Toronto Chinese food
 

I am seeking recommendations for great Chinese food in Toronto, preferably cantonese or shanghainese. I got really excited when I saw there was a DTF, but have since learned it is a fake :(.

Heading to Toronto November 22 to pick up some knives at CCK, so hoping to roll some great eats into the day.


Thanks for the suggestions.

Go to Chinatown. It's huge. An old favourite is Swatow, but don't look too close!

Dailo in downtown and Dragon Boat north suburb.

Pam's
 

Pam's (for pho), 221 Spadina.

China Island on Bloor St. (High Park area)! I used to live in the area and often had to stop in on my way home from work because of cravings for hot & sour soup and mixed hot veggies with cashews - I've never found any as good anywhere else. :(

personally, ignore the comment about Chinatown IMO. neither my inlaws (from HKG), their brothers and sisters (all from HKG) or my wife, daughter of hong kongers would ever suggest going to Chinatown first.

just search a guy by the name of charles yu over on chowhound.

in fact, GO to chowhound and read his posts on this subject.

i don't always agree with him but in many areas such as food, we do agree.

http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2009...re_charles_yu/

PM me if you want. happy to meet up and perhaps even drive up to a decent dim sum place we go to where my in laws are.

sure, no lung king heen but very good.

leafs appear to be in town then also.

in fact, Charles posted recently and he is still VERy active on CH.

http://www.chowhound.com/post/72-hou...mentId=9903688

The best Chinese food will be found in Markham or Richmond Hill (northern suburbs of Toronto). Things in old Chinatown downtown are either highly "Canadianized" or just not very good. Will you have a rental car?

The New York Times recently published an article on Chinese food in Toronto. I've been to or at least by many of the places mentioned in the article and, typical of the NYT, I think the article is pretty well written and accurate.

same here. i think people were being "typically canadian" to the author by saying chinatown had begun to decline... ;-)

and although as one noted the DTF is not "the" DTF...they do a decent job of XLB having been to two DTF locations as of late, the Taipei 101 location and the city of dreams location in macau....

i personally like Wei's kitchen up at FMP. i also find it funny that congee queen is called then when everyone goes in to order juk.... ;-)

it is too bad that place that served a great variety of northern dumplings in the splendid china mall closed a few years back...

Lee Garden on Spadina near Baldwin downtown is where people tell people from out of town to go. They are used to a non-Chinese clientele. New Sky is more subdued and probably better. None of them is as good as Elm Tree or Le Paradis but they are not Chinese. Pho Hung is good for Vietnamese and Ryus for Japanese noodles in the same area.

Lee Garden has been sold and is no longer owned and operated by that family who owned it since 1975.

For XLB in TO try the place with the same name at Brimley and Huntingwood. Owner/chef was at the knock off DTF at FMP.

Congee Queen is good but not great. However they win on consistency day to day and across all locations, no joke! ;)

Absolutely true.

here are some recommendations:

Yu Seafood 渔膳房
http://www.yuseafood.com/

O Mei 峨嵋
http://omeirestaurant.com/Home

ShangHai ShiKuMen 上海石庫門家宴
http://www.asiafoodfest.ca/index.php...&id=19&l=zh-cn

Yu Garden 南翔上海料理
http://yugarden.ca/

I concur with the recommendations for OP (with access to rental car & toll-pass, as our in-car GPS from Hertz kept steering us to use 407 Hwy ... to get around & avoid some of the worst traffic at most hours of the day, about as bad as LAX) - we just came back after spending a week & on this trip, stayed in the Thoronhill/Markham corridor - great choice of fine Chinese dining at all prices, many open early & stay late - excellent with the exchange rates.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...7179/?page=all

There are some good food stalls inside Pacific Mall, Markham - that catered mainly to the Chinese, but with the pictorial menus, it's easy for anyone else - just point & order (just don't go there early as many aren't ready till 11:30 & early in the week, the mall closed by 8 PM ... with heavy commuter traffic, you might still find the 30 to 45 minutes drive worth the trouble.) Let Google Nav be the guide as I found Waze NOT to be very helpful, run alongside Hertz's GPS in our rental vehicle).

DTF is spelled Ding (with the extra "g" at the end) and a quick check of their global/TW website definitely confirmed that it's NOT one of their worldwide location and just a knockoff. We came across & had XLB at this place called "Shanghai Dim Sum" on Hwy 7 in Richmond Hill - near another of the those Chinese malls nearby (about a block away) and they have special pricing for the 1st. tray of XLB - also, breakfast specials are served until 11 AM from memory.

Com Tam 168 is one of the better Vietnamese dining place around Markham & Scarborough area that we had a late lunch last week, part of the strip malls next to Pacific Mall - very reasonable prices & dishes, beyond the beef pho that some seasoned travelers are familiar with these days.

Congee Queen seems to be everywhere as a chain store - we ended up with Keung Kee Congee instead, also in the area. Not once did we eat in "old" Chinatown with its fading charcters - only noticed a handful of mom-n-pop dining places with limited appeals to us during our visit this time.

Opinions about food are always subjective & personal - YMMV. For dim sum, many places have discounts before 11 AM and after 1:30 or 2 PM - our orders were "steamed" to our selections, served hot and not expensive at all.

Letitride3c, nice. thanks for your perspective. we tend to dump on places and then forget they are actually pretty good....

my wife's cousin says that dim sum in toronto is like the old days in the 70s in hong kong. he says he never gets such gigantic har gow in hong kong like he sees all over the place in markham...

although the ones i had at the 8 in macau shaped like coi fish were pretty sweet!

Yummy Yummy Dumplings is a surprise. It's in the basement on Huron just north of Dundas. Everything is made in the kitchen by family members. They really care and they have more than dumplings. The variety and quality exceed my expectations every time. The location is where Mother's Dumplings started out (and turned corporate). It takes time because things are made fresh.