The Jellyfish Salad at the Juxiangyuan Restaurant in Ottawa was fairly decent but not very exciting and I only gave it a 3 out of 5 Rating.
Jellyfish appears only occasionally on Dim Sum menus and the version you see above was actually served as an Appetizer at the now defunct Juxiangyuan Restaurant in Ottawa’s Chinatown. It was reasonably fresh, and the vegetables were nicely tender, but the rendition, though generally good, was not the best I have ever had.
The actual Jellyfish in the Juxiangyuan salad is a little hard to make out in the picture at the beginning of this post, but you get a good idea of what Jellyfish shreds look like above. I don’t recall now exactly where I took this picture but it was in an Asian market in either Ottawa, or, more probably, I think, in Vancouver.
Anyway, the Jellyfish Salad at Juxiangyuan was described on the menu as ‘Jelly fish and Chinese Cabbage with Chef sauce’. It may look, in the picture, as though Bean Sprouts were included in the mix, but, actually, these are actually strips from the white, stem section of the Chinese Cabbage leaves, and, as you can see, the green part that was included was rather yellowish, indicating it had aged a bit. This, by the way, wasn’t a negative factor, as the Cabbage was still very tasty.
There was also Cucumber included, cut into thin slivers, as well as some tomatoes, although these were more of a bed, or garnish, and were not dressed. The vegetables that were actually part of the salad had clearly been salted, and I rather suspect that the ‘Chef’s Sauce’ alluded to in the menu description was simply the water thrown off by the salted vegetables mixed with a little Sesame Oil. There were also some Sesame Seeds added in and, while these lent a nice textural contrast to the dish, the overall effect lacked ‘zing’ and was a bit disappointing.