Hailing straight from Shanghai, Yu Garden is the first North American outpost from Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, a famous eatery located in the old Chinese district of Shanghai. The Richmond Hill restaurant is the first of 15 planned North American locations to come in next few years. While I was in Shanghai this year I stopped by the original eatery, established in 1900, to try their infamous giant soup dumpling. For that food memory, we had to brave crowds of tourists, a long queue and rain. When I heard Yu Garden was opening, I was eager to get my hands on more tasty xiao long bao in a much more comfortable setting, closer to home.

Atmosphere: Yu Garden’s decor was modern with leather chairs and square tables but also classic with chandelier lights and laser cut wood decor. A private room with glass walls was set in a corner of the dining area, housing a couple of large round tables. We did not have a reservation, but arrived at 12:30pm on a Sunday and was able to get a table without waiting. 15 minutes into our meal, a queue had formed at the entrance. The Hubby and I have eaten at Yu Garden again and on our second visit, while we didn’t have trouble getting seated, again a queue had formed outside before we left. I’d recommend reservations or going before mealtime rushes.

Service: Service was standard for a Chinese restaurant, efficient and perfectly acceptable. I found the servers curt but dishes arrived quickly and for the most part we could flag them down. While we ordered in English, I heard Mandarin and Cantonese accommodated.

Food: To start, we ordered two steamers of xiao long baos, shrimp and pork and crab roe and pork. We also ordered one King Size Crab Roe soup steamed dumpling. Each steamer came with 4 baos (prices ranged from $1.00 to $1.50 per bao) and one sauce of shredded ginger. Pink vinegar was setup at each table. Before diving into other dishes, let’s focus on the baos. These were phenomenal. The skin was thin yet a perfect texture and held together even with a little manhandling by chopsticks (to get the best picture of course). When picked up, they drooped and then puddled when dipped in the saucer. Each xiao long bao was filled with hot savoury soup. For me, the xiao long bao were the best I’ve had so far in Toronto. Still no competition to Jia Jia, but very good. On our first visit, I liked the crab one more and on our second, I found the minced pork tastier. I would have liked a bit more crab flavour.

Meanwhile, the king size soup dumpling was disappointing. The scalding crab roe soup was pretty bland. There was a lot of soup, but lacked flavour. Not as good as the one in Shanghai, or even close. We also ordered the salty tofu pudding, one of my favourite Shanghai street foods to have for breakfast. The dish at Yu Garden tasted authentic with dried shrimp, seaweed, chilli oil, preserved vegetables and green onions.

To round out our meal, we tried the deep fried salted egg yolk pumpkin and rice cakes. Both dishes were underwhelming. I prefer Shanghai Dim Sum‘s version of both dishes. With the pumpkin, sugar was added to to the batter, which distracted from the salted egg yolk. The pumpkin itself was already sweet enough. On the other hand, I the rice cakes had no wok air and used fresh sprouts instead of preserved cabbage. The rice cakes had a good texture, but I felt the dish was lacking something. I saw plates of sheng jian bao being served at other tables and wasn’t enticed to order.

Overall, I’ll definitely be back to Yu Garden for their xiao long baos and simple Shanghai dishes. I’ll be skipping the king size dumpling which was mostly gimmick.

I had lunch at A La Kitchen with a group of friends during the holidays. One couple had moved to Calgary a few years ago and requested Chinese food for the get together. With mixed reviews, I suggested trying out A La Kitchen. While the decor was interesting, unique and the restaurant modern and clean, both service and food was meh. 

Atmosphere: A La Kitchen used bamboo steamers as the main component of their decor. The wall was tiled with steamer lids and the dining room had a great piece of cascading steamers on the ceiling. I liked the artistic use of the kitchen tool, aesthetic and theme. Linen tablecloths, carved wood details and bright red accents also made the space feel clean and modern.

Service: Service wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great. As a diner, I felt neglected and could not flag down a server (a few walked right behind me and ignored my waving hand). Yes, I was more subtle and wasn’t trying to answer a question in class, but I was really trying and it was frustrating. Every server we interacted with was also curt, not very welcoming. Our egg whites with seafood was also served without vinegar, a minor hiccup but another challenge to get someone’s attention.

