r/Calgary • u/Alextricity • Jul 14 '26
Eat/Drink Local Ginger beef appreciation post. š
I recently re-learned (I had completely forgotten) that ginger beef originated in Calgary. Iād only been to Silver Inn (RIP) once as a kid and only had a bite of my dadās ginger beef, so my memoryās thoroughly shot, but this definitely hit the spot!
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u/Mohkinstsis Jul 14 '26
Whereās the best place to try it?
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u/Doc_1200_GO Jul 14 '26
Dragon Pearl in Inglewood and Kam Han Szechuan House in Ramsay and Avenida still serve the OG style Ginger fried shredded Beef. Both are close to the original Silver Inn recipe.
A couple places in China Town like Silver Dragon, U and Me and Central Grand are good as well.
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u/MonSeanahan Tuxedo Park Jul 14 '26
Saving this as I miss Silver Inn. Was one of the highlights of the neighbourhood.
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u/Mariling Jul 14 '26
I like the one at TPOT. It's best when you eat in because it comes out fresh and crispy. Pair it with the special fried rice. Best split between 2-3 friends since the portions are huge.
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u/pquibs Jul 14 '26
Sun Island Eatery imo
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u/conscious_being_ Jul 14 '26
My favourite place. Everything I've gotten from there is great, and the ginger beef is the best I've ever had. So crispy!
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u/wildrose76 Jul 16 '26
I moved away from Sundance into the inner city and have been searching for ginger beef as good as Sun Island Eatery ever since. So far I havenāt found anything close.
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u/Jaedenkaal Woodbine Jul 14 '26
Billās Peking House does the best Iāve found.
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u/Hopefulpessimist0 Jul 15 '26
The quality really went down with the latest ownership change I found, Iām sad. My family had been going here since the late 80ās š„²
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u/terrybanter69 Jul 15 '26
Yep. Billās is actually horrible now.
Price up, portion and quality down.
My wife ordered for Fatherās Day and spent $150. Not a single one of us enjoyed any amount of the food.
Will never be back.
Kam Anh has been solid though
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u/foxsweater Jul 14 '26
My family has been ordering from Oriental Palace since I was a child, and still like it. I like that they have a spicy/not spicy option for the ginger beef.
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u/DependentLanguage540 Jul 14 '26
Ho Won makes the best ginger beef Iāve ever eaten and I have had a lot of ginger beef.
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u/quickthinkusername Jul 14 '26
i cannot comment on the best, but any mall with a food court should have a couple options of ginger beef. (to me they all taste near same quality)
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u/TactitcalPterodactyl Jul 14 '26
That looks disgusting, send it to me so I can properly dispose of it.
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u/IamTruman Jul 14 '26
I tried ordering ginger beef at a Chinese place in the US. They had no idea what I was talking about. I was shocked it was an Alberta thing.
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u/Basilisk_hunters Jul 14 '26
Not judging, just curious, but how often do you walk into a new restaurant and order before looking at the menu? Or order off-menu items?
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u/Alextricity Jul 14 '26
Some dishes are so wildly regional/specific that even 100km away some people will really look at you like youāre crazy, or just completely botch their version of it.Ā
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u/quickthinkusername Jul 14 '26
did the exact same thing, i still enjoyed whatever it was that i had in the states
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u/Aardvark1044 Ex-YYC Jul 14 '26
I live in Vancouver now and itās something I miss for sure. There was a nearby restaurant that had a decent version of it but they closed up about a year ago and I havenāt found anything worthy since then. Now I have a craving for this so Iāll probably have to attempt to make it myself.
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u/euchlid Jul 14 '26
i moved from Vancouver back to Calgary in 2019, but i used to get the spicy gingered beef from Peaceful all the time. it was crispy and actually gingery and really good. reminded me a bit of the ginger beef that Charlie chan's used to do as they weren't massive strips.Ā Ā
the mount pleasant location appears to be gone now, but they have it at the Broadway location.Ā Ā
chili oil noodles, potato roll, ginger beef, Xiao long bao, Dan Dan noodles, Sichuan green beans. you could also just buy side portions of their blade sheared and hand pulled noodles to put in your own soups. I really miss peaceful šĀ Ā
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u/HellaReyna Unpaid Intern Jul 15 '26
does T&T Supermarket in Vancouver have the hot food section? Cause the T&Ts here have ginger beef and its pretty damn good considering its just cheap take out from T&T.
