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Azia Restaurant Review – Quantity vs Quality
I tried Azia restaurant with my mother a few weeks ago, and what a mixed bag it was. First the setting. The restaurant itself is new and stylish; the wine cabinet looks nice, all the items inside fit with the theme (pan asian), but right above the bar, I guess for the bar crowd, are 3 giant plasma TVs. I was sitting facing them at the opposite side of the resaturant and let me just say that they were very distracting. I couldn’t care less about college football, but when it’s flashing at you right above your fellow diner’s face, it’s distracting. I think most other seats in the house would be fine, but the television didn’t enhance my dining experience.
Onto the food. We got a “large Sopporo beer” to split, and it was decently priced at $8 on special. We both got the set menu, hidden somewhere on their website, of 3 courses for $25. Both our meals were very good value, if you value quantity over quality. Plus, the set menu is the best ‘deal’, considering the regular meal prices. At many places (such as All India on Davie) a prawn appetizer will have 3 prawns. Not here. My Ebi Mayo appy was about 5 or 6 large prawns perfectly fried in a light batter.
My appy, as with all my other courses, arrived a good 10 minutes before my Mom’s. That’s not cool. She was okay with it, but it’s still bad form. The restaurant had one other table when we got there, and they were getting the bill. There are no excuses for delays to happen for every course. Yes we went at an odd time, 4.30 on a Monday, but if you’re open, you should be able to serve food properly.
My Mom got the spring roll app, which was okay. The garlic shrimp roll was very heavy on the garlic, and the peking duck roll was really greasy, but they were all okay. I’m pretty sure the dipping sauces, black bean and plum, were from a jar. For a $25 set menu, what do you expect?
On to the entrees.
I got the Kung Pow Prawns. Again, lots of prawns. Also lots of chunks of lemongrass and whole serano peppers. I thought they were there for presentation, but they were also mixed in with the veggies. I managed to avoid the peppers, but the lemongrass was unavoidable. The prawns were slightly undercooked. Just slightly. Maybe 30 seconds to a minute, but it was still noticable.
My Mom’s “Sambal Green Seafood Curry Hot Pot” was again heavy on the seafood, with lots of fish, prawns and scallops, but light on the sambal and the curry. Her prawns were better cooked than mine, as they should have been, having arrived 10 minutes after mine.
Both desserts were incredibly dissapointing. I know you don’t go to Asain food places for the desserts, but still.
I got banana tempura, which came with freezer burnt bought in vanilla ice cream – it tasted like it probably wasn’t that good before the freezer got to it, and canned whippy, which I hate at the best of times. It also came drizzed in chocolate sauce which was as bad as it ever is. The banana tempura itself was pretty bland and soft. I think it had been sitting at the pass for a while as the ice cream was pretty melty too.
My mom’s wasn’t much different or better, same ice cream, whippy and sauce only over a coconut crepe which was not a lot better than my tempura.
All in all a completely arbitrary score of 4/10
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