Friday, October 21, 2005

Cameron Chinese Seafood

Cameron Chinese Seafood
21 Cameron St.
Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3N2

We've been to Cameron so many times that some waitresses actually recognize us. Most of time we are there for their dim sum. When my parents visited, we took them to Cameron and they were surprised that there is actually "decent" Chinese food in town. Please keep in mind that their standard is pretty high to begin with; they flied over from Richmond/Vancouver, where "tons of" Chinese restaurants are located.

Back to their dim sum. There are three items we will order every time:
1) Sticky rice with Chinese sausage and BBQ pork wrapped in lotus leaves. It is extremely flavorful and the lotus leaves add unique aroma to the food. Let's just say this is something you can't make at home.
2) Spring rolls wrapped in Chinese rice noodles. So far this is my favorite. I've ordered this dish in many other restaurants, Cameron is the only restaurant which prepares the dish with spring rolls. Normally it's Chinese dough fritters wrapped in the rice noodles; the texture is therefore both crispy and smooth. Cameron's version even kicks it up a notch; the spring roll filling provides the creamy rich flavor. And it is not just the ordinary spring rolls. I would guess they first sauté the filling (seasoned shredded taro with ground meat), make the spring rolls then deep dry them. I definitely prefer the taro filling over cabbage or bean sprout ones!
3) Deep-fried balls with ground meat. This is J's favorite.
Normally we will order 5 to 6 dishes to share. Turnip cakes, shao mai, shrimp dumplings show up on our list constantly as well. We are not too crazy about dishes such as chicken feet, beef stomach or curry octopus.

After dining there so many times, we did have chance to try their not-so-well-received dishes. One year a group of us went there for Peking duck. We had to order in advance and it was on the pricy side. We were shocked to see that there was only duck skin in each Chinese bun. Ok, I know that is the best part, but I went with an empty stomach, Paper-thin duck skin just didn't cut it. Avoid their peking duck (which is not difficult to do; just don't phone in and order in advance).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i love reading your reviews.

however i would like to point out, u always just eat the duck skin + bun (a very thin piece of 'bun') together with the hoisin sauce + chinese green onion stick. The restaurant would usually cook the duck shell and the meat together in another dish.