Canton Yummy
Incorporating the Lazy Sunday juice bar
Where: Shop 10, 28 Mackeurtan Ave, Durban North
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 10.30am to 7pm
Call: 069 454 1746
The Poet wanted to try Peking duck and so the bridge set ‒ the Advocate, Trevor, Vivek and I ‒ met for Sunday lunch. We ordered the duck in advance. I was looking forward to it.
Canton Yummy is the latest venture of Michelle who used to have the Ton Hoi some years ago. It’s in an old house that has been converted into a strip mall opposite the Woolworths in Mackeurtan Avenue and has a deck flowing outside. But today the wind was howling.
Inside is a fairly stark affair with a kitchen at the back. So it’s pretty ambienceless, but it’s comfortable (although noisy) and we were welcomed warmly.
The business includes a range of teas and a juice bar run by her son Jason under the name Lazy Sunday. I am soon sipping on his orange and lemon green tea. It’s ice cold and nice and fresh. While not a big tea drinker, I am part of the small minority that likes green tea. The Advocate enjoys his grape smoothie, The Poet her cappuccino. The boys get into the more serious stuff ‒ a bottle of red.
The menu hasn’t changed much since the Ton Hoi days, with more conventional Western-type offerings of soups and dumplings, fried rice, chop suey and chow mein taking up the first page. The latter can be had with pork, beef, chicken, prawn, prawn and calamari, veg or egg. Plus there’s a mixed version.
Things get more interesting on the second page once you’ve passed the sweet and sour, and foo yong options. There’s specialities like duck in black bean sauce, beef peppers, cashew nut chicken and salt and pepper calamari. Plus a few peri peri dishes and even some curries.
There’s also a Chinese menu with English translations which includes a number of dishes that don’t exactly sound that appetising, like 1 000-year egg porridge (it’s a boarding school thing, but I loathe anything vaguely resembling porridge), salted fish and chicken, or spicy chicken feet. I’d give pig feet with ginger vinegar a whirl though. The seafood hotpot is next on my list as is the ginger chicken and crispy fish.
The table next to us had pre-ordered the whole Chinese roast chicken which looked delicious. The skin is nice and crisp, the meat looks succulent. Now I’m confident about our Peking duck (R580).
The duck lived up to expectations. I thought of the Glass Guy, as it’s his favourite. The duck skin was beautifully crisp, the meat moist and unctuous. It was served with little pancakes which were hot (they often aren’t) and a good spicy hoisin sauce and crisp fresh veg. Vivek and Trevor snuck in some of the home-made chilli as we rolled our own pancakes and munched away happily. The lazy Susan on the table did overtime as we fought over the last bits.
Then came a duck stir fry made with all the meat trimmings tossed with onions and veg, which was tasty, and livened up with a judicious tip of the spoon of that fiery chilli. And finally came the duck soup, a healthy light broth made from the bones and leftovers. A sort of poultry equivalent of nose to tail, so to speak.
We also tried the salt and pepper prawns (R220) which were a good size, nice and juicy with the shells cooked to a crisp so you could eat them. The beef flank in black bean sauce (R180) arrived at the table with the steam still coming off it. Another winning dish. Vivek’s favourite, I think. I, too, enjoyed the sweet and sour crispy pork spare-ribs (R168). For someone who has never been a huge fan of sweet and sour sauce ‒ it so often tastes like plum jam ‒ this was a good one.
Besides a selection of Boba Teas and milkshakes, dessert offerings were limited, although white rabbits were available for sale. We tried the Hong Kong toasts (R65). These were a brioche-style bread or cake dipped in egg and fried and dusted in cinnamon and drizzled with white chocolate ‒ they were enjoyable.
It was a lovely meal. I will be back.
Food: 4
Service: 3 ½
Ambience: 2 1/2
The Bill: R1 862 for five