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

GREEN ONION CAKE MAN ENTRY 2: SINGAPORE NOODLES & SPRING ROLLS

Welcome to our newest series: Pandemic Plates! Since a certain Miss ‘Rona has put a damper on the dining out experience in YEG, we are 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 favorite 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 second entry is Singapore noodles and spring rolls, reviewed by G!!

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

Items on the menu: Singapore noodles (Meal content: shredded BBQ pork, onions, peppers, rice vermicelli, eggs, BBQ pork, shrimp, curry and broth seasoning) and spring rolls (contains shredded cabbage, pork, and green onion; vegetarian options also available)

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? 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!

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

PREPARATION:

4.5/5 : As C mentioned, there are easy-to-find instructional videos for each meal available on the Green Onion Cake Man website, which helped alleviate some of my frazzled-crab tendencies when it came to the kitchen! (Not to mention - it’s also nice to see what you’re signing up for, in terms of preparation complexity, before buying each meal!)

These vids were short, simple, and no-fuss, but also informative and super watchable - a standout for me! The process of preparing the Singapore noodles was simple - after preheating and adding oil to your pan, throw in the ingredients and cover it for a few minutes, then add the additional spices/seasoning and toss, and continue to cook until done! Preparing the spring rolls had a similar process, but instead of adding spices partway through, you needed to turn them over as they cooked - make sure you have some tongs or chopsticks handy with this process! Both dishes took me under 10 minutes each to make.

The only critique I have is similar to C’s feedback - there are no instructions for how long each item should be defrosted for, and for a cooking-challenged, already-baseline-frazzled crab like me, that could’ve posed a problem come dinnertime. Luckily, B reminded us to take our main meals out of the freezer to thaw around lunch - otherwise, I think things wouldn’t have gone as smoothly! I would’ve likely given Green Onion Cake Man a perfect score for "preparation" if we had that info.

TASTE:

4/5 - It’s news to no one that I’m a wimp when it comes to spice! Recently, I’ve been trying to challenge and expand my palate - and sometimes it’s easier said than done. I enjoyed the Singapore noodles enough that I wouldn’t mind getting it again, though I felt the spice overwhelmed at times - someone with better spice tolerance than me might totally love this, though! I’ve kept the ranking high as hindsight is 20/20, and in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have plunked in ALL of the spices into the dish with such naive enthusiasm without doing a taste test first. The spring rolls were decent as well - about your standard fare in terms of filling and flavour, though I wouldn’t say no to a second bite!

PRESENTATION:

4.25/5 - No complaints here - the noodles were nicely packaged and I appreciated the clear lid for visibility, and labelling on the side (NGL, it first took me a hot second to notice those labels as I was trying to sort out everyone’s meals...but that’s on me and my oblivious eyes!) If I could suggest any improvements, it would be for the spring rolls - it would be nice to have them in a resealable bag, as I’ve been making them in small batches, instead of just a regular, non-resealable bag. (There was no labelling on the spring rolls either, but since they were pretty obviously just spring rolls and the video on the website had all the needed cooking instructions, that wasn't a huge deal to me.)

VALUE:

3.75/5 - At $10 + GST for the Singapore Noodles dish, and with the addition of spring rolls as an appetizer (25 for $16, which works out to $0.64 per spring roll), I thought the price was pretty reasonable for a meal. However, in comparison to other dishes we tried (ex. the ramen kits), the portion sizes didn’t blow me away, and I was glad I got an appetizer as well to round out the meal. For meal planning purposes, I would say you would need at least 1 kit to feed one person. I also note that in the product photos of the spring rolls, there is sauce pictured, but my spring rolls did not come with any dipping sauce. Not a dealbreaker, but just a heads up!

FINAL THOUGHTS: Would you get this kit again?

Yes! I would love to continue to support Green Onion Cake Man - there is tons of great history behind this gem on 118th Avenue, and I also strongly support #WeBelieve118! Before getting these specific kits again, though, I would be eager to sample their other fare. Based on C’s review, I'm especially down to try the bulgogi beef, and I’d also like to try their green onion cakes - stay tuned for B’s review and thoughts on these! I’d also be interested in trying their Pad Thai - hopefully by that thyme my spice tolerance will have improved! (I’ll see myself out.)

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