Flamingo House Chinese Cuisine – Taro Duck

It’s been a while since we’ve been to Flamingo House Chinese Cuisine on Cambie Street so we thought we’d bring our nephew along with us.  Flamingo is a very popular restaurant in Marpole… we showed up at 6pm on a Thursday night and there were at least 2 private parties going on.  After 30 minutes, the whole restaurant was practically full.

We started out with a half order of their Crispy Skin Chicken with Shrimp Chips.  Since our nephew couldn’t eat the shrimp chips, they cheerfully brought them out on a separate dish for the rest of us to nosh on.

I mentioned before about how most Chinese restaurants have “secret menus” and Flamingo is a perfect example.  We felt in the mood for some gai lan with chicken but didn’t see it on the menu so we just asked the waitress and she said no problem.

We like oysters and Flamingo House is one of the few places that we can find oysters served deep fried, pan fried, or in a hot pot.  The hot pot is our favourite by far and the dish comes with a lot of nice, plump oysters and onions.  Perfect for eating with rice.

I always have trouble picking a noodle dish so I wound up with the North and South Style Chow Mein – they basically take two different types of noodles and jumble them all together.

The dish we really wanted to show our nephew was the Taro Duck.  This huge dish was the 1/2 size and I haven’t found a better Taro Duck yet.  We’ve tried the one at Shanghai River but found it to be a little on the skimpy side with the duck and some places use way too much taro. The mushroom based sauce is the kicker.

The great thing I like about Fortune House is that you get a good piece of duck and the taro is soft and is coated the perfect thickness… enough to get the distinct taro flavour but not too thick to be overwhelming or dry.

We couldn’t leave without trying their Chicken in Spicy Pepper Sauce (it’s like jiu yim crab but with chicken instead).  The chicken is addictive like crack but without the negative stereotypes usually associated with crack.

Legal disclaimer: Penny and Rusty’s Food Blog does not endorse the use of crack for recreational purposes… Penny and Rusty’s Food Blog cares.

Another dish that we didn’t see on their menu was the Spicy Green Beans with Minced Pork.  Not overly spicy and the sauce goes great with rice.

So if you don’t see the dish that you want on their menu, just remember to ask… the servers are very friendly and the food’s great.  It’s been a while since I’ve been to their dim sum (they have the old style push carts) – I’ve got to find some time to try it out again.

Take a look at our previous blog entry for Flamingo House.

Food:  5 / 5
Service:  5 / 5

7510 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC