When it comes to celebrating special occasions, my family is fairly predictable. We always end up at either our favourite Szechuan restaurant, dim sum or with platters of sushi at home. All three restaurants being spots we’ve been visiting for over 15 years. Sehmi Sushi, located in a strip mall on the north west corner of Dundas and Winston Churchill, has been my favourite spot for sushi in Mississauga since high school (a long time ago).

My love for sushi has been well documented, but my first exposure to raw fish was actually with friends. I then introduced the cuisine to my mom and started taking my little brother out while his palette was still developing. They both also fell in love with the unique texture and flavours of sashimi, but my dad wasn’t so keen. To appease everyone, we usually visited AYCE spots so that my dad could order cooked food to his heart’s content while the rest of us feasted on raw fish (sometimes leaving him the rice balls from nigiri).

During the summer, my brother and I would leave our parents at home and bike down the street to Sehmi (even before it was named Sehmi) to enjoy a few rolls and the light exercise. We also used bike to the nearest McDonald’s for ice cream and dollar drink days. After trying out a few other Japanese restaurants in Mississauga, Sehmi remains my number one based on the quality of their and the great price point.

For Mother’s Day this year, I picked up two party trays, one with just sashimi and another with maki, sashimi and nigiri. The sashimi tray had 33 pieces for $35.95, and the mixed tray had 54 pieces for $69.95. My total bill came to just over $100 for both. Each sashimi piece was cut thick and a good size. The salmon was sweet and buttery. I really liked the texture of the octopus and the tobiko covered scallops. I only wish there were a few more scallop pieces, and would’ve paid a few more dollars for the option of a “deluxe” selection. As for the rolls, the rice was a thin layer and the filling packed. The nigiri also had a good ratio. Again, only 3 pieces of unagi were included and I would’ve loved just 1 or 2 pieces more.

While the variety of fish at Sehmi could be a bit more diverse, no other spot in Mississauga beats their quality and price.

Red Lotus is a Chinese restaurant in Mississauga that specializes in Sichuan cuisine. It is one of my family’s favourite restaurants to visit and I’ve been trying to review it for months. Somehow, timing never worked and my parents always went without me. The one time we did try to stop by, the restaurant was closed for renovations. Finally in August, the stars aligned, renovations were done and I got to douse my taste buds with Sichuan peppercorns.

Atmosphere: I was pleasantly surprised by the restaurant’s renovation. Before, I would’ve classified Red Lotus as the typical Chinese restaurant, a little run down with simple but sturdy furniture. Now, the dining room’s gone through a slick modern update with pendent chandeliers and leather chairs. The restaurant’s always been packed with families and that hasn’t changed. Noise level can be loud when all of the tables are full there’s a general busy vibe as servers rush to and fro.

Service: There wasn’t any aspect of service that was noteworthy, positive or negative. Like most Chinese restaurants, service was efficient but not personal. Most of the servers speak Mandarin and English.

Food: In general, everything we ate at Red Lotus was well seasoned, authentic Northern Chinese cuisine and delicious. There was heat and spice without overpowering the natural flavours from the fresh ingredients.

Dinner began with a plate of stir fried lamb and peppers. There was a 50:50 ratio of meat to vegetable and the lamb was wonderfully gamey. The peppers were also fragrant and sweet. Next to arrive were two Chinese beef rolls. Even though the pancakes were thick, they were fried to a crisp. Rolled inside each pancake was plenty of beef filling, the white part of green onions and hoisin like sauce. The Hubby had high praise and named this beef roll one of the best he’s eaten in the GTA.

We also ordered fried pork with wrappers. Usually this dish is served with thin flour wrappers, almost like tortillas, but Red Lotus used sheets of tofu. This dish is kind of like a Chinese taco and the pork is cut into thin strips, stir fried and coated in a sweet, savoury sauce. A great hands on dish and not spicy. I would’ve loved some cucumber strips to add into my wraps. As our carb for the evening, I requested a bowl of dan dan mian. The somen noodles at Red Lotus were cooked past al dente and the seasoning was bang-on. This dish was also not high on the heat chart but had lots of peppery, numbing oil.

