I’m going to Toronto in a couple of days and for a moment thought about going to Sai Woo’s for the sweet and sour vegetable balls. When I was a grad student, that was my favorite — and affordable! — out-of-the-house meal. I’ve had sweet and sour sauces like it, but not quite as good. As for the vegetable balls, well, I never could figure out either what vegetables were in it or what Sai Woo put them through to render them into that particular crunchy paste. Mmm.

But Sai Woo’s is no more. It went from the place the city took visiting dignitaries to an empty cavern with worn carpets to an ex-restaurant.

So, the dish is no more. Not just the instances of the dish, but — assuming the box of recipes is mouldering in a dump somewhere — the dish itself. It seems simultaneously platonic and, in its evanescence, non-platonic.

Aw, screw Plato. I sure could go for a dish of Sai Woo’s sweet and sour vegetable balls.

Footnote: The “No Name” at Grasshopper in Allston is pretty close.

Categories: Uncategorized dw