Noshwellmenu

When Yaletown’s Jonker Street shuttered its doors, it briefly left a gap in Southeast Asian cuisine within the neighbourhood. But this was quickly rectified when the restaurant reopened with a new look, new name and new concept: The Fresh Bowl.

While some have gushed over the oh-so-modern take on exotic Southeast Asian cuisine, Case and I yawned at the serviceable quality, which lacked a bit of the soul that Jonker Street once held. There’s just something a bit too tidy about the Fresh Bowl. It’s very well packaged, almost clinically so. The interior is modernized, with lots of whites with splashes of lime green, but the layout remains roughly the same.

Singapore Laksa ($10): Coconut milk soup, rice noodles and and topped with a mountain of fresh cut veggies.

I started with the Singapore Laksa: a mild (in both heat and flavour) coconut milk soup with rice noodles and shrimp. The chunks of carrot and steamed broccoli felt conspicuously out of place.

Mee Goreng ($10): Fried noodles tossed with garlic soy sauce and veggies.

Case had the Mee Goreng, wok fried thick noodles tossed with garlic soy sauce, fresh bean and pea sprouts. The flavours, however, were much more tame than we remembered from Jonker Street.

Roti Canai ($3.95): Malaysian style crispy bread with a side of yellow curry sauce.

Finally, Roti Canai: the crispy Malaysian style bread was dry and brittle, but easily rescued by dunking in the side of yellow curry dipping sauce.

Our meal including taxes and tips came to just under $35. Pricier than we remember (but on par with other Yaletown eateries) with smaller portions. The same gentlemen from Jonker Street mans the cash and kitchen and is still as friendly as ever. Fresh Bowl earns its name from the toppings of fresh veggies that accompany each dish, but we can’t help but feel that a little bit of the soul from old Jonker Street has been lost making their foray into the franchising game.

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