Getting a little hotter was the deep fried chicken pieces with chillies and Sichuan peppercorns (La zi Ji Ding – 辣子鸡丁). Compared to other restaurants, this dish at Red Lotus had a ton of chicken, and not just batter or skin but chicken meat. The spice level was also perfect and as my tongue burned, I kept going back, digging around the peppers for the tasty golden fried chicken morsels.

We tried one of the chef’s special stews at Red Lotus. In a broth of chilli oil and Sichuan peppers, the stew had quail eggs, pork blood, intestine, nappa, spam, glass noodles, enoki mushrooms and more. All of the already savoury ingredients were infused with spice and pepper, resulting in a flavorful, numbing dish. The wok was served on a butane stove that kept the stew bubbling throughout the meal, this also meant the flavours grew richer and every bite grew spicier. The blood had a consistency like tofu with a hint of meatiness. Even if you’re unfamiliar with some of the ingredients, this would be a great way to try them out since they would strongly seasoned.

Growing up in Mississauga, I found the selection of Chinese restaurants lacking. When we ate out, my family always ended up at the same two restaurants. Recently, we headed to one of these old favourites only to find it closed for renovations. With no backup plan, we walked straight into the restaurant next door. Overall, Xin Xin BBQ was pretty meh and only managed to reinforce my parent’s faith in their tried and true watering holes.

Atmosphere: Xin Xin BBQ had little decor and was reminiscent of any standard Chinese restaurant. The space was quiet and clean with families enjoying dinner.

Service: Service was fine, but unmemorable. Dishes came out in a timely manner and servers had to be flagged down if needed. We ordered a signature fish soup which arrived in a large stone pot and was set on a portable stove. This was a nice touch, which kept the soup simmering and building flavour throughout the meal.

Food: For 4 people eating at a casual Chinese restaurant, our bill ended up being over $80, a bit on the expensive side. We ordered 4 dishes. A fish soup (market price based on the weight of the fish and type), cold somen noodles with chicken, stir fried lamb slices and beef pot stickers.

The main course was the spicy sour fish soup. We choose green bass over tilapia and was told they only had two, a big one (3 lbs) or an even bigger one. We went with 3 lbs, which was a lot of fish. In addition to fish, the soup was filled with bean sprouts and celery. There was lots of flavour that grew the longer it simmered. Lots of Sichuan peppercorns ensured a strong mala taste. The fish itself was tender and meaty. I would’ve loved the option of fresh greens, like watercress or lettuce, to hot pot in the soup. This was a good dish, but I’m not sold it was $40 good.

The plate of cold somen was a generous portion and well seasoned with peanut and mala sauce. There was not a lot of shredded chicken. Cumin was the main spice of the lamb dish, another spicy one. Thin slices of lamb were used and it was cooked well, but nothing extraordinary.

Our last dish was a dozen beef pot stickers. Each dumpling had a golden, crispy bottoms and the filling was heavily seasoned. I really enjoyed these, but unfortunately they did not sit well with me after dinner, which marred the memory.

When it comes to Pho in the GTA, Pho Dau Bo is the best. When The Fiance worked in Mississauga, his team visited this location every Friday and when my mom told me about a great new pho place she found, it was the Pho Dau Bo on Dundas. Their broth outshines any competition.

The Fiance and I stopped by the Bristol location on the Thanksgiving weekend for a pre-turkey pho lunch (mainly because my fridge was bare and with the prospect of leftovers to come, I didn’t see a need for groceries). At 1pm, we thought the lunch time rush would be done, which was surprisingly not the case. In fact there was a steady stream of customers filing in.

We both opted for the house special pho, mine a small while his was a medium, that comes with a piece of every meat topping. As a side dish, we also added two minced shrimp on sugar canes and hot coffee with condensed milk. The coffee was strong and had a generous serving of condensed milk that easily lasted 2 refills of the coffee press. I liked the flavour of the minced shrimp but they were oily and the sugar cane wasn’t sweet. Their fresh rolls are better.

