Belated Chinese New Years' Tweet Up at Red Phoenix (CLOSED)

Chicken Wings stuffed with Sticky Rice

This past weekend, I held a belated Chinese New Years dinner tweet up with pals @BigAddie, @CynthiaStrawson, @MirabelleMacs, @CaldwellCreates, as well as other friends and my family. We gathered at the Red Phoenix, my favorite place to go for authentic Hong Kong style Chinese cuisine. A family run business, the restaurant is located in what's obviously a former Pizza Hut in Kingsway Mews. It's always a good sign when the owners don't speak English very well, and the best food is located on a set menu written entirely in Chinese.

Honey Shrimp with Peaches

Allowing my humans Chinese speaking mom to order, we wound up getting a set dinner for 8 plus adding a few of our favorites too. In total we wound up with 14 dishes, more than enough food to feed 10 adult humans, a bovine, plus @MirabelleMacs' little human, with food to spare that everyone left with lunch for the next day.

Green Beans with Minced Pork

Although the dishes are too numerous to review, some of my favorites included a crispy chicken wing stuffed with sticky rice, that although is not listed on the menu is well worth asking for. I've never seen it done quite this way anywhere else. They painstakingly remove the meat from a chicken wing, replace it with sticky rice, wrap the skin back on it, and finally deep fry it. The result is a crispy thin chicken skin that crunches and crackles when you bite into it. Inside is a piping hot cavity filled with moist, flavorful sticky rice. Genius! The honey shrimp with peach dish consists of battered and fried shrimp, resulting in a satisfying crunch and plump, soft shrimpy texture all in a singular bite. Sitting on a bed of crisp, shredded lettuce with peach slices, every moral is coated in a peach flavored mayonnaise sauce which might sound disgusting until you've tried it. Lastly the green beans here although simple, are delectable. Lightly seasoned and still crisp, they are mixed with a sprinkling of minced pork that keeps you coming back for more and wondering why all your vegetables growing up couldn't have been as enjoyable. Noticed all my favorites are crunchy or crispy?

So much food!

Some of the dishes that weren't my favorite included the fish isinglass with crab meat soup which I found had an undesirable slimy texture with rubbery crab meat. The boneless duck with taro root came in rectangular pieces that didn't have enough crunch and too much of a gooey mushy texture for my liking. The spicy shrimp although had a great crunchy texture from the fried batter was slightly awkward to eat. It came as a whole shrimp meaning you had to take off the head and suck out what little meat there was from the shell that it was battered in. The sweet and sour pork although flavorful, with the bone in didn't have as much meat as one would like and required that you gnaw around the bone to get at what little meat there was.

Boneless Duck with Taro Root

We also didn't wind up ordering some other dishes that we usually enjoy such as a rex sole fillet with cream corn sauce, that although sounds strange is really tasty. They also have a lobster with cream sauce dish that sits atop a bedfull of noodles.

Overall, it was a lot of fun, a lot of food, and not a lot of money. The food comes swiftly here and I recommend that you give them a try. Just remember that although they do dim sum and a lunch time buffet, your best bet is to order from the menu, the authentic Chinese portion, not the western Chinese part of their menu.

More photos at PhotoBucket.

Red Phoenix
10503 Kingsway Ave
Edmonton, AB
780-421-8802