I am so grateful for Canadian Chinese restaurants.
OK, who doesn’t love Chinese and Taiwanese food? I think Chinese and Mexican food/food culture are the deepest and widest of any two culinary pillars on our planet. More regionality, more techniques, more ingredients, more seasonality, more biospheres, more history, more food anthropology than anywhere else. I don’t even think it’s close.
So yesterday, I posted some Los Angeles Chinese and Taiwanese food spots I love. And my best friend called me and reminded me of a trip to Toronto where I dragged everyone to umpteen Chinese/Taiwanese restaurants and apparently told them at dinner one night that if they were on their own, “Good luck choosing. Toronto has five ‘Chinatowns’ and is arguably one of the three best city in the world not in China or Taiwan for eating that food, except perhaps for NYC and Los Angeles.”
Lots of other cities in the mix, but nowhere else comes close. I still believe that. So here is a list of my fave Toronto spots. Pared down and it’s still 15 deep!
My 15 Go-to Chinese & Taiwanese Restaurants in Toronto
Fishman’s Lobster Clubhouse
One of my fave Chinese restaurants anywhere…you have to go with family or friends, I send people there every month… it’s like Disney World for food freaks. Huge tables with lazy Susans, fish tanks line the walls filled with live eels, lobster, Dungeness crab, Alaskan king crab etc.
Let me just describe ONE thing I order every time. I always get a whole king crab. You get it served any way you like, but it’s typically suggested as 3 courses. First is all, the meaty bicep joints, cracked and deep fried in crab oil (you heard right) and tossed with fried chilies and garlic and stacked like a small mountain on a massive platter. Then comes all the other joints in an egg white and rice wine sauce with grated salted yolks. THEN while you are enjoying the steamed fish, baked eel with black bean sauce and your other dishes, out comes the crab fried rice served in the top shell as a bowl with all the head fat in it.
Inspired by all the diverse regionality of Chinese cuisine, there is a $100 chefs tasting that is beyond delicious. Think char siu glazed with wildflower honey and served traditionally with caramelized soy beans using specific muscle cuts from shoulder and neck, maybe the best I’ve eaten in years. Reservations a must.
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