Friday evening. Got off work at 6pm. (sweeeet! ya. I consider 6pm to be quite early) Walked around the surrounding Richmond Hill area, drove along Bayview and I saw this little plaza on my right hand side. That was the place TW mentioned - Bayview/Weldrick, where the Maxim’s is located. Felt a bit tired, looked up, and I saw the sky in grey. “I miss you!” Miss Marz told Mr. Summer. Since I was a bit early and it was my first time there, I walked around and checked out all the stores in the plaza. There was the Maxim’s, Scotia Bank (I think…), a Chinese fast food/take out place, a Chinese bakery, a clinic, a salon under new management, a pet-related store, etc… One place that caught my attention was a local supermarket, called Bruno’s Fine Foods. I have never seen this store, but the word “fine foods” seduced me. Couldn’t resist, so I went in and checked it out. One thing that I like about local/individual stores is that they usually carry some products that you seldom see in the big chain stores. The feeling of treasure hunting and exploration is indeed very satisfying. Later I found out that this Bruno’s is actually a family run business and there are 7 locations in total. Meats seem to be their area of expertise. You may wanna check it out next time you cook a meat dish.

Back to my original topic. Friday night @ 7pm, we came to this restaurant called Fortune Barbecue Noodlehouse 粥家莊. Looking at the green banner outside, for some reasons I think I’ve seen it somewhere before - Somewhere, but definitely not in this plaza.

However, the first few second I stepped into this restaurant, I found that it was quite different from what I expected it would be like - the decor, the layout, the fullhouse, the popularity of its BBQ. The tone was dark wood and ivory leather. The atmosphere was clean and modern.

Here are what we ordered:
中式牛柳 (Beef tenderloin with sweet and sour sauce) - If it was just me, usually I wouldn’t order the beef tenderloin since I’m not a heavy meat eater. Since we had two persons and TW suggested this dish, here it is. Had the first bite, it was quite good, very tender, slight sweet and sour unlike the usual orange-y sweet and sour sauce. (Well, I don’t think the dish is well described in English since “sweet and sour” could be quite misleading). Second bite, trying taste the 2nd layer flavour… As far as we could taste, they did not use any tenderizer such as baking soda (or very subtle) - they have hammered it instead. You know, a lot of Chinese restaurant like to “soften” the meat with tenderizers and the meat eventually loses the flavour. This beef tenderloin was good. It was a very good complement of white rice. YUMMM =p~~~

蒜香銀魚蒸茄子 (Steamed eggplant with silver fish and garlic) - Since we ordered a meat dish, I suggested a vegetable dish in order to be healthier while dining out. Just to be sure (you never know… there are people who hate eggplants), I asked if TW dislike eggplants, and his answer was NO. That’s great! A reason why I ordered this was that it was one of the few “non-greasy” eggplant dishes in a restaurant that I’ve seen. Eggplants and taro are always best cooked with lots of oil! Most of the time, if you are eating out, you see eggplants immerged in oil. This one… although it was steamed, the garlic and the little silver fish added enough flavour to it. I liked it.

At the end, before we got the bill, they gave us the orange. It was sweet!!! Very nice. Also took a picture of the condiment set. Cute. The bill came to be about $26 (after T&T), which was not bad at all! We ordered the two-dish combo ($17.99) came with a bowl of Cantonese soup, plus two bowls of white rice. The service was good overall. We were sitting at the corner, but from time to time the servers came by to see if we needed anything. I heard they also serve dim sum in the afternoon (not sure if it’s for weekends only).

Some other “insider info”… from what I heard, the owner of this restaurant also owns some other places that you may be familiar with, e.g. Yang’s Sushi Bar 大禾日本料理 (Hwy 7/Warden), Yang’s Teppanyaki & Sushi (Vaughan Mills), the Chinese BBQ place @ Evergreen plaza (Midland/McNicoll) - maybe that’s why they can leverage their Barbecue expertise in this new restaurant. I like the BBQ meats from Midland/McNicoll, gotta try it next time I’m @ Fortune Barbecue Noodlehouse. I also heard they have very nice Peking duck and Crab rice. Gotta check that out!

FYI: Fortune Barbecue Noodlehouse 粥家莊
9665 Bayview Ave (VillageGate Plaza), Unit #30, Richmond Hill
Tel: 905-884-3388
Takeout: 10% off on pick-up, cash only
Delivery: free for $20 purchases before taxes;
Delivery area: E. of Yonge/S. of Elgin Mills/W. of Leslie/N. of Hwy 7
Delivery time: 5:30pm - 10:30pm
*Delivery service may be cancelled due to bad weather/road condition