SPRING VILLA CHINESE CUISINE

It’s been a few weeks since my last dim sum meal and the cravings were getting strong. Lucky for me, dim sum was an obvious choice for a family weekend lunch. My parents were driving in from Mississauga so I picked a restaurant that wasn’t too far into Markham, closer to North York and highways. Spring Villa fit the criteria.

Atmosphere: No one in my family is an early riser. We didn’t plan on getting to Spring Villa until 11am, which means we missed the breakfast special price (all dishes for the price of a small plate from 9am to 10:45am), but was seated quickly as the first wave of diners wrapped up. The restaurant renovated in 2007 and the decor is modern with traditional Asian motifs such as wood cut outs and golden tassels. The space could easily be transformed for a special banquet, at lunch though it was relaxed and casual. Volume in the dining area was at a comfortable level for conversation.

Service: As we sat down, our hostess asked us what type of tea we’d like in Chinese and repeated the question in English. An order sheet was provided along with a full menu. The server verbally validated each item we ordered and left a copy of the sheet. As dished arrived promptly, hot from the kitchen, they were crossed off our order sheet. I always like this system at tapas style restaurants to keep track because I order a lot of items and have a short memory. Servers didn’t hover but it wasn’t difficult to flag someone down.

Food: Overall, Spring Villa was solid. The Fiance used to visit prior to their renovation in 2007 and he through the food was consistent. As per every dim sum restaurant, there were awesome dishes and ones that were meh. In general though, a good meal.

We ordered our usual dishes of shrimp dumplings, steamed tripe, congee, spare ribs, chicken feet, fried octopus legs, siu mai, fried tofu, rice roll and etc. The order sheet is in English and Chinese, but as usual, the translations weren’t 100% clear. My mom had to read out the Chinese names for us to it figure out. I also couldn’t find sesame balls, a must really.

Both the siu mai and shrimp dumplings were good, standard. I liked the texture of the wrapper on the shrimp dumplings, which was not too thick or sticky. The congee was a little thin. I found the texture on the chicken feet to hard, the skin was too elastic and didn’t fall off the bone like at other restaurants. The flavour was good. My favourite dish was actually a lunch special, fish and spare ribs on rice. This was full of flavour, hot, savoury and really tasty. Next time, I’ll be ordering more of their lunch items.