Food: I can overlook many service hiccups for delicious food. At A La Kitchen, it wasn’t quite enough. Lunch started with an appetizer of shredded chicken with peanut sauce. For $5.50, the portion was tiny, the same as meat off of one thigh, and mostly filler (mung bean sheets). The sauce was good, heavy on the peanut but a little bland. Our order of egg whites and seafood was also only ok. I found the egg whites were a bit stringy and not fluffy enough. Again, the flavour was on the light side.

We ordered two trays of the crab and minced pork Xiao Long Bao, sadly these were disappointing. There was little soup, the filling was under seasoned and there wasn’t enough fat. One dish I did enjoy was the Rice Cake with preserved vegetables. The rice cakes were soft, chewy and there was lots of (salt). The pan fried dumplings were ok. Each dumpling had a nice bottom but again I felt the filling was under seasoned. I did really like the the bowl of Small Wontons in Peanut Sauce. There was lots of chili sauce, crushed peanuts and the wontons were cooked perfectly.

Overall, 2/6 was disappointing for me. 

1. Yu Garden

Rating/Price: 4.0 / $
Why? Amazing xiao long baos, thin, chewy texture, plenty of soup
Must Order: Shrimp and minced pork xiao long bao
Good For? Families, lunch, quick meals

 

2. Shanghai Dim Sum

Rating/Price: 4.5 / $$
Why? Thin wrappers, juicy filling and perfectly steamed
Must Order: Xiao Long Bao original filling and with crab
Good For? Families, lunch, quick meals, big groups

 

3. Ding Tai Fung

Rating/Price: 3.5 / $
Why? Central Markham location, fresh made baos, great filling
Must Order: Xiao Long Bao, Egg white with seafood
Good For? Families, dinner, dim sum

 

4. Xiao Long Bao

Rating/Price: 4.0 / $$
Why? New restaurant, less busy than Ding Tai Fung with great XLB
Must Order: Xiao long bao with crab, Beef brisket noodle
Good For? Dim sum, families, quick meals, large groups

 

Honorable Mentions:

• N/A

Still TBE (To be Eaten):

• Mother’s Dumplings
• Chinese Traditional Buns
• Asian Legend
• A La Kitchen
• 369 Shanghai Dim Sum
• Dumpling House
• Lee Chen

Did I miss your favourite restaurant? Let me know in the comments.

Last Updated: 01/06/2016

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”.

Continuing my quest to try every xiao long bao in Toronto, the BF picked Ding Tai Fung as the venue for his family birthday dinner. This was my first visit to the restaurant, who it would seem borrowed their name from a famous restaurant in Taiwan.  Since I’ve never visited Din (no “g”) Tai Fung before, I didn’t really have any preconceptions for the Markham version.

Atmosphere: The restaurant was busy with a considerable crowd waiting at the entrance. Luckily we had reservations, which were honoured and allowed us to get a seat quickly. I liked how a portion of the kitchen was fitted with a glass window. This allowed diners to watch the chefs as they prepared dumplings and other baos to be steamed. I’m always a fan of watching how dishes are prepared.

Service: Service ranged from unmemorable to sub-par and generally seemed unorganized. At one point a girl tried to clear our steamer trays with “xiao long bao” still left! I understand being efficient but really? Other than that, dishes arrived uneventfully.

Food: We started with two cold dishes, sliced pork belly with chilli sauce and marinated beef tripe. For me, the tripe needed just a touch of salt that would have enhanced the other flavours in the sauce. The pork belly was good, sliced thin and evenly. This isn’t my favourite way to eat the cut of meat though. I prefer it charred or grilled, which caramelizes the fat.

The xiao long bao was freshly steamed and each bao was filled with a spoonful of sauce. We had a tray each of the crab and the pork fillings. With the crab, you could taste the seafood but it was light and not overwhelming. I would rank Ding Tai Fung among the top choices for xiao long bao in Toronto, just behind Shanghai Dim Sum. Sadly, the shengjian bao was not what I was looking for. Again, they were more steamed bao and not fried nearly enough, even the bottoms weren’t that crispy. The search for an authentic shengjian bao in Toronto continues.

My favourite dish of the night was the scrambled egg whites with fish. The yolk is served raw in the centre of the scrambled egg whites, which mimics crab meat, all over a bed of rice. Each bite was savoury, rich and a great combination of textures. This is a dish that I would definitely order again especially as it’s difficult to replicate at home.