Crown Princess Fine Dining
1033 Bay St., 416-923-8784

(Image: Vanessa Heins)

The colonial Shanghai decor is impressive, to say the least: there’s more expensive marble here than in Hadrian’s baths. Chandeliers blaze, piano concertos play, one server wears a French maid’s uniform, and the tableside service is proper and accomplished. The menu offers just about every luxury ingredient imaginable: goose liver, caviar, lobster, swallow’s nest and (ecologically disastrous) shark’s fin dishes. While the Cantonese cooking is good, it doesn’t live up to the sticker shock. That said, the $48 Peking duck wheeled out on a mahogany trolley is nicely crackly and rich-skinned; it’s best post-carving, turned into a stir-fry with crisp fried rice noodles and iceberg lettuce for wrapping. Whole grouper (don’t tell the SeaChoice folks) comes straight out of the aquarium, is steamed and clean tasting and set over a subtle house-made soy and wine broth ($24). Dim sum standouts include the flaky, golden abalone pastry and broiling-hot sesame balls enveloping marzipan and pumpkin. Mains $16–$98.

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