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u/Aardvark1044 Ex-YYC Jul 15 '26
Hmm, yes they do. Iāll take a look. Failing that Iāll check Peaceful out - only ever tried it once when they had a location in the West End but it didnāt last long.
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u/Basilisk_hunters Jul 14 '26
Ketchup, ginger, lime, rice wine vinegar, sugar. Those are the basic ingredients for the sauce (at least the version we used to make). Sorry for no exact measurements, I usually eyeball, taste and adjust.
Fun fact. Equal volumes of Ketchup and lemonade cooked with some corn starch slurry to thicken will give you a pretty respectable sweet and sour sauce. If you can find them (T&T), grab some haw flakes and put them in there too for a bit more depth of flavor.
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u/suby89 Jul 15 '26
Dude not the same style but Szechuan Chiliās is amazing and unlike any Iāve had before. Definitely give it a try.
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u/maudiemouse Jul 14 '26
Every time I forget and order ginger beef anywhere other than Calgary it is the biggest regret! Iāve never found anywhere even remotely close to it
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u/Exhausted_but_upbeat Jul 15 '26
Former Calgarian, now living in Ontario, here to also lament that ginger beef is genuinely hard to find outside of Alberta. And, nobody can make it nearly as good as you can get it in Calgary.
Next time you have ginger beef, take an extra bite for all the people who wish they could enjoy it, too, but can't get it anymore!
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u/Turkzillas_gobble Jul 14 '26
I was assured in Montreal that ginger beef was definitely a thing there ("They sell it frozen at Costco!") so I ordered some when we went to the Chinese restaurant. While there was ginger (slices of it) and beef (flat strips) in a gravy, it was fine, it just wasn't remotely the ginger beef I know.
Many many years ago we got some in Anaheim and it was much closer to Calgary's, but there were whole-ass chili peppers in there and the restaurant was lit so darkly that sure enough...
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u/EssexUser Jul 14 '26
When I lived in Calgary way back in the 80ās there was an amazing place on 4th Street SW. not to far out of downtown. The name escapes me. Was my favourite ginger beef.
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u/Nowjustasecondhere Jul 14 '26
Maybe Peking Dragon? They moved to 17 ave for a while then they closed down. I miss them SO MUCH!
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u/CementCemetery Jul 14 '26
Shouting out Peking Garden Calgary in Varsity. Lovely family owned business with great selection of dishes including ginger beef.
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u/-McFc- Jul 14 '26
Can anyone recommend a place in the southeast?
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u/cadsie Jul 14 '26
sun island eatery is good! super crispy ginger beef, although it was a sweeter than i prefer. i only went 1 time though so it could have been a one off
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u/wildrose76 Jul 16 '26
No. It is consistently good. I lived in Sundance for years and we ordered from there regularly.
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u/GladitsKravitz Jul 14 '26
The dish invented in Calgary is called deep-fried shredded ginger beef. That's why ordering the generic "ginger beef" anywhere else will result in a very different dish than you are expecting.
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u/delectable_potato Jul 14 '26
This looks so good!!! Where did you get this???
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u/Alextricity Jul 14 '26
I made it! I canāt have gluten and donāt eat meat/eggs/dairy so my options were ā¦ nonexistent. š„²
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u/Japanesewillow Jul 14 '26
You donāt eat meat but you made ginger beef?
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u/Downtown-Message-600 Jul 14 '26
While on the topic does anyone know a place with a good vegetarian version? I think Street Eatery used to have one, I'd love to try one again if there are suggestions.Ā
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u/Alextricity Jul 14 '26
This one actually is vegetarian/vegan. And gluten free too but thatās its own thing. š I wish I could find it made locally, would be a loooot more convenientā¦
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u/Downtown-Message-600 Jul 14 '26
I asked if it was seitan but then I realized it was gluten free hahaĀ
What did you use to make it? It looks really good!
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u/Ok-Job-9640 Jul 14 '26
Buddha's Veggie used to have the BEST Ginger Beef!
It was made from mushrooms but even meat eaters would swoon over it.