Service that day was painfully slow. There was a group of 8 who placed their food and drink order before us and the kitchen was backed up. We waited 20 minutes for the pho and there was only one girl making every drink. This meant our coffees didn’t arrive until we were near the bottom of our bowls. Since it was a long weekend, and off peak hours, it’s understandable if the restaurant was understaffed. I was just hungry.

Our bowls of pho arrived full of noodles and topping, there was almost no room to add in more bean sprouts but I tucked them in. The broth was rich and savoury, the best in town and the only pho where I don’t add sriracha or hoisin sauce. Each of the meats were also tender with a good number of pieces. It’s just a perfect bowl, full of flavour and filled to the brim.

I’ve now been to three of Pho Dau Bo’s location (just missing the Scarborough outlet) and each meal has been consistently exceptional. When I crave pho, I’m craving Pho Dau Bo.

Heart Sushi is the latest AYCE Japanese restaurant to open in Mississauga. From the same owners as 168 Sushi, the restaurant is fully equipped with the now standard Ipad ordering system and I had high hopes based on early reviews. My family and I stopped by for Father’s Day lunch this year and it was pretty much chaos.

Atmosphere: Located at Heartland Town Centre, the decor of Heart Sushi is sleek and modern. The furniture is monochromatic with black leather benches, white granite tables and glossy white walls. Pops of colour show up in a cherry blossom mural behind the sushi bar and on the interior of large lamp shades. Being Father’s day, the restaurant was packed. People were waiting for tables inside, outside and just about everywhere. Servers moved at a frantic pace and it didn’t slow down until after the lunch menu ended (at 3:30pm).

Service: I’ve learned over the years that any “holiday” weekend always translates to long lines at restaurants and reservations are a must. Even armed with a reservation, walking into the restaurant and seeing the crowd of people at the hostess desk, I knew there would be a wait. Our reservation was mostly honoured and we had a table 30 minutes later. Not the best, but better than a walk-in would have been. The server who seated us explained how the Ipad ordering system worked and left us to browse the menu. The app itself is easy to navigate and we placed our first order. After that, the service hit quite a few bumps.

1. The app doesn’t track what items have been delivered and what’s still outstanding
2. There’s no “call for service” option, with busboys madly delivering plates to tables, there were only a couple of servers working the floor who could check on orders and answer any questions
3. While the kitchen items were quick to arrive, items from the sushi bar were painfully slow. I understand they were backed up, but our BBQ eel from the very first order took the entire 2 hour meal to arrive, and only after inquiring 3 times. During the entire lunch, I did not see a single order of BBQ eel nigiri being served at any table around us. Then at the very end of lunch service, we finally received our orders along with all the other tables around us.
4. When we asked if we should re-order missing items or wait, different servers had different answers.

Food: The menu selection at Heart Sushi was standard with some nice additions of Thai (pad thai), Chinese (sweet and sour pork) and Korean (bulgogi) entrees. For lunch, sashimi is not available but there was a wide variety of rolls and sushi items including tobiko and mackerel. I was a little disappointed that they had run out of tiramisu for dessert. As or quality, every dish we ordered was on par or above other AYCE restaurants. I really enjoyed the sweet and sour soup, the grilled pin mackerel was very crispy, the tempura was lightly battered, not oily and all of the raw fish was fresh. The rolls were bite sized with an excellent rice to filling ratio. Note that drinks are not included in the AYCE menu and need to be ordered at an additional charge.

With a lunch buffet menu priced at $16.99 for adults on weekends and $14.99 on weekdays, I was happy with the menu selection, quality of the food and think it’s well priced. With all of the missteps in service though, it will be a hard sell to convince my family for a return visit when they’re already big fans of Yang’s and K&B Sushi.

