For a recent family lunch, my mom requested BBQ lamb skewers. At Taste of Asia, my favourite vendor was Chinese Halal Restaurant and conveniently, they have a location in North York. Reservations were made and a lot of lamb dishes were ordered.

Atmosphere: The restaurant decor is modern with plenty of large tables. Each round table was equipped with a glass lazy susan and had comfortable white leather chairs. For a late lunch, half of the tables were filled. I could see the restaurant being suitable for a casual meal or nice family dinner.

Service: There was nothing out of the ordinary about service, which was efficient. Every dish arrived quickly and bills were settled at a central counter.

Food: Since the meal was centered around BBQ lamb skewers, we ordered a lot (3/person). The spice blend was balanced and rich, while the lamb was fatty and charred. I would eat the skewers while they’re still hot. As they cool, the lamb flavour becomes more prominent and the fatty parts start to solidify.

We also ordered a toothpick lamb slices, braised beef, fried pancakes filled with lamb, steamed lamb chops and two bowls of hand pulled noodles. The spice used on the toothpick lamb was the same as the skewers with a more tender cut of meat and again, helped balance out the gamey lamb taste. We all really enjoyed the fried filled pancakes. If there’s too much lamb, this dish can also come with a sliced beef filling. Either way the pancake was crispy and delicious. The braised beef and onions had a great sauce and the meat fell apart being picked up with chopsticks. For me, the weakest dish was the steamed lamb chop. The dish had the most lamb taste, was a little chewy and too boney. A dipping sauce was served that cut down on some of the gameyness, but not enough.

One of my favourite dishes was the bowl of hand pulled, thick noodles in a milky lamb broth. The soup was flavourful, had a mild lamb flavour and wasn’t gamey at all, while the noodles had a great texture and were chewy. The thin pulled noodles in beef broth was also good and a good non-lamb choice.

As my family was finishing up, the table next to us received their order of toffee apples, watching the server pulling each apple slice and dunking them in sugar, we had to eat a plate too. The apples were soft, just cooked and the sugar coating was thin, even and crackled with each bite. I’d have no challenges eating an apple a day in this format.

Sika Deer specializes in “Northern” Chinese cuisine and offers a typical menu of stir frys, noodles, xiao long bao and their specialty Beggar’s Chicken. We visited the restaurant on a Saturday for an early dinner.

Atmosphere: Although on the corner of a shopping plaza, the restaurant was hard to spot as the most prominent signage was in Chinese with the English name in a much smaller font. The restaurant interior was clean and pretty standard for a casual, family restaurant with lots of tables crammed together.

Service: Again, there was nothing stand out or under par about the service at Sika Deer. The Beggar’s Chicken needs to be ordered 24 hours in advance, which we did, yet when we arrived the manager informed us that the dish wouldn’t be ready until 45 minutes into our meal. The reason for this being that our reservation was early, 6pm, and the chicken would taste more flavourful after an hour. Knowing our reservation time, and our pre-order, the dish should have been prepared on time. Every other dish did arrive quickly. Our server waited patiently for me to snap pictures while she unwrapped the Beggar’s Chicken at our table.

Food: Dinner started with two stir fries, an eggplant and sliced beef with green onion. Both dishes were standard, well seasoned albeit a little oily. We ordered two trays of xiao long bao, one with crab and one with just pork. The skins were thin and the bao were wrapped well but the size of the filling was a mouthful. There was plenty of soup in each dumpling. Next to arrive were egg white with seafood and pea sprouts. I liked the pea sprouts, which were fresh, light and lightly blanched. The Fiance liked the egg whites dish but I wasn’t a fan. Whole shrimps were used and I couldn’t taste any crab.

My hometown in China is Suzhou and one of our traditional dishes is the Squirrel Fish. A freshwater fish is meticulously filleted, the meat expertly cut into thin strips, battered, fried and served whole with a sweet and sour sauce. Deep frying the fish gives each piece of meat structure and creates the dishes’ signature fluffy shape. The dish has a history over a thousand years old. I was not wowed by the interpretation at Sika Deer. The knife work was sloppy and the fish pieces were cubes, not at all delicate. The sauce tasted fine but was thick and didn’t evenly cover the dish. For close to $30, this was overpriced.

Last to arrive was the Beggar’s Chicken. Traditionally, the chicken wrapped in lotus leaves is covered in clay and slow cooked outside, buried under hot coals. Today however, most restaurants (Sika Deer included) skip the clay and use an oven. Our server brought the still wrapped chicken to our table and unwrapped it in front of us. Also wrapped in the chicken was sticky rice, which soaked up all of the delicious drippings. In fact, the rice was my favourite part of the dish. The chicken was tender, heavily seasoned with spices that did penetrate into the meat. I’m happy to have tried the dish but it wasn’t a “must-eat-again”.