A classmate at McGill University once worked a summer in the 1970s at a Chinese restaurant in Niagara Falls. When the chef got busy, my classmate would help out. "I'd turn on the hot-water tap," recalls Ben Mok, now head of Coca-Cola in Tianjin, China. When the water got really hot, Mr. Mok would fill a vat, beat in some raw eggs, frozen peas and MSG. Voilà! Chinese egg-drop soup.
Today, Canadian palates are more sophisticated, especially in Toronto, where 10 per cent of the population is ethnic Chinese. David Ting, a food lover who is president of the World Journal newspaper in Toronto, says the city outranks Vancouver, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles in its array of fine Chinese restaurants.
The earliest Chinese-Canadian restaurants were run by immigrants who were not chefs. They opened restaurants -- seemingly in every Prairie town -- because they couldn't find other work. And cooking was a step up from washing other people's laundry.
They concocted a distinctive Chinese-Canadian cuisine. Among the creations that have endured are a stir-fry of celery, onions and chicken called chop suey; sweet-and-sour chicken balls; a cabbage-filled knockoff of delicate spring rolls called egg rolls; and fortune cookies -- which didn't exist in traditional Chinese cuisine.
Then came the 1980s craze for Peking duck and spicy Szechuan food. Alas, back then there were hardly any immigrants from Beijing or Sichuan. Cantonese chefs tried to meet demand by tossing in spoonfuls of chili sauce. The results were wretched.
Now, a new influx of immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and especially mainland China has put Toronto at the forefront of a Chinese culinary renaissance. Cantonese restaurants today offer free-range chicken steamed in a lotus leaf and sizzling casseroles of fresh-shucked oysters perfumed with ginger and spring onion. Even more exciting, it's now possible to sample some of China's other great regional styles: Shanghai, Szechuan, Beijing and Chiu Chow, a distinctive subset of Cantonese. No one keeps reliable statistics. But driving around the city, it seems that new restaurants are emerging like, to use a Chinese cliché, bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Mr. Ting, the World Journal executive, estimates Toronto currently has 800 of them.
But where to eat? I had already dined at Toronto icons such as Lee Garden on Spadina and Pearl Harbourfront on Queen's Quay. But with five or six Chinatowns (depending on how you count), I was looking for restaurants worth a special trip.
To compile a Top 10 list, I turned to a gaggle of gourmands. Each made suggestions or accompanied me to their favourite spots. Sometimes I went on my own, often several times. In the end, I relied on my judgment. Food was paramount. Not every dish had to be perfect, as long as some reached the sublime. Location, price and decor were secondary. But if the restaurant wasn't clean, it didn't make the list.
My qualifications include growing up in a restaurant family in Montreal. My father, Bill Wong, invented the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in the late 1960s. I have studied in Taiwan, worked in Hong Kong and lived in mainland China, where I began my culinary adventures by having my own chef during the Cultural Revolution. Later, as The Globe and Mail's China correspondent, I consumed yak penis in Gansu and yak burgers in Tibet.
Not one buffet restaurant made my Top 10 (sorry, Dad). Nor did any of the old icons. But one humble won ton noodle shop did, as did Toronto's most elegant Chinese restaurant. The staff always spoke English, to varying degrees, and the menus were bilingual, though some translations were imperfect.
Clip this list, and keep it in a safe place. Many Chinese restaurants aren't even listed in the phone book. Nor does the Yellow Pages list a single Chinese restaurant in its specialty guide. Many are located in malls, so the street address may not even be displayed. Bear in mind that owners sell and chefs move on, so don't wait too long to try these.
Jan Wong's top woks
BA SHU REN JIA
4771 Steeles Ave. E.,
416-335-0788
This restaurant doesn't even have its actual name on the sign: Ba Shu Ren Jia, which could be translated as "Sichuan Folks." Instead, the red-and-yellow awning fronting Steeles Avenue says, simply, "Sichuan Cuisine." That's a low-key way of announcing one of Toronto's first restaurants serving the authentic fiery cuisine of this landlocked southwestern Chinese province. Xu Liang, the 35-year-old chef and owner, graduated from the Sichuan Culinary Institute in Chengdu.