As I’ve mentioned previously, my family loves AYCE Japanese with Yang’s being our usual choice. When I was home for the holidays this year, we decided to try a new location with great reviews. K&B Sushi took over the space previously occupied by Crazy Sushi in the AMC complex at Winston Churchill and the QEW. They have a teppanyaki room in addition to AYCE dinner and lunch menus.

Atmosphere: The decor is very modern and clean, light wood and dark leather materials are used with a ceiling full of white pendant light. There are a lot of tables for large groups and booths have high partitions, giving them a private feel. During that lunch hour, most of the patrons were families and many had small children.

Service: K&B is one of the AYCE restaurants who utilize an Ipad ordering system. The app was very easy to use. All of the menu items are pictured, categorized and had a description. You simply go through the menu and press “+” to set the number of orders of each item. Once you’re set, there’s a button to call the server, who will come and sends the order to the kitchen. The whole process was really efficient and I found all of our items arrived with no mistakes. It was hard to get a server’s attention though. Outside of placing an order or serving a dish, no one really came by. The app did allow you to call for service. Also, adding anything to the order must be done through the app, it’s not possible to just verbally tell your server.

Food: In addition to the usual Japanese rolls, nigiri, noodles and appetizers, K&B offers a select number of Chinese dishes as well such as a sweet and sour soup and shrimp dumplings. My dad doesn’t eat raw fish so we always order a lot of cooked items from the kitchen as well as rolls and nigiri. The galbi and teriyaki were well cooked, not tough and the tempura were lightly battered. I really liked the sweet and sour soup, one of my weaknesses at any restaurant. As for the shrimp dumplings, I don’t think they were made fresh but they were decent. The katsu’s were also thin, very tender, and had a nice crispy breading. A unique menu item was the unagi pancake, which was bbq eel topping a small korean pancake covered in katsu sauce, pretty good.

The sushi assortment at lunch is one of the widest I’ve seen in Mississauga with saba and mackerel offered. Each piece had a nice thick slice of fish and the right amount of rice. Similarly, their rolls were also heavy on the filling and light on rice, the best kind of roll. Ice cream selection is standard with green tea, red bean, mango, vanilla and chocolate. Soft drinks and hot tea are also included. K&B Sushi might be our new go to AYCE restaurant if the quality and service remains consistent.

Ba Shu Ren Jia (or Bashu Sichuan) has two locations in the GTA, the original near Pacific Mall and one in Mississauga. My family is big on Sichuan cuisine and have been frequenting the Mississauga location of Ba Shu Ren Jia since they opened. My mom spent part of her childhood in the province and uses a lot of spice in her cooking. We can all handle our heat and I love the peppery (mala 麻辣) flavour.

Atmosphere: The decor and interior is a little worn. They haven’t renovated or updated since opening and it shows on the edges of furniture and the photos on the walls. Entries on the menu have been crossed out and new dishes manually written in. I would classify them as a casual to mid-range venue. There’s lots of large tables for bigger groups, but also a quick stop for a family meal. The menu items also range in price point from simple to more complex dishes and all reasonable.

Service: To be honest, this is always hit or miss. We’ve had great experiences and not so great ones. It is slow, they’re usually understaffed especially on holidays during meal times and service is minimal. Like most Chinese restaurants you have to flag someone down to refill tea pots, get the bill and they’ll provide takeout boxes for you to self-pack. None of this is really unexpected and we’ve never had any rude or poor service experiences. It is slow though and be prepared to ask for the service you need.

Food: Bashu really shines when it comes to the authenticity of their dishes’ flavours and this is what brings us back visit after visit. The authenticity of the flavours. A few years ago, there was a period where the food had a sweeter flavour profile (to appeal to more customers?), which was odd so my family took a break from visiting. However, they’ve gone back to the traditional mala spice and it’s a welcome return.

We stopped by this year for Mother’s Day and ordered the spicy pork kidney, lamb leg, liang fen (凉粉), oil steamed eggplant, dan dan mian (担担面), la zi ji ding (辣子鸡丁) and fried shui zhu (水煮) fish.

