Heart of Asia and Noodlebox, Mount Tolmie, Victoria

After watching Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in 'The Trip to Italy', the lovely Brunette of my Acquaintance and I were hungry.  The film (watched at Cinecenta at UVic) has the pair eating at a bunch of gorgeous Italian restaurants and goofing off about famous people, their careers, being middle-aged and active comedians.  Both the original 'The Trip' and this are well worth watching if you like British Comedy and food.  Or food comedy and the British.

So, watching them gorge on pasta and well cooked food, we were hungry and fancied eating more than a small plates meal at Little Jumbo, and decided to try the Heart of Asia.  Previously, the venue was Jojo Jajangmyeon, but that has closed down, and has been replaced by the Heart of Asia. They've had at least two days with a 'Grand Opening' sign outside, so they've been up and running for a couple of weeks or more now.

We went in and got seated.  The decor hasn't changed much, a few small rooms for private eating and nice wooden tables with open lattice dividers in the main room.  We were handed two tatty looking menus and a nicely printed drinks menu.  Except, they only had bottled beers to serve. No cesars or highballs.  Slightly odd.  And bottles of Canadian were $5.25.  A 12oz bottle.

We got into the menu.  I think I should have checked the menu through before hand, and the rest of the rest of this review is possibly a collision of my expectations with reality.  The menu included Griddled Bull frog, Spicy sheep's intestines, Vegetables and Tripe, and Beef brains.  The Chicken Wings were 6 for $13, though they promised that the fat was well rendered for a crispy texture.  $2 a wing is a bit steep...

Throughout the menu, items were crossed off, in different coloured bits of sticky tape.  The whole thing had been scotched taped together from what looked like two halves, with staples hanging out of one side.  From a restaurant a month old?  Items were in Chinese first and English second, with many items having no price in dollars. I assume the Hanzi next to the items said something equivalent to 'market price'.

We asked about the noodles, and these were off the menu. The hot and sour soup was not vegetarian (no reason why it should be), but we were then informed it could be made that way. At $11, I assumed it was a massive bowl.  But wanting a vegetarian dish, there was nothing that appetizing.  As was pointed out afterwards, Asian food is not very often vegetarian.

So, we decided this was not for us tonight and Noodlebox was going to serve us better.  I was thinking I'd come back solo sometime and try the spicy intestines, just to see what it was like. But tonight, the Brunette and I wanted something simpler and with meat from known sources.  Again, I understand my expectations for the restaurant were wrong.

We told our server we decided we didn't want to eat tonight and to get the bill.  She looked confused and left to find the host.  The host, dressed in a baseball cap (a very different look from the well dressed waitresses) told us that we could have the soup, as it was vegetarian.  We said we didn't want soup, sorry, we'd be leaving.  We were then informed there was a minimum $20 charge.  We'd had two beers and been there for 10 minutes.  There wasn't a queue and it wasn't busy.  Nothing on the menu said about a minimum spend, so I refused to pay this minimum.  The host walked off obviously annoyed with us.  I got up to the cashier, paid the $13 for the two beers, slightly miffed, and the host explained that it was a 'temporary menu' so it wasn't all there yet with the words for the base charge, and not all the dishes were ready yet. Kind of hard to play guess what you actually have.  But still, I'm thinking at this point, maybe I'll come back and try something.  Clearly the cuisine is different from my usual expectations of Chinese food.

But the killer blow for me was when they took my twenty dollar bill, handed back five to me and stuck a toonie in the tip jar.  Without asking, without offering me the chance to tip. I'm done with them now, and I head out rapidly, fuming, with the Brunette just behind and trying to get me to calm down.

As I said, on reflection, I should have checked the menu.  We walked back by later, and the place was pretty full, and they seem to be doing a good trade.  I'm guessing they serve much more authentic Szechuan than this Brit expected, and this mismatch led to the poor experience I got, and the expectation of a full menu and more regular 'chinese' food.

But I also don't expect to have tips forced off me, minimum spends imposed, an open restaurant to have a barely there menu (literally and figuratively), and a bar to not be able to do simple mixed drinks.




So we walked over to Noodlebox, and got fed a good Pad Thai.  Rice noodles, lots of peanuts, a decent fire in the medium-hot chicken and a full belly.  I agree with another poster on Urbanspoon that the sauce is a little watery, but the food there always fills me up, has a good combination of spice, flavour and texture.  Asian food for the western palate, I guess. We got fed and served to our expectations, so all was right with the world.