Lunch specials range from $4.99 to $5.50. They include such classics as gong bao chicken, the classic diced chicken with peanuts and chili, sometimes rendered as kung pao chicken. But this is the real thing, with obscene amounts of blackened chili peppers.
No other restaurant I've ever been to in Toronto serves a whole fish showered in minced bright-red pickled chilies, as is currently all the rage in Los Angeles. On the menu here, it's called "Home Made Fish," but that's only because no one could translate it. It costs $12.99 and feeds three to four people. Other Szechuan classics are ma po tofu, deep-fried green beans and one of my favourites, shredded pork in spicy sauce, otherwise known as Yuxiang pork. (Lunch for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $10, dinner: $25.) CHIU CHOW BOY
3261 Kennedy Rd., 416-335-0336
Chiu Chow cuisine is a distinctive branch of Cantonese. One of its signature dishes is an appetizer of marinated sliced goose or duck. At Chiu Chow Boy, the duck comes sliced thin over sliced bean curd, bathed in an aromatic jus. Try the tureen of duck consommé with preserved lemons, a culinary leap year away from gloppy egg-drop soup. Bite-sized morsels of beefsteak or boneless chicken in Chiu Chow sauce is another classic, framed by a bed of deep-fried cilantro. Service is brisk and beer is cheap. Cash only. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $25.)
CONGEE QUEEN
895 Lawrence Ave. E.,
416-916-0338
In a former life, when it was a Pizza Hut in the heart of Don Mills, I noticed most customers were Asian. Not surprisingly, when Congee Queen opened here a couple of years ago, it was an instant hit. Henry Wu lives nearby and often drops in here for comfort food. His favourites: mixed vegetable chow mein and shark's fin congee with a trio of shredded meats. Both are soothing and healthy. Less healthy, but irresistible, are the deep-fried crab claws, actually minced shrimp artfully wrapped around a nugget of crab meat. The signature dish here is congee, a soothing, savoury rice porridge that one of my in-laws derides as wallpaper paste. (It does look like paste, but it tastes heavenly.) The shrimp congee is a bargain at $4.75. The minced fish congee, $4.35, uses the freshest white fish, delicately scented with dried orange peel.(Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $25.)
DING TAI FUNG
3235 Highway 7 E., Markham,
Unit 18B 905-943-9880
Mainland Chinese flock to this place on Highway 7 for its authentic Shanghai dim sum. The name has been lifted from a famous eatery in Taipei favoured by Japanese tourists and Hong Kong movie stars. But the real stars in this Toronto replica are the xiao long bao, badly translated here as "steamed minced pork buns." These are classic Shanghai dumplings, thin pasta artfully wrapped around minced pork. It's easy to consume them by the bamboo steamer full, dipping them in dark vinegar, the Chinese equivalent of balsamic, seasoned with slivered fresh ginger.
The dim sum here is unlike anything you've had in a Cantonese restaurant. Try the savoury steamed vegetarian dumplings. Steamed chive and meat dumplings (zheng jiao) burst with flavour of Chinese chives.
Here, the stir-fried dishes are an afterthought. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $30.)
FANG'S RESTAURANT
3225 Highway 7 E., Unit 3,
Markham, 905-947-9969
The Chinese name is more properly rendered as the Fang Family's Little Restaurant. It's run by Steven Fang, a Taiwanese Canadian, who is the brother of the owner of Ding Tai Fung. Call it sibling rivalry, but Steven sells the same xiao long bao for $5.25 a half-dozen, 25 cents cheaper than his brother, Peter. And if you can't get a seat at Ding Tai Fung, you can probably get into Fang's -- both restaurants are in the same strip mall on Highway 7.
The Shanghainese stir-fried dishes here are the main event. One standout is a dish called "baked ham with honey syrup." That's a rather nondescript translation for ambrosia -- thin slices of sweet cured ham and deep-fried bean curd skin served with steamed buns in the shape of lotus flowers. You take a bun, split it open and stuff it with the ham and crispy bean curd, the Chinese version of a BLT. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $30.)