The lamb leg was gamey, tender and fell off the bone. The spice rub really seeped into the meat. I really like kidney and it’s a lot of work o prepare at home and challenging to not overcook. The dish at Bashu is always cooked to just the right texture, the innard is always cleaned properly and with the right amount of spice.

Bashu offers a variety of Sichuan street food/dim sum and we always order the liang fen and dan dan mian. Liang fen is made with green pea powder, forms into a jell-o like texture and is then carved into strands of noodles using a special grater-like tool. The noodles are then mixed with mala spices and oil. The dish is very refreshing and the noodles are a great vessel for flavour. Dan dan mian is cooked somen noodles, topped with a special sauce, fried ground pork and typically pea sprouts.

My favourite dish is the la zi ji ding, which is pieces of chicken (with skin) deep fried mixed in with dried peppers and mala spice. It’s amazing and usually a race in my family to search out the pieces of chicken from amongst the peppers. I highly recommend this dish even if spice isn’t your thing. This dish defines savoury. This was our first time ordering the fried shui zhu fish, we usually have the dish with boiled fish fillets. The fish is freshly killed, cleaned, pan fried and then submerged in the spicy oil sauce along with bean sprouts, mushrooms and rice cakes. The pan is served on a gas stove that continues  to simmer the dish on the table. This was a large dish and took up a food third of our table. It’s also the spiciest dish we ordered that day and worth every burnt off taste bud. Frying the fish before simmering at a low heat really sealed in the flavour and kept the meat soft. Next time I would order a smaller portion. We only finished half of the fish since it was the last to arrive and we were all pretty full already.

Korean BBQ is always a crowd pleasure for my family of carnivores. While I enjoy the higher quality meat at non-AYCE Korean BBQ venues, with a teenage brother, the AYCE option is usually a better value for my family. Relative to Toronto, the price tag for AYCE is a steeper in Mississauga, ~$25/person compared to as low as $15/person at Korean Grill House downtown. When I saw that Miga was offering their AYCE lunch menu again back in February, we decided to give it a try.

Miga menu includes Korean entrees along with sushi rolls and appetizers. The AYCE menu does not include table top grilling, but rather the meat is cooked in the kitchen and served in bowls. For lunch, I actually liked this because while it’s less interactive, you don’t have to worry about burning things and the food is a consistent quality. My mom was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to cook ourselves though.

We tried the majority items on the menu under “Korean Side Dish”, “Appetizer”, “Korean Food” and “Korean BBQ”. The side dishes were pretty standard. The seaweed salad had two kinds, wakame and kelp. I liked the kimchi pancake a lot and the bibimbap while the grilled mackerel was a bit bland. As for rolls, we only ordered a dynamite and a spicy salmon roll. They were ok, nothing special.

For the Korean BBQ items, Miga offers galbi, bulgogi, pork and chicken. The pork and chicken are both in a sweet, spicy sauce and very tender. The galbi was cut thin, grilled well and not too fat. My brother really liked the bulgogi and he had a few helpings of this dish. It tasted pretty standard to me, good, but again normal.

I liked the addition of the Korean menu items as AYCE and while nothing was amazing, Miga offered a consistent quality of food with a good selection at a very reasonable price, which is what I look for in an AYCE restaurant when food is churned out quickly and in high volumes. The restaurant offers a more varied menu than typical AYCE Japanese restaurants and is a good change for anyone who prefers cooked items to raw.

Emerald  has been my family’s go to dim sum place for the past decade despite the long lines (even longer on Holiday weekends) because of the authenticity and consistent quality of their dishes. The trick is to get a table before 10am, 10:30am at the latest if you don’t want to take a number and wait for up to an hour. The only drawback with arriving early is that a few times, we’ve had to wait for the classic dishes to be prepared (chicken feet, tripe, steamed buns).

Atmosphere: I usually visit the restaurant in the morning on weekends for brunch and it is always packed. The restaurant isn’t fine-dining , you don’t have the plastic table covers but there are cliche Chinese Restaurant decorations (ie. paper lanterns, lots of red brocade) and the settings are worn. The restaurant is spacious with many large tables and it is a great venue for family brunch.

