The Rice Noodle Roll, ( 腸粉) at Urban China in Edmonton was well made and pretty but rather bland. It only got a Rating of 3 out of 5.
I only managed to make one visit to the Urban China Restaurant in Edmonton, Alberta, and I sampled five different dishes from their Dim Sum menu. On the whole, I was not especially impressed with the place and my meal, overall was mediocre at best. The Rice Noodle Roll they served was the best of the bunch, though, and not too bad, all things considered, but it lacked sparkle and could only be described as merely average in quality.
The Rice Noodle Roll at Urban China is an example of the less common sort of roll in which there is no ‘filling’ as such (as typified by the excellent Rice Noodle Roll stuffed with Shrimp at Chu Shing), but is instead flavored with ingredient cooked into the rice noodle sheet itself. In this case, the ingredients in question are sliced scallion and tiny Dried Shrimp of the sort known as 蝦米.
I think I can say that the appearance of the Urban Chine Rice Noodle Roll is about as pretty as I have seen. They were well rolled and plated very nicely, which is often not the case. They were also quite tight and easy to pick up and maneuver with chopsticks. The thickness of the noodle sheet was just right and it was steamed to the proper degree so that it had no doughy taste, but wasn’t too soft. The sauce did not contain Oyster Sauce, as is common, but rather seemed to be Soy Sauce with a touch of sugar and perhaps a splash of Rice Wine. It was nicely sweet and not too assertive.
The only problem with the 腸粉 at Urban China was that the flavorings were barely discernible. There was a little hint of scallion but the shrimp were entirely tasteless and only served to add a little visual appeal. Probably, they were old ones that had been drying out on the shelf for too long. Ultimately, this particular rendering the dish was so bland as to have been disappointing. It was a shame really, as the rolls were excellent otherwise.