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Trying to choose a selection of our favourite lunch picks from the last year proved too much like choosing a selection of our favourite children. So instead we present a complete year of lunch picks, ranked by price, from a humble porchetta sandwich (a reasonable $6.75) to a somewhat less humble five-course feast (treat yourself for $100).
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Weekly Lunch Pick: a weekday feast for two at Chinatown’s newest dim sum restaurant
(Images: Renée Suen)
Up on the third floor of an old Chinese mall on the south side of Dundas sits Dim Sum King, a new Chinatown spot that serves excellent renditions of steamed, fried, boiled, baked and braised classics at reasonable prices. The large, open room is filled with the usual cacophony of chopsticks clicking against dishes and waiters circulating around linen-covered tables with old-school trolleys. Although daily midday specials are available for $5.99, the better deal on weekday lunches is to order by the plate, since all sizes—small, medium and large—go for $2.
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Weekly Lunch Pick: a spread of diverse northern Chinese dim sum
The crab and pork soup dumplings at Asian Legend (Image: Renée Suen)
The rustic northern-style dim sum at Asian Legend is a hearty alternative to the dainty small plates found at most Cantonese restaurants.
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Good Stuff Cheap: nine of the city’s best foods for under $6
A few bucks won’t fulfill your caviar dreams—if it does, you need to dream bigger—but it’s possible to taste the best of the city’s food for next to nothing
Inventively flavoured macaroons are perfectly pillowy treats worthy of a patisserie in Saint-Germain-des-Près. $2.10 each. Nadege, 780 Queen St. W., 416-368-2009.
Coleslaw delivers creamy crunch with a kick (even better as a topping on the pulled pork sandwich). $4. The Stockyards, 699 St. Clair Ave. W., 416-658-9666.Read the rest of this entry »
Introducing: Dynasty Chinese Cuisine, the downtown dim sum staple reborn
Inside the dining room of the new Dynasty
Last fall saw the quiet shuttering of a couple of downtown dim sum giants: Bright Pearl in Chinatown and Dynasty Chinese Cuisine on Bloor (in both cases, restaurant owners and property owners were butting heads over the lease). While Bright Pearl is still “closed for renovations,” tourists and dim sum lovers alike breathed a sign of relief when Dynasty reopened—just in time for the Christmas rush—at the Yorkville location where True once served up organic, local fare.
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12 best bets for Winterlicious 2011: our chief critic goes through the menus so you don’t have to
A steak dinner at Noce (Image: Renée Suen)
Big-spending downtown Torontonians have taken in the past few years to whining about Winterlicious, but the two-week dining festival, running from January 28 through February 10, remains popular for a reason: it offers great value, particularly if you choose your reservations well. Here are a dozen of Toronto Life’s best bets. They’re older, more established places, generally, with kitchens that clearly care. And though we haven’t yet tasted the restaurants’ 2011 Winterlicious menus, they’re full of interesting, delicious-sounding picks.
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Feasting at the Ex: nine foods that stand out (for various hilarious reasons) at the Canadian National Exhibition
The Food Building beckons (Image: Ian Muttoo)
Since the kickoff of the 132nd edition of the Ex, deep-fried butter has dominated CNE-related headlines. There’s no doubt that it’s worth trying (we thought it tasted like a doughnut), but we felt there were other artery-clogging delights that were being overshadowed. We found eight other foods that equally piqued our interest, either because they’re the last thing we’d expect to see at the midway or because of their curious ability to make us feel full just by looking at them.
Here they are, with a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating »
Where to eat lunch this week: Lai Wah Heen
This legendary haute Chinese kitchen delivers a full—and fully delicious—dim sum experience in less than an hour
Seafood dumplings and cream tarts
The place: Perched on the second floor of the Metropolitan Hotel, Lai Wah Heen has long been Toronto’s go-to spot for haute contemporary Chinese dining. A maple-panelled room provides privacy for VIPs, but the main room has its own austere calm, despite the lunch rush.
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Where to eat lunch this week: $3.28 dim sum
The dim sum choices in Chinatown can easily overwhelm, but this long-time favourite rises above the rest with fresh and comforting midday dishes—none priced higher than $3.28.
Where to eat during Pride 2009
The Gay Village is buzzing as it gets ready for Pride’s climax this weekend. As any yearly attendee knows, Church Street’s focus during the last weekend of June is on fun and drinking—not dining. For Torontonians and tourists looking for great food and respite from the crowds, here are our picks for where to eat during Pride 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Where to eat lunch this week
Dim sum delights (Photo by Catherine Hayday)
Our weekly search for Toronto’s best midday meals led us to this amazing Chinese dining hall. The two-bite delicacies offer some surprising revelations. First, turnip can be delicious. Second, indulging in dim sum need not be solely a weekend pursuit.
Hidden treasure: A photographic tour through some of Toronto’s best dim sum
In the beginning: Our plate at Grand Chinese Cuisine waits to be filled (All photos by Renée Suen)
One of Toronto’s best dim sum experiences occurs in the strangest of venues: the Doubletree Hilton hotel near Pearson airport. Grand Chinese Cuisine is as glamorous as its name suggests. Heavy table linens add a muted, luxurious ambience to the dining room—a circular enclave with walnut blinds that block out the lobby so effectively that it is hard to believe we are dining in a hotel (or in Etobicoke, for that matter). Most foodies are familiar with the traditional forms of dim sum, but nouveau styles, like the dishes here, have taken connoisseurs by storm. We find ourselves sampling flavourful treats that are as appealing to the eye as they are to our appetites—all with a mid-range price tag. Our photographic tour of a legendary dim sum meal, after the jump.
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