PANDEMIC PLATES - DINING OUT (BUT IN!): GREEN ONION CAKE MAN

GREEN ONION CAKE MAN ENTRY 1: BULGOGI BEEF

Welcome to our newest series: Pandemic Plates! Since a certain Miss ‘Rona has put limitations on the dining out experience in YEG, we’re on a mission to find the best dining in experience that our city has to offer. Our high-stakes investigation will focus on DIY meal kits from local restaurants that we can whip up at home! Why? For starters, take-out and delivery doesn’t always travel well - plus, it can be pretty fun to get a little hands-on with your food, while supporting a local business in these crazy times!

Each post in this series will feature a review from one of us about our experience with a take-home DIY meal kit. While researching for take-home meal kits, we came across an abundance of options for home-cooked meals from an Edmonton staple, Green Onion Cake Man! Not only does this gem of a restaurant offer up green onion cakes (fun fact: green onion cakes have been an Edmonton favourite since the 1980’s!), but it also features other Asian delicacies such as spring rolls, Shanghai noodles, Singapore noodles, Pad Thai, wonton soup, and Young Chow fried rice, amongst others!

Our first entry is the bulgogi beef dish, reviewed by C!

Location: Green Onion Cake Man - (780) 760-2115, 9132 118 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T5B 0T9

Items on the menu: Bulgogi beef (Meal content: sliced beef, garlic, onion, cabbage, ginger and rice. Seasoning: Bulgogi sauce.)

Tell me more: Green Onion Cake Man is aptly named as the owner, Siu To, is the one who originally brought the green onion cake dish from Northern China to Edmonton in 1978! The green onion cake dish quickly became popular in Edmonton as it was featured in numerous festivals across the city, including Taste of Edmonton, Folk Fest, and the Fringe Festival.

Siu To owned and operated a number of restaurants, including Happy Garden and Mongolian Food Experience, before retiring. Luckily for us, however, he decided to come out of retirement in September 2018 to launch a storefront for his green onion cakes and other Asian dishes - and thus, the Green Onion Cake Man restaurant was born!

So, how was it? G chiming in here! There are a couple of options to order meals from Green Onion Cake Man - you can place an order online or give them a call, and you can have meals delivered to you (check online for rates/areas!) or pick them up at their physical location. For this review, I placed the orders for Gracilianca’s meals on the phone around noon, and picked them up on the way home after work on the same day. I was cutting it a bit close and showed up right before closing, so I panicked just a little when the door was locked (yes, I am a frazzled crab everywhere, not just the kitchen!). Fortunately, someone saw me and graciously let me in! It was pretty much smooth sailing from then on, as I picked up all of our frozen orders in a nicely packaged cardboard box and paid for our meals. As an FYI, there is parking in the back! (Thanks G for picking these up!)

For our rankings, we’ll be looking at a few categories: preparation, taste, presentation, and value!

PREPARATION:

4.5/5 : OK, so remember for our ramen reviews, I did not know that there was an instructional video provided on the website….. and I ended up being a frazzled crab while preparing it?! Luckily, this time, it was very obvious on the Green Onion Cake Man website that there is an instructional video for each of their frozen meals!

The video for the bulgogi beef meal was just over a minute long, and was informative! To sum it up, basically you add cooking oil to your pan, throw in the bulgogi beef contents, and cover the pan with a lid to heat for 5 minutes! There was also a package of rice provided, and you can either add this to the pan and heat for 3 minutes, or heat it up separately in the microwave. Super easy! I opted for throwing the rice into the pan, and had no issues! After the 5 minutes was up, I threw in the bulgogi sauce at the end and mixed it in. Time for dinner!

One thing to note though, is that the meal should be defrosted before cooking. The video did not specify how long to defrost the frozen meal for, but thanks to B saving the day and pointing out to us the need to defrost, I took my meal out of the freezer at lunchtime and put it in the fridge to thaw, to cook at dinnertime!

TASTE:

4.75/5 - I thought this was delicious! The bulgogi sauce was tasty and flavourful without being overpowering. I found the beef slices to be quite tender and the vegetables were a nice touch. The rice helped to soak the sauce and flavours up, and helped make the meal more filling! I did wish that there were more vegetables provided though, but overall, I was super pleased with the taste!

PRESENTATION:

4/5 - The meal kit was nicely packaged, with a foil container and a clear lid that allows you to see the contents inside. There is a label on the side that has the name of the dish, ingredients, and instructions! The only complaint I had was that the rice was packaged separately in a bag that was not sealed or tied off, so when I took it out, some of the rice fell out and It created a little bit of a mess. Otherwise though, it looked very professionally packaged.

VALUE:

3.75/5 - I struggled a bit with this rating… my bulgogi beef meal kit cost $10 + GST. I think this is a reasonable price, as I would pay this amount or more if I were to get a ready-to-eat takeout order of the same meal from a restaurant. However, I was expecting this meal kit to feed more than 1 person, or at least have some leftovers for the next day. I finished this meal and was just barely full, so if you are planning to cook for more than 1 person with these meal kits, make sure you get 2 or more! And maybe add on some appetizers… G & B both ordered appetizers with their meals, so look forward to seeing their reviews in the next few weeks!

FINAL THOUGHTS: Would you get this kit again?

I would! There is nothing that can beat how easy it was to prepare. I’m all for taking the easy way out… one might even call me an electron, I like the path of least resistance! OK, that’s enough with my nerdy jokes. I do want to also try their other meal kits - I’m eyeing up their noodles and spring rolls!

Disclaimer: This review is not affiliated with or sponsored by Green Onion Cake Man - views expressed are solely our opinions!