JIM CHAI KEE
270 West Beaver Creek Rd., Unit 18, Richmond Hill, 905-881-8778
This eatery serves the best Cantonese won ton soup in the megacity. Chinese typically eat won ton for lunch or a late-night snack. They would never eat it the way it's served at Canadian-Chinese restaurants, as a soup before the meal.
There are just 17 tables here, and you may have to share. The prices range from $4 for four shrimp won tons with noodles to $5.50 for a combo of the won ton, noodles, fish balls and beef. The only other dish is steamed Chinese broccoli ($2). The won tons here are the size of golf balls, bigger than anything served in Hong Kong. No one complains because they're delicious, and packed with whole shrimp.
Jim Chai Kee gives new meaning to the term "fast food." Your order will arrive in about 45 seconds. You have a choice of traditional thin egg noodles, rice fettuccine or rice vermicelli. You can also add thin sliced stir-fried beef or Chinese gefilte fish -- house-made fish balls of minced dace, a freshwater fish, scented with cilantro and dried orange peel. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $10.)
LAI WAH HEEN
108 Chestnut St., 416-977-9899
Located in the Metropolitan Hotel, Lai Wah Heen is Toronto's most elegant Chinese restaurant, and one of the most expensive. It attracts power lunchers like Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman in addition to Hollywood actors. When I lunched Robert Duvall here, stuffing him (and myself) for $168.12, with no alcohol, he was so happy he did a little tango across the dining room.
The Cantonese dim sum is innovative. One, filled with fresh salmon, is tinted pink and shaped like a Chinese scholar cap. At dinner, the $68 prix fixe requires a minimum of six people. It includes spring rolls filled with foie gras, pan-seared beef tenderloin and wok-baked butterflied lobster.
I hate most Chinese desserts. Lai Wah Heen offers a full range of house-made ice cream and French pastries from its Senses bakery. My companion suggested I try a Chinese sweet called "double-boiled egg white and cream," which he said was good for the complexion. It sounded awful, but it was delicious, a Chinese version of crème brûlée without the sugar crust. The steamed custard came hot, in a delicate white bowl, perfumed with fresh ginger juice and garnished with a square of 18-karat gold leaf. The gold melted in my mouth, leaving a slightly metallic taste, but my skin, alas, looked the same. (Lunch for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $60, dinner: $120.)
NEW SKY
353 Spadina Ave., 416-596-8787
This restaurant looks no different from the other eateries in Spadina Chinatown -- except for the crowds. After 6 p.m., don't try to go without a reservation. Despite the wall-to-wall carpet, the noise level is high and service can be spotty. But New Sky is the only place I recommend in the neighbourhood. The free-range chicken steamed in lotus leaf is offered only in the Chinese-language part of the menu, at $10.95. Ask for it; the waiters speak English. The specialty, though, is fresh seafood. The live fish steamed with ginger and scallions is ambrosial. You may be startled when the waiter brings the flopping fish to your table for inspection. It's to prove to you that they aren't fetching a dead one from the refrigerator. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $25.)
SAM WOO SEAFOOD
325 Bamburgh Circle, Unit A101 416-502-2888
Despite its name, this restaurant offers a wonderful two-course $30 Peking duck dinner. First, the crisp skin and breast meat are served with a generous number of paper-thin pancakes. You can order the second course as minced duck meat with celery and carrots, described as "crystal wrap" because you eat it like tacos wrapped in a shell of crisp iceberg lettuce.
The seafood, in aquariums against the wall, sometimes includes shrimp, sea bass, lobster, Vancouver crab and eel. Definitely order a steamed fish with ginger and scallions, and try the dou miao, or pea sprouts, braised with Ontario-grown emperor mushrooms. The best soup is a kind of bouillabaisse -- rich fish stock served with chunks of fresh fish, soft bean curd and thousand-year eggs. The thousand-year eggs, of course, aren't; they're preserved duck eggs, usually an iridescent dark green. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $45.)
