“Savour that which has no flavour,” wrote Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, 2,500 years ago. Was he giving advice to the modern-day gourmets of Hong Kong?

Parochial jokes such as these were tucked into the traveller’s tales my son, Joseph, brought back from six months in northern China, together with sand from the desert city of Dunhuang and the password of the Yumen Gate in far Gansu. Like a young Marco Polo, he recounted all the marvels and curiosities he had seen—and those he had eaten. In Beijing, he and his friends rarely ate southern, Cantonese food, finding it bland. Instead, they patronized any one of the thousands of inexpensive, unpretentious Sichuan restaurants that are currently all the rage in the capital, dining on pig intestines and river fish deep-fried in chili oil.

Now 23 and an archaeologist, Joseph’s trips home are all too rare. Seeking, therefore, to fortify the parental bond, I took him out for a progressive dinner at three of downtown Toronto’s “Sichuan” restaurants. The evening was lovely, but the food was not a success. With his academic preference for accurate description, he was dismayed by the cynical lack of authenticity, the tame ingredients and lame spicing, the way each dish came hip-deep in oleaginous, soy-scented gravy—like Cantonese cooking with extra garlic and pepper.

There was nothing for it but to pack up the yurt and turn our faces to the north. Up there, along the great arc of Toronto’s suburbs, on the frontiers of other, invisible cities, we would surely find the real thing. That’s just the way it is, and has been for more than 10 years. With the exception of Henry Wu’s Cantonese gems, Lai Wah Heen and Lai Toh Heen, almost all our most interesting and authentically regional Chinese restaurants are out in the hinterland. The problem is knowing precisely where they might be. Chefs come and go unreported; restaurants change hands but keep their old names; quality dips and soars. One needs well-informed local guides, and I know of none better than wine importer–cum–restaurant consultant Deron Mitchell and his old friend Justin Tse, a man of wide-ranging accomplishments and a director of the Chinese Restaurant Association.

Mitchell and Tse have given me many hot tips in the past. Nine years ago, for example, they introduced me to Chiu Chow Boy (4771 Steeles Ave. E., 416-335-0788), on Kennedy Road south of Steeles, where chef Cheung Wong offers fine versions of the traditional Chiuchow dishes that evolved in the southern city of Chaozhou. I’ve been back several times for the whole squabs barbecued until their skin has the rich, dark gloss of mahogany; for omelettes stuffed with chopped oysters and coriander leaves, served with a saucer of intensely salty fermented fish sauce; and for the juicy duck marinated in herbed soy sauce and heaped over quivering slabs of tofu.

That first adventure in restaurant-hopping with witty Mr. Mitchell and ele­gant Mr. Tse ended in magnificently sonorous karaoke (I believe my encore of “Tell Laura I Love Her” was particularly well received). We have all changed since then—and so has the restaurant scene. Mitchell brings me up to date as he drives me north to meet Tse. At the humbler end of the spectrum, basic Korean establishments have moved eastward into Scarborough, while Vietnamese pho shops have given way to Cantonese congee places that specialize in the savoury southern rice dish with all its traditional accompaniments. Congee Wong, at Finch and Leslie, is reputed to be the best. Almost all the strange hybrid cafés offering, say, bubble tea, teppanyaki and Saigon-style sandwiches—popular six or seven years ago—proved very short-lived.

A shift has also taken place at the higher end of the industry. Back in the ’90s, Mitchell reminds me, wealthy Hong Kong investors subsidized an amazing proliferation of restaurants in Markham and Richmond Hill—for their own pleasure and to service the expected mass immigration from China. That immigration never materialized and many of the investors have since returned to Hong Kong. But lately their place has been taken by wealthy men from Taiwan or Macao, and the restaurants remain, fiercely competitive for the attention of a fickle customer base. Busy only three days a week, large restaurants keep their staff occupied with catering orders. Top chefs earn discreet money making guest appearances at the businessmen’s private clubs that float around well-heeled circles. Open only a couple of nights a week, the clubs take their food seriously, offering themed evenings or menus built around primo shark’s fin, abalone or other, more esoteric delicacies.