Real Chinese Food @ Han's Restaurant (韓記川味小館)

Cross-posted from Calgary is Awesome.

FFWD just came out with its annual "Best of Calgary" list, as chosen by its readers. As a self-proclaimed Chinese/Asian Food Purist, I always have to brace myself a little as my eyes get closer and closer to the "Best Chinese" category, and sure enough, this year's winner was Silver Dragon. Yes, I know Silver Dragon's been around for decades and I can't really say anything about them since I haven't been there for a long time, but I think just the simple fact my family hasn't been there for a long time is very telling... (FULL respect to Buddha's Veggie, btw, I've never been there either, but we don't have enough vegetarian restaurants in Calgary)

Some nerdy background about Chinese food before I start talking about this week's eats - Chinese food isn't as simple as "westernized/fake" Chinese food vs. "real" Chinese food. China's a huge country, and has a lot of regional cuisines within it. The most well-known cuisine outside of China is Cantonese (southern) cuisine, as most Chinese immigrants are from Hong Kong and Guangdong (Canton) province. The Cantonese are responsible for such awesome foods as dim sum and BBQ pork. The second most common cuisine is Szechuan (western), which is well-known for being spicy. Around Beijing (northern), the food tends to be more sweet and sour, and noodles and dumplings are the main staple instead of rice. Finally, Shanghai (eastern) is known for including lots of seafood, its saltier dishes, and xiaolongbao (小籠包, commonly referred to as "steamed pork buns" or "soup dumplings" on our side of the world).

Graphic from Chinese Food Recipes

So why am I telling you all this? Since my family's from Hong Kong, there are a lot of Chinese restaurants for us to pick and choose from, whether it's a big family gathering, or a casual lunch. However, for people like my friend Ray, who is from northern China, "good Chinese food" in his terms is still hard to come by. He's always complaining about how the food at Cantonese restaurants tend to be "too sweet". So when he started raving about the food at Han's Restaurant, a tiny hole-in-the-wall in Chinatown, I really wanted to give it a try (with him in tow, of course, so he could order in Mandarin for us while I squeaked out "thank you" (謝謝/xie xie) every once in a while.)

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The main reason we went was because I wanted to try their Dan Dan Mian (擔擔麵, $7). I'd always thought that it was a Shanghai specialty, as that was where I'd first had it as a noodle soup with spicy peanut sauce, so imagine my surprise when it came out looking almost like pasta with meat sauce!


Ray set the record straight by telling me that Dan Dan Mian is actually from Chengdu, and the version at Han's is what it's actually supposed to look like, but with the spiciness toned down a couple notches. As a person who can handle some spice, but certainly not the type to seek out the hottest sauces or the hottest dishes, the noodles were definitely pushing the boundaries of my spice tolerance, but I still managed to finish them because they were delicious! The noodles were perfectly cooked (I hate mushy noodles) and the cucumbers provided a bit of a cooling effect to counteract the spicy sauce. (Which Ray believes is made in-house)

We also ordered two non-spicy dishes - sweet and sour spareribs (糖醋排骨, $13.50) and dry-fried green beans (乾扁四季豆, $12.50).


The sweet and sour spareribs had a nice balance of flavour and I liked how the sauce wasn't overly sticky. I was a little surprised that Mr. "Southern Chinese food is too sweet" ended up eating more than me, but I guess it's also cuz he is a dude. At the same time, I wouldn't recommend this dish if you haven't known the person you're dining with for a long time because you're going to be spitting out bones and cartilage and the like. (It's the Chinese way!)

I was pleasantly surprised by the dry-fried green beans because I recently had them at another Chinese restaurant and they were spicy. The ones at Han's aren't, but instead are delightfully garlicky and pushing the boundaries a little in terms of saltiness.

Most hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants are known for giving you lots of food for not a lot of money, but not Han's. As you noticed, the prices are a little more expensive, and the portions a little smaller (read: more manageable), but I think it's worth it because everything was freshly made. What I was most impressed by though, was the speediness and attentiveness of the service. Though the little old waitress was just chilling and reading a Chinese newspaper or chatting with the chef for most of the evening, (we were the only ones there until another group showed up 15 minutes before the restaurant closed at 8:30) she was on the ball in getting us our (free!) tea and came to take our order the moment we closed our menus. All our food was at our table within 10-15 minutes of ordering, and when we thought we we couldn't finish everything, she was just like "There's only a couple bites left! If you take a little bit and he takes a little bit, it'll be all gone." And she was right.

I think I know why Silver Dragon is chosen by FFWD readers every year as the best Chinese. It's existed for decades for a reason, it's got great atmosphere, and for the most part, real Chinese food. But most importantly, it's probably the only Chinese restaurant that these people have been to! So go check out Han's, check out the other restaurants in Chinatown, check out the other restaurants not in Chinatown, and come next year, I hope you and I will be pleasantly surprised.

Han's Restaurant
116-303 Centre St S
Calgary AB T2G 2B9
(403) 263-5667
Cash only.