SCARBOROUGH GRAND SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
23 Glen Watford Dr., 416-292-1810
Despite its name, the best part of this restaurant is the Cantonese dim sum that is consumed like Spanish tapas, in small dishes but in vast quantities. Chinese eat dim sum with pots of steaming jasmine, oolong or chrysanthemum tea. Here, prices vary with demand. A dish of dim sum is a mere $1.50 before 11 a.m. on weekdays. On weekends and holidays, it's $1.80 before 11 a.m. After that, the price jumps to $2.10 a dish. On a recent visit, I managed to stuff four people for $6 a person, including tax and tip. But the prices aren't the reason Scarborough Grand Seafood is always packed. The dim sum is freshly made and delicious. (Lunch or dinner for two, excluding drinks, tax or tip: $12-20, depending on the hour.)
Members of the jury
Richard Ling, a lawyer at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, loyally eats only at his clients' restaurants. Near his downtown office, that limits him to Hy's Steak House and Lai Wah Heen (which made the Top 10 list). "The most important thing for me is the tablecloths," he says, fingering the Frette linens. But he also loves Lai Wah Heen's traditional hak gow, shrimp steamed in a translucent rice-flour wrapper. As a frequent diner, Mr. Ling gets free tea -- no small freebie when Dragon Well tea sells there for $9 a person.
Richard Ling, an agent at Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd., has been known to smuggle in his favourite sparkling white -- a 1999 Vineland Estates Brut from Niagara -- and sweet-talk the staff into pouring it into a teapot. His loves to pair its bright citrus flavour with seafood -- wok-fried lobster or steamed fish with scallions and ginger. Not surprisingly, his favourite restaurant is New Sky, the only restaurant in Spadina Chinatown to make the list.
Cheuk Kwan, who produced a documentary series about Chinese restaurants around the world, throws a Christmas sushi party for a hundred of his closest friends. Trained in Japan, he slices tuna, salmon and mackerel so fresh he picks it up from a fish store near the airport. Meanwhile, sous-chefs such as Jack Layton, Olivia Chow and others make the rice balls, with varying degrees of success. And in case any of his guests prefers their food cooked, Mr. Kwan also roasts the most succulent Chinese BBQ soya chicken wings.
David Ting, president of World Journal, a Chinese daily, loves the toasted pillowy sesame buns, called shao bing, served at Great Khan Mongolian Grill, an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant in Markham. The buns, the Chinese equivalent of the croissant, are fabulous there, even though Mongolian Grill didn't make the list. "The shao bing here is better than anywhere in the world," said Mr. Ting, whose mother taught him to cook the Shandong dishes of his ancestral province. He also highly recommends the Shanghai dim sum at Ding Tai Fung, which made the list.
Tony Wong, MPP, has way too many Chinese restaurateurs in his riding of Markham, so naming names would be akin to committing political suicide. Speaking on condition he not be quoted, Mr. Wong nervously named four of his favourite restaurants. Only one made the list, but our lips are sealed. All we'll say is that Mr. Wong, a native of Hong Kong, adores Cantonese cuisine -- and he has good taste.
Thomas Qu, an engineer at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington facility, was the first mainland Chinese to run for office in Ontario. He ran unsuccessfully for Markham city council -- specifically, the seat Mr. Wong vacated when he ran for the provincial legislature. Mr. Qu, who was born in Beijing, loves northern-style Chinese food, especially the Peking duck at Sam Woo Seafood.
Henry Wu grew up in Hong Kong, but never set foot in Luk Yu, the iconic dim sum house in the then-British colony. "When I was young, I was always told it was so snooty we wouldn't get in," he recalled. In the 1990s, when Mr. Wu was studying for a PhD in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he decided he had enough spare time to open a hotel in Toronto. His father, a Hong Kong businessman, backed him -- provided he open a fine Chinese restaurant there. Now Mr. Wu is marking the 10th anniversary of the Metropolitan Hotel's Lai Wah Heen, Toronto's most haute dim sum restaurant -- but he still hasn't finished his PhD.