointed with the Happy Family Fish Maw Soup, which was not as advertised on the menu. The one bright spot in the meal was the rather unusual Green Onion Pancake, which turned out to be the nicest I have had thus far.
I have previously discussed the basic form of the Green Onion Pancake (or ‘Scallion Oil Cake’ as it is generally known in Chinese) in my review of the Green Onion Pancake at Gain Wah, and I contrasted the general form in that case with the other major style that is typified by the Green Onion Pancake at Café Orient. The version at Happy Family, however, fell into neither of the two general styles, having been given the rather unusual, and very novel, ‘donut’ shape you see in the picture above.
The shape was interesting, of course, but it really didn’t affect the taste or texture of the end result in any meaningful way, while the dough itself was much, much lighter than is common. Most Green Onion Pancake Dim Sum offerings are either quite densely doughy, or are light but still somewhat dense and chewy, but if you look at the center of the ‘donut’ above, it has ballooned to make a hollow center. The outside was crispy, the thin shell was nicely chewy, and the whole textural effect was excellent.
One surprising thing was that the apparent dearth of scallion was not reflected in the tase. There was a lovely, bright taste of green onion and I rather think that, just rather than scallion sections coupled with oil, there was actually Scallion Oil incorporated into the dough. This is something I frequently do when making this specialty, and the result here was terrific. I have Green Onion Pancake served to me many times, some great, some not very good, but this was, to date, the best I have had…. And the Plum Sauce on the side? Didn’t need it… didn’t use it.
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