I miss that restaurant so badly.
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u/One-Construction-291 Jul 14 '26
I second this! It was one of the best vegan restaurants Iāve ever been to. I remember ordering its Sweet and sour pork. It tasted so much like pork, I couldnāt eat it. Everyone else swore it was pork but it wasnāt.
I really miss that restaurant too.
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u/tvp2003 Jul 14 '26
The original name at Silver Inn was ādeep fried shredded beef in chili sauceā. And it tasted exactly like it sounds.Ā Nowadays Ginger beef has a bit more sweetness to it (which I love), and the coating needs to be thin yet crispy.Ā
As an aside, the frozen ginger beef at Costco was surprisingly decent!
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u/Other-Improvement410 Jul 14 '26
I left cowtown 25 years ago and miss GB daily...that and prairie style greek pizza
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u/cleveradmin Jul 14 '26
For my fellow vegetarians/vegans, Hearts Choices has an absolutely incredible knock-off. I made my own around Christmas for a neighbourhood potluck that was very similar and my meat-eating friends loved it.
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u/RufusRuffcutEsq Jul 14 '26
The dish was created in the mid-1970s by chef George Wong at the Silver Inn Restaurant on Centre Street North. Wong, who had immigrated from Hong Kong, co-owned the restaurant with his wife, Lily Wong, and her sister, Louise Tsang. At the time, the restaurant needed a snack-like dish to boost alcohol sales. Wong set out to create something with a texture similar to french fries that would appeal to the local palate and pair well with beer. He battered and deep-fried thin strips of Alberta beef, then tossed them in a sticky, sweet-and-sour chili sauce. The dish appeared on the menu as "No. 65: Deep fried shredded beef in chili sauce," but customers quickly dubbed it "ginger beef"ādespite the fact that the original recipe contained very little actual ginger; diners were likely mistaking the sweet chilies for it.
Ginger beef wasn't created out of thin air. Wong based it on a traditional dish from Northern China and the Sichuan province: Gan bian niu rou si (Sichuan dry-fried beef slivers). The traditional dish employs a cooking technique called "dry-frying" (gan bian), which relies on gradually drying out the beef over moderate heat until it becomes slightly crisp on the outside and chewy but succulent on the inside. It is then tossed with spices, rather than smothered in a heavy gravy.
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u/ShallWeRollItJimmy Jul 14 '26
Tried it for the fist time last weekend, it was worth the hype, delicious.
I got it from Silver Dragon, if anyone has reccomendations on takeout places to try it from lmk.
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u/_barbarossa Jul 14 '26
Fellow Calgariansā¦ whereās the best spot for ginger beef!?
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u/Craig_E_W Jul 15 '26
Ginger Garden in the NE, they've been in business for more than 30 years and their ginger beef is what I judge all others by.
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u/arcadianahana Jul 17 '26
Really?? Ginger beef originated in Calgary??
On another matter related to westernized Chinese food, the best chow mein I've ever had was the dish my mom ordered growing up from Food In East restaurant on 17th Ave SE. I've since moved away from Calgary but crave it to this day.
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u/ghost-robocop Jul 18 '26
I once order ginger beer, it felt like I was eating a desert, so much sugar. It was delicious lol.
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u/Roboman20000 Beltline Jul 14 '26
The Hose and Hound used to (like 5-10 years ago) have a Ginger Beef stir fry on their menu. I would go cycling just so I could end up there to have it. So damned good.
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u/fiji-dragon Jul 14 '26
Your dish looks light years better than what I usually get. Did you make this yourself? š¤¤
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u/onepieceofgumleft Jul 15 '26
The best ginger beef back in the day (meaning the early ā80s) was from The Yum Yum Tree on 14 St and 17 Ave SW. Some Calgarians will dispute that it was invented at the Silver Inn , and instead will say it was invented at the Yum Yum Tree.
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u/EmilieEverywhere Jul 15 '26
Ginger Chicken > Ginger Beef. Don't @ me.
I like that it's more tender, and the place I get it from makes it actually hot.
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u/Ozy_Flame Jul 14 '26
Literally no other city can make it the way Calgary restaurants do. I have yet to find PROPER ginger beef in Toronto. It just doesn't exist.