Selective Palate

After a busy day of shopping were happen to find ourselves on Church Street in downtown Burlington. I decided I wanted chinese food so we walked ourselves over to a nice restaurant called A Single Pebble. Now I had been there once before with a large group of women and I remember the food being good. I also remember not paying a lot, but I will get to that later.

We had been running around all day and had worked up a bit of an appetite so lets just say we enjoyed ourselves and I fell into a food coma on the ride home!

A Single Pebble is a nice sit down chinese restaurant that serves up everything family style. I love family style places that way I get to try a little of everything!

To share we ordered 4 small plates and 1 large entree. It was PLENTY of food for M and I. I thought we would have leftovers but no such luck this time around.

A Single Pebble is great for speed. Once you order within a few minutes the food starts coming out. They do not wait for everything to be done at one time instead they just bring each dish out as soon as it flies out of the wok and is served to you piping hot.

First out was the Imperial Spring Rolls. Every asian restaurant I visit I have to order spring rolls. I tend to measure the quality of the place by how good the spring rolls are. These came out piping hot filled with shrimp, scallops, and squid and served with a sweet soy dipping sauce. They were very tasty and not greasy. M who is not a seafood fan even liked them. My only complaint was for the price, $7.50 I thought we would get more than 2 spring rolls!

Next to the table a simple yet delicious salad of shredded nappa cabbage and cilantro dressed with a sweet rice wine vinaigrette. Again very good and refreshing but for $7.50 I felt ripped off.

Scallion Pancakes were the next to make an appearance. We got quite a few of these and they were crispier than I have had them before but that is not to say they were not good. They were very good. M commented that he would love to stuff them with something, I think he said something creamy would be great. Yes you could fill them but I really liked them plain with the sweet soy dipping sauce. They had a really good, fresh scallion taste that I really enjoyed not to mention a satisfying crunch. These were I believe $7.00 and they did give us a lot so I didn’t feel they were TOO expensive comparatively speaking.

For the last small plate we got the special of the night which was called Momofuko. A shredded pork covered in a spicy version of a korean BBQ sauce topped with a giant fried oyster and rolled in a lettuce cup. These were a big portion but if we were getting them for a larger table they would not have been able to share. I liked these quite a bit though the BBQ sauce was not like any Korean BBQ sauce I have ever tasted and I love Korean BBQ! At first bite I thought the oyster itself was lost but its crunch was welcome. However, I tried it with and with out the oyster and the creaminess of the oyster really cut through the BBQ sauce nicely. These too were expensive, some where around $9.00 for 3 wraps.

The main course of the night was Empress Beef. Thinly sliced beef cooked in a Cantonese “gravy” with assorted mushrooms set atop braised baby bok choy. I am a sucker for bock choy and between that and the mushrooms I was sold. Unfortunately, we only got 6 leaves, yes leaves of bok choy. The entree itself was nice and again another tasty dish but I felt it was missing something, maybe a little spice. M really enjoyed it and he polished off the majority of. I must say the vegetables, including the bok choy where cooked perfect. But as in all the previous dished the $19.00 price tag was a bit much to take for what we received.

Over all the meal was very good. We could not find much to complain about with the food. They did offer a full bar, wine list and sake menu which was nice though we were not in the mood to imbide much that night. The atmosphere is also very welcoming. Most tables have a lazy susan in the center for easy sharing and the tables are not extremely smashed together. The decor is very typical asian restaurant with a bit less tackiness and due to the structure the noise is kept at a minimum. So we enjoyed ourselves and the food but we did not enjoy the $100 price tag at the end!