Red Fusion Cuisine

Sorry! This Restaurant is now CLOSED.

Restaurant: Red Fusion Cuisine
Cuisine: Chinese/Asian/Taiwanese/Fusion
Last visited: June 26, 2010
Location: Richmond, BC
Address: Unit 2150 – 8391 Alexandra Road
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2 (based on what I had)
Service: 2 (patient and friendly, but everything was wrong)
Ambiance: 4
Overall: 2
Additional comments:

• Taiwanese operated/owned
• Asian-fusion, but more Chinese style food
• Stir-fried dishes, noodle soup bowls, mini hot pot, small plates etc.
• Some creative small plates
• Trendy and clean atmosphere
• Lunch/Dinner
• Extensive menu
• English on menu, but very vague
• $6.95 lunch specials
• Difficult to order if you can’t read Chinese
• Cheap bubble tea – All bbt $2.50 (+$.50 for pearls/coconut jelly)

**Recommendations: Maple Eggplant

Red Fusion Cuisine is a restaurant in Richmond, BC specializing in Asian fusion cuisine. I’m an avid fan of “fusion cuisine” so when I saw “fusion” I was pretty excited. I’m always up for trying new and creative dishes. The photos they post outside the restaurant totally helped in making our decision – the food actually looked really good!

Unfortunately I was fooled by the name. They were trying, but besides the atmosphere and contemporary plating there was not much “fusion” going on. The fusion dishes were Chinese food served on fancy plates and the non-fusion dishes were Chinese food on regular plates. I bet you the non-fusion dishes are better, I saw some come out and they looked decent.

About 90% of the menu are typical Chinese/Taiwanese dishes and main entrees, and the other 10% are their creative “fusion” dishes and small plates which were significantly more expensive. After we ordered, the chef actually came out to look at the photos of what we ordered… that scared me because obviously it shows he is unfamiliar with the menu. There ended up being something wrong with every dish except for the last dish that we ordered to replace one we sent back…*sigh*

On the table:

Minced Chicken and Pine Nuts on Lettuce – 2.5/6

• $5.95
• The chef definitely didn’t know what he was making because there was no chicken or pine nuts. This was recommended by the server too and it looked like the photo so I didn’t even bother asking… we had enough trouble ordering as is.
• They were pretty much very mediocre mini lettuce wraps made with minced pork.

• There was plenty of veggies like shredded carrots, onions and celery but no water chestnuts. The carrots were almost raw though.
• The flavour was a simple soy sauce based sautee and there’s no Hoisin on the side.
• They used romaine leaves instead of iceberg lettuce and it didn’t work well because romaine is too flimsy so it just fell apart as I was eating it.
• Kirin Restaurant makes excellent duck lettuce wraps.

Lemon Chicken Hammer – 1/6

• $10.95
• This was one of their highly recommended and popular fusion items and I have no idea why. It was made so poorly I had to send them back and I rarely do that!
• The photo looked good, and when they came out they looked good, but they did not taste good at all!

• The lemon chicken was typical lemon chicken sauce. It was a sweet and tangy glaze and that part I didn’t mind.
• But the chicken… it was 80% chicken skin and the batter and skin weren’t crispy at all. I felt like I was eating raw chicken skin and pure chewy fat.

• The batter was super soft and very thick and floury. It came out pretty cold so the batter just peeled right off. I couldn’t even finish my bite.
• I had to send them back and suggested I order something else in exchange. The server talked to the manager and came back suggesting items that were either the same price or more expensive… that was annoying. I would have paid the same price, but I just wanted something GOOD!
• The manager was nice though and understood what I meant when I showed her the chicken fat. There was almost no chicken meat.

**Maple Eggplant – 3.5/6

• $8.95
• This was actually very good, but I wouldn’t come back for it. It was very good compared to everything else we had – so it actually could be just good… or just not disappointing.
• It was a baby eggplant, hollowed out and stuffed with minced pork, red peppers and eggplant saute.
• It was very saucy and would be great with a side of rice of noodles. The sauce was soy based with maybe some oyster sauce and it was also sweet and spicy with a nice chili sauce kick.

• More veggies than there is meat. The diced eggplant was nice and tender but the bigger eggplant didn’t cook all the way through so it wasn’t as tender. It looks oily, but it wasn’t too bad – just saucy.
• For $8.95 it was overpriced and it’s not very special. Technically I could easily find something similar at a regular Chinese restaurant for 3 x’s the size and probably the same price.
• I would rather have the Terung Udang Kering eggplant from Tropika.
• For some reason I don’t think it was the “Maple Eggplant” because I couldn’t taste the maple. There was another menu name that suited it better, but the receipt said “Maple Eggplant”… at this point I stopped caring.

Steamed Pumpkin with Red Dates – 2/6

• $4.95
• We still needed to order something to replace our chicken so we just ordered this.
• It was half a Japanese Kaboocha squash steamed with a light sugar syrup glaze.
• This is something I could have easily done at home too… and probably better. I really didn’t care anymore though.
• The pumpkin was tender, but the flavour was just a simple sugar honey-like syrup. It was a very watered down syrup though.

• It’s just hollow inside… which I knew, but they could have gotten so creative with this. It was a “fusion” dish but there was nothing creative.
• The red dates on top are these dried Chinese red dates that are great in Chinese soup or tea. They’re wrinkly and taste like a semi-rehydrated red grape, but more fiberous and mushy in texture and honey-like in flavour. I like them, but they really served no purpose with the pumpkin. They treated them like garnish.
• Overall the dish was just too sweet and I wanted something savoury to balance it all out.
• I would much rather have this garlic steamed pumpkin from Negative Space – a restaurant of similar style.

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