Evergreen Restaurant - Tasty Chinese BBQ

One of my new favourite YouTube foodie channels I follow features Chinese food in New City York and its surrounding burrows. His adventures take him from fancy banquet style Hong Kong cuisine to humble street side vendors selling skewers of meat. One of his most recent posts involve the best Chinese BBQ and it implored me into looking at Winnipeg's options. One of the first spots to hit my eye was Evergreen Restaurant whom tout itself as a Chinese B.B.Q. Specialist. Perusing the menu and looking at the pictures certainly give an air of authenticity to its meats and so on a cold winter day I hauled myself out of bed to try some delightful Chinese BBQ.

You would think being located on Pembina Highway would make your restaurant accessible and easy to find, but Evergreen is on a stretch close to "confusion corner" that makes getting to it difficult and frustrating (hint: come from the North to save yourself some headaches). But nevertheless once you find parking, the restaurant itself is easy to spot and attractive enough to the eye. Once inside we found a tiny cramped restaurant whose ten tables even seemed a bit confined and stuffy. Thankfully the turnover is quick and the staff serviceable and knowledgeable. The menu itself is focused on Chinese BBQ fare and quick Chinese hawker style food. The origins of Chinese BBQ stem from Cantonese cuisine with the most famous being Char Siu (barbecue pork), Soya Sauce Chicken and Duck. What differentiates this from Western BBQ is the use of Chinese sauces and marinates focusing more on a mixture of sweet and salty and using the flavour to contrast the natural fats of the meat.

Our first item, Soyed Chicken on Rice, is the classic popular soya sauce braised chicken. The key to this dish is the contrast of the spongy soft skin with the tender meat all combined in the sweet and salty soy sauce. Evergreen's version is nice here with gelatinous chicken skin on top of the perfectly cooked meat underneath. The key here though is the sweet soy that is drizzled on top giving the dish the necessary sauce and flavour. The bed of rice underneath is crucial as well to soak in all the juices and compliment the fattiness of the meat.

Not wanting to be pure gluttons we went with a combination BBQ Side Pork & BBQ Pork on Rice. The BBQ Side Pork is synonymous with "Roast Pork", a dish known for its combination of crispy and crackly skin contrasted with fat and meat underneath. Although not the most visually appealing, Evergreen's version does a nice job here with each piece of skin resembling the texture of a pork crackling but also having a gentle salty and peppery flavour. The skin is complimented nicely by a layer of fat and tender meat underneath and is finished with a drizzle of soy. On the other hand, the BBQ Pork, also known as Char Siu, takes a piece of marinated pork loin (in honey, five spice, fermented bean curd and soy sauce) and slow roasted in an oven until tender and delicious. Evergreen's version also is very authentic with fatty and tender pieces of perfectly cooked pork with a sweet and salty exterior and drizzled again with soy. The best parts for me though are the small end pieces of charred meat which has a more concentrated and smokey flavour.

My dining companion wanted a starch to compliment our meats and ordered a Vermicelli (Curry). A huge plate of rice noodles arrived and is nicely arranged with bits of char siu and large pieces of shrimp. The noodles are wok fried to give a slight crispiness to the ends of each noodle, a nice contrast to the otherwise soft noodles. There is a mild Indian curry flavour in the dish, more aromatic than flavourful which was a tad bland for my liking. Thankfully a dish of Chinese hot sauce comes with the dish for you to customize to your spice level of choice.

Evergreen Restaurant delivered some of the best Chinese style roast meats in the city. And while the restaurant's decor and presentation of each dish could be improved, the flavour is ultimately authentic and the portions reasonable. Worth a visit to treat anyone's itch for Chinese BBQ.