MYST
When MYST first opened, I saw an influx on my Instagram feed of shaved ice desserts with a mesmerizing dry ice “smoke” flowing from the dish. I wanted to try it myself to see if it was actually good, or just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
Deep Fried Squid Tentacles
These may look scary, but if you like calamari, chances are that you’ll love these! I sure do, and MYST does them right, making them crispy and not greasy. I thought the squid was seasoned aggressively (but not overly) and have ordered this 2/2 times I’ve been to MYST. If I go back a third time, I will for sure be ordering these again.
ChongQing SzeChuan Spicy Beef & Tendon Noodle Soup w/ Thick Noodles
So, this isn’t what we ordered, but the waitress messed up (amongst 2 other items) and we received the spicy version. My dad wanted the MYST Half Beef Half Tendon Noodle Soup, so this version ended up being too spicy for my parents. Having a higher spice tolerance, I liked it. The broth had a nice spice level to it, but wasn’t flavourful; I felt like this was made up by the pieces of tendon, which were tender and very flavourful! I also really enjoyed the thick noodles (extra $0.75 charge) as they were cooked al dente and had a good bite to it (no such thing as a good soggy noodle).
Soy Sauce Braised Pork, Egg, and Tofu
This dish took us by surprise as being one of our favourites! The sticky, sweet & salty sauce was addictive and the flavour permeated all the goodies in there (pork belly, egg, and tofu). The portion size was a bit smaller in comparison to the other dishes, but the flavour was pretty intense so I didn’t feel ripped off.
House Special Stir-Fried Sliced Noodle
This was your standard stir-fried noodle, but it was tasty! It’s very similar to what you’d find elsewhere at most Chinese restaurants (the pan-fried thick rice noodles), but the noodles here were narrower in width and had more bite (similar to the noodle soup, above), which I appreciated.
Pan Fried Beef Pancake
A classic - beef wrapped in a scallion pancake with sauce. This one was a touch dry, which could have been remedied if they added more sauce (the same kind they serve with peking duck) inside. The pancake to beef ratio was off (needs more beef!), but still a filling, tasty bite.
Matcha Ice Cream Smoothie
Let me preface this by saying that we ordered the Mango Shaved Ice dessert (see below) and indicated we would like the dessert later, which makes sense right? So when the dishes started arriving and the waitress was like, “your matcha is coming soon” it didn’t raise any alarms. Then she placed a bowl of matcha ice cream down on the table, along with our squid, noodle soup, pork, and stir-fried noodles. Uhh? She thought we ordered the ice cream dessert and didn’t believe that there was a matcha ice cream smoothie option on the menu (she must have been new) so we had to point it out. I can empathize that our waitress was new, it was busy, and the menu is huge (so many options!), but then she gave us some attitude after we requested to change to the smoothie, which made me go from being empathetic to irritated. Why would we want ice cream at the same time as our meal? Not even an apology. Oh, and as for the smoothie? “Pearl Fever’s is better.”
Second visit
First visit
Mango Shaved Ice
This was my second time to MYST and my second time ordering the mango shaved ice dessert. The first time was my first shaved ice experience and it was so good! The shaved ice appeared flavoured and felt/tasted somewhat creamy. The second time, the ice did not have the same consistency or flavour as the first. It was still refreshing, but disappointing in comparison to the first experience. I had the two less than a month apart, so it was surprising to see such inconsistency. If it's always going to be like the second version, I don't think I'd order it again. Are they trying to go cheap?
The second photo above is from the first time I went - if you look closely you can kind of see that the ice is more like a 'ribbon'; whereas, the first photo is of the most recent visit and you can see that the ice is very slush-like.
Maybe after some sampling of the numerous other shaved ice options out there, I'll come back. Most of the food was quite good. I don’t expect good service at these places, but it was pretty disappointing to have 3 errors (matcha ice cream vs. smoothie, spicy noodle soup vs. not spicy requested, and they never brought me my water…) and not a single apology.
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