OCEAN BITES
Neighbourhood. Exchange District Address................ 61 Albert St Phone.............. 204-504-6111 Entrées..................... $ 11- $ 20
In a city where sushi counters increasingly compete on smaller rolls and lower prices, Ocean Bites arrives with a different proposition: substantial, carefully assembled sushi that puts more imagination back into the roll. The new Exchange District restaurant deserves attention from diners who appreciate familiar flavours with an element of surprise.
The menu stays deliberately focused, building a broad selection of rolls around a relatively small cast of ingredients, particularly tuna and salmon. Rather than feeling repetitive, the approach gives familiar favourites room to play. A tropic tuna and ebi roll arrives crowned with thin slices of strawberry and mango, the jewel-like fruit making an already substantial roll almost too pretty to disturb. Strawberry is an unexpected sushi companion, but its bright sweetness works beautifully against the savoury filling.
Cream cheese is another recurring flourish. It is decidedly non-traditional, but its richness proves an effective textural bridge between ingredients. The baked tuna roll makes the strongest case: the cream cheese is grilled on top until warm and lightly browned, transforming each bite into an unlikely meeting of sushi and the comforting familiarity of grilled cheese.
There is particular thought given to the lunch crowd. Poke bowls, offered with tuna, salmon or tofu, turn the popular bowl format into a substantial midday meal, somewhere between a composed salad and a sushi spread. The ramen selection is ciao! reviews
another smart move, especially in a city where winter makes soup especially persuasive. Miso broth surrounds noodles, bok choy, corn, nori, egg and green onion, with options ranging from pork belly and salmon to tempura shrimp, which adds a welcome crisp contrast.
The spacious dining room is smart without being precious, with soft green walls, hanging foliage and underwater scenes playing across a large screen. A Ukrainian couple sits behind the Japanese-focused kitchen, bringing culinary experience and warm hospitality to a menu served with impressive knowledge and precision.
There is confidence in the simplicity of the approach: take ingredients people already love, treat them carefully, and find new ways to make them interesting. For a newcomer, Ocean Bites makes a strong first impression.
KUM KOON GARDEN
Neighbourhood...... Chinatown Address................. 257 King St Phone............. 204-943-4655 Entrées.................... $ 18- $ 48
Kum Koon Garden has been feeding Winnipeg’ s appetite for Cantonese cooking for decades, and its sheer scale remains something of a local spectacle. With more than 600 seats, it is the city’ s largest restaurant outside hotel banquet rooms and the RBC Convention Centre— a distinction that becomes especially apparent when a group of 160 seniors arrives for an informal dinner.
The room is brightly lit, keeping the mood decidedly family friendly, with a giant saltwater aquarium greeting diners in the foyer and banquet partitions expanding or contract the space. On weekends, the restaurant’ s energy can be electric. Weddings, family celebrations and coming-of-age parties are as much a part of Kum Koon’ s identity as its dining room tables.
At lunch, this institution is synonymous with dim sum: push carts threading through crowds of Chinese families and the downtown business crowd, delivering a rotating parade of dumplings, pork buns and custardfilled pineapple buns. Each bamboo steamer comes with a check mark in one of the small, medium or large columns on the table’ s order sheet. It is an efficient bit of dim-sum choreography that has changed very little.
Dinner asks for a little more participation. Faced with a many-page menu and a separate sheet of Chef’ s Specialties, guests write down their own order numbers. This is a menu designed for exploration. Ask what best showcases the kitchen and the staff can point the way beyond the familiar.
Dry scallop with egg tofu makes a persuasive case for taking that advice. The golden-yellow tofu is custardy inside, fried and browned outside, sitting in a savoury sauce where the dried scallop virtually dissolves, leaving concentrated flavour and delicate ribbons as textural punctuation.
Spareribs in tangy tomato sauce arrive tender beneath a tangle of almost-caramelized fried onions. Gai lan, fragrant with minced garlic, carries octopus, squid, shrimp and scallop. Sliced filet mignon satay is meltingly tender, with plenty of onion and a mild sauce— less like the satay familiar from Vietnamese or Thai cooking, but no less interesting for the difference.
Kum Koon has never stopped giving Winnipeg reasons to explore Cantonese cooking. Dim sum may be the gateway, but the chef’ s specialties are where the rewarding rabbit hole begins.
ciao! / oct / nov / two thousand twenty-six 31