Yes, this is a chain restaurant. Yes, the one I went to is in Laval. These are two criteria that would normally mean I’d never try the restaurant. But any Asian restaurant with an extensive gluten-free menu is worth the drive to the giant shopping complex, the Carrefour Laval.
And yes, there’s a PF Chang’s on Decarie in Montreal, but the manager of the Laval location who invited me to tour the kitchen tells me the design of each restaurant is different, and his is beautiful. It was worth Google maps telling me incorrectly to stay left, missing my exit, backtracking to the highway, and eventually circling the entire Carrefour looking for this restaurant. It was also worth swearing like a sailor, and almost giving up before, like a desert oasis, seeing the ornate, Asian-inspired exterior façade. I parked and entered the cavernous, sleek space.
There’s nothing quite like this in Montreal…
The upside of working with a chain is there’s money for things like modern, spotless kitchens and fifteen foot Chinese wall scrolls. This is not a two-burner, one immersion circulator, two crazy young chefs, and a sketchy financial backer type of operation. In the kitchen, behind a line with at least four chef stations, orders flow. In the stations are the recipes and instructions for every sauce, every stir-fry, every dumpling, every plate that goes out.
The restaurant is an art, but more of a science. The servers plate rice and pour soup. The first chef takes the order and assembles the ingredients required. Then the plate and order are passed down the line, eventually making it to the wok section where things are fried in a specific order at a specific time so that the meals of an entire table come out at once.
There are so many servers here. Often a restaurant cuts costs by cutting staff, but here, where efficient service is a necessity (business lunches, quick suppers, hungry shoppers), having enough staff is key. And even when the restaurant turns into an upscale supperclub complete with subtle mood lighting come evening, it has to keep up the pace. When all the ingredients are prepped in advance—peppers, mangoes, tomatoes, carrots, green onions, garlic, ginger, meats, fish, all chopped or sliced into the correct sizes and filling the chef stations the same morning or more in advance—that’s a lot easier to do. The fridge is full of backup containers of pre-cut ingredients, the litres and litres of shredded papaya making me thankful I’m not a prep chef.
At PF Chang’s, ingredients aren’t coming from small, local farms, and the menu isn’t changing with the season. On this large a scale of chain restaurant that’s just not practical, explains restaurant manager, Elie Sucar. They do, however, source the best quality products they can. The only iceberg lettuce on the scene is for the build-your-own hot soy-based chicken salad bowl appetizer with deep-fried rice cracker noodles. And the lettuce is fresh, actually tasting juicy and sweet, not just watery.
Besides soup and rice, the servers’ responsibilities include having to introduce diners to the rack of sauces placed on each table. They demonstrate combining the vinegar, hot mustard, chili paste, soy sauce, and freshly made chili oil. (Seeing the chef in the back wok-firing cups of dried chilies in oil without crying as the capsaicin burns his hands and eyes is awe-inspiring. There’s flame, heat, and a large fume vent involved.)
Diners can then adjust the blend made by the server to their own tastes. Or just take each element individually to season their dishes, as we did with the DIY-chicken lettuce wraps that you roll up burrito-style.
This is not a gluten-free restaurant, but there’s a large, separate gluten-free menu. There’s also a gluten-free soy sauce! And the chili paste doesn’t have wheat in it either. From the gluten-free menu I try the lemon chicken and the seafood with lobster sauce and preserved blackbeans. I’m craving scallops instead of shrimp, and it’s no problem to substitute the more expensive protein—one of the upsides of high volume restaurants and chains who order in large quantities from distributors. Then we take the PF Chang spicy chicken, and finally the caramel chicken with mango, cherry tomatoes, and the only garnish of the day—a few leaves of coriander.
For someone who hasn’t had Chinese food in ages, this is luxury. No asking if the blackbean sauce has wheat. I know it doesn’t. No trying to make a Chinese chef understand that I can’t eat oyster sauce, or explaining that wheat is gluten and it’s in almost every prepared Asian sauce. The gluten-free dishes even have their own cooking station, and are served on different plates to identify them for servers.
So I breathe a sigh of relief and dive into the lemon chicken.
It’s coated thick in cornstarch and all the dishes are rich and glossy from thickened, flavoured oil. It’s cooked traditionally, essentially shallow fried in oil until the exterior is crispy and then smothered in sauce, which softens it into a warm mouthful of lemony comfort. I choose traditional white rice over brown to go with it, appreciating that there’s an option.
The scallops are tender, because the chefs are well-trained. The sauce is salty and delicious. They followed the company recipe correctly.
The PF Chang’s signature spicy chicken is deep-fried chicken with thinly sliced hot red chilies. It’s not hot enough for me, though. So I add some chili paste, which is all sodium and a little heat. So I add some chili oil too. Better. I add some hot mustard. I don’t really have a chili limit, apparently. Or maybe the main demographic of the American restaurant just likes salty and sweet.
The caramel chicken is a rich, not-too-sweet sauce with no butter (it’s caramel, not butterscotch). It’s a dairy-free, gluten-free mango and chicken stir-fry and it’s my favourite dish of the meal because of the mango. The lemon comes in a close second for the bright flavour of that sweet sauce, too. You can tell it’s actually made with lemon juice. Once again I’m thanking those prep chefs.
If I owned a car I’d eat gluten-free Chinese food in Laval again. And I’d definitely offer to take non-gluten-free friends because there’s an even bigger regular menu. But I love that I get an entire menu of options, not just a couple of plates where the chef is willing to eliminate a gluten-ous element and replace it with nothing for the same elevated price. With all dishes here under $20, and most under $15, the meal is a real bargain. There are no elaborate presentations, few garnishes, no organic meats or farm-to-table ingredient sourcing, and a lot of sugar, salt, and cornstarch, but the dishes are a huge cut above your typical Chinese take-out. It’s just classy enough to take a date, upscale enough to take a co-worker for lunch or happy hour at the long bar, and affordable enough to make it worth side-stepping the Carrefour Laval food court. Great service, a well-run kitchen, fresh ingredients, homemade food.
PF Chang’s
Highlights: Gluten-free menu, vegetarian-friendly, good service, upscale decor, affordable
Carrefour Laval: 3035 Boulevard le Carrefour, Unit E104 (around the back…near the food court entrance)
450-687-8000
Hours: Sun-Wed 11am-11pm, Thurs-Sat 11am-midnight
Decarie/Jean Talon, Montreal: 5485 Rue des Jockeys,
514-731-2020
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