Service: Some people prefer dim sum places where you order from a menu/list but I love the cart style ordering. You don’t know what dishes you could be missing out on until it goes by you and for me, who’s not comfortable reading Chinese, often I can’t tell what a dish is by the English menu description. My family always order the same dishes at dim sum, but I like to try a new dish each time and with the dishes in carts being walked around the restaurant, I have the opportunity to see if anything appeals.

Food: I quite like the food at Emerald and it fills my dim sum cravings nicely. The meat dishes are always tender and flavourful; we always order the short ribs and chicken feet. I like the congee and rice roll as well, the roll isn’t too doughy or thick. The shrimp dumplings are filled quite full and again, the wrapping is thin and a good texture. Pictured below, that morning we also ordered the steamed scallops, pork stomach, calamari (a little oily), tofu skin rolls, steamed cha siu buns and a few sticky rice buns. My brother’s favourite are the steam cha siu buns and we always order a few extra to take away. I had to snap these pictures quickly before my family emptied the plates.

Overall, Emerald has a large variety of dim sum offerings (and a menu of larger entree size dishes) in a casual setting that’s at a good price point. In Mississauga, it’s one of my best recommendations for Chinese food.

All you can eat (AYCE) Japanese restaurants are tricky. Orders tend to be forgotten, food quality may be questionable and service will feel harried. It can also get pricey if you’re looking for a wide selection (sashimi vs. nigiri, galbi vs. beef teriyaki) and good quality. Dinner prices on a weekend will normally go up to $25-$28 per person, and if drinks aren’t included you’re looking at a $35-$45 bill easy. For that price, you could eat a really good sushi meal that doesn’t trade quality for quantity (a good AYCE restaurant finds the optimal balance between these factors). Thus, the decision to AYCE or not really depends on your mood and company. If you’d like to try a variety of dishes with a group of large appetites or choosy eaters, AYCE is a good choice. Everyone can order what they want and eat their fill.

Yang’s Sushi Bar in Mississauga opened recently in May 2011, and it has another location in Markham that is consistently well-reviewed. I’ve been to the Mississauga location twice now, once for dinner and once for lunch. The menu selection varies between the 2 meals as most AYCE places do (ie. sashimi at dinner only, more cooked items at dinner), but the selection was wide enough that you don’t feel restricted with the lunch menu. The raw fish is very fresh (tasting it stand alone, as well as in comparison to other AYCE places in Mississauga) and the nigiri sushi is sliced thick with a reasonable amount of rice, not giant balls. They also offered salmon and tuna roses on the lunch menu, which is made up of 3 pieces of salmon per “rose” around a ball of rice. There was a wide variety of rolls from spicy salmon to mango and black dragon. The spider roll is only available at dinner. I usually don’t order hand rolls at AYCE because they’re heavier on the rice content so we skipped that section of the menu and focused on the makis.

The cooked food from the kitchen was well proportioned. An order of katsu don arrived in a small single serving bowl and there was no worry about filling up a single order, which allowed me to sample several of the udon and ramen dishes as well. The galbi and fried squid were both tender and not over-cooked to the point of turning rubbery. I would pass on the fried scallop (pictured) as it’s heavy on the batter and the takoyaki (pictures) was a touch cold. You can also order shrimp, yam and vegetable tempura separately, which gives a nice flexibility to the diner.

Service wasn’t overly attentive, no one hovered at your table or checked in throughout the meal, but this is usually the norm at AYCE places. Servers needed to be hailed for tea/drink refills and to place new orders but everyone was pleasant and happy to help once you got their attention.

Our bill for 4 adults came to just over $60 for lunch after tax. For comparison, the bill for 2 adults for dinner, on a weekend also came to ~$60 after tax when paying with credit. Quality wise, this is the best AYCE restaurant I’ve been to in Mississauga. I see myself visiting frequently in the future for lunches and the occasional dinner.