Congee Wong

I have somehow managed to fall behind on my blog posts again. I blame the hubbub around my son's first birthday - I can't believe he's one year old already! But I'm just going to dig back to when he was still not yet ten months old and I was having lunch with my mother.

Restaurant: Congee Wong
Location: North York
Meal: Lunch
Day: Friday
Son's Age: 9 months

My mother asked me what I wanted to eat and I said I wanted Chinese food. I don't have a big selection of Chinese restaurants in my area so since I was in the northeast end of the city, my mom suggested Congee Wong. The restaurant is located in a plaza at Finch and Leslie.

Accessibility: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
For the record, the plaza's parking lot is insane. If you have ever been in a Chinese parking lot, you know what I'm talking about. The parking lot itself is a bit cramped, and even at lunch time on a weekday it is busy. This doesn't affect the accessibility of the restaurant itself, but I feel that it's worth noting. As for Congee Wong, it is surprisingly accessible, which is pretty uncommon for Chinese restaurants! We were seated in a booth and my son was provided with a high chair.

Yes he has already started eating in this photo and you can see that he's pretty pleased about it. The washroom also had a proper change table!

The restaurant itself was wheelchair accessible (and therefore stroller accessible), even equipped with automatic doors. You really can't ask for anything more baby friendly. 

Service: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

When we arrived, we mentioned that we had a baby and we were seated in a back corner, away from the commotion of other patrons and servers weaving around the tables throughout the rest of the restaurant. The hostess indicated that this was better because we got a booth and the baby was able to sit at the end of the table without us having to worry that someone might bump into him. I didn't need to request hot water as I had brought a food pouch this time, but our server brought us a takeout bowl and spoon in case we wanted to share our food. 

She pretty much left us alone other than that, which I'm actually okay with - servers at Chinese restaurants are not typically chatty people anyway. 

Food: ⭐⭐⭐

Again with the disclaimers: I have had congee here before and that is what they are known for (hence the name), so I actually recommend that you try the congee. That being said, I always rate restaurants based on the particular experience, and in this case, I ordered ho fun with fish balls and beef balls. 

I had actually already started eating by the time I remembered to take a picture, so the presentation depicted is a bit inaccurate. This place is not known for ho fun (rice noodles), and you can definitely tell - the dish was unremarkable and a bit on the bland side. It wasn't terrible by any means, but you can get better ho fun elsewhere for sure. 

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The restaurant itself is very baby friendly, and the service is probably as good as you can expect from an authentic Chinese restaurant. Please order congee though, and skip the ho fun!

Asian Legend

I mentioned in my last post that I was a bit behind in my blog, so I'm going to try to bang out a couple of entries today. And I'm so behind that I am currently about to write about Christmas. It is now February. Again, so sorry!

Restaurant: Asian Legend
Location: Scarborough
Meal: Lunch
Day: Sunday
Son's Age: 8 months

I was having lunch with my in-laws on Christmas day, and while many places are closed, Chinese restaurants are typically still open. Don't worry, we had a big Christmas dinner at my in-laws' house that evening also - I am not one of those miserable people that goes out for Chinese food on Christmas because I have no other options (that's a movie, right? I vaguely recall hearing about this on a Top Chef episode...). Anyway, my in-laws really like Asian Legend, so that's where we ended up.

Accessibility: ⭐⭐
You can find my previous blog post about Asian Legend to read about accessibility, but obviously this has not changed - there is still no space to change a baby. The new development, however, is that I discovered that they have high chairs available!

If you do come here, though,l please double check your high chair. They brought us one where the buckle was broken and we had to request a new one.

Service: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I found our server to be very attentive - he was quick to bring us a high chair, and upon discovering that it was not functional, he immediately brought out a new one. He also brought us a bowl of hot water to heat my son's food.

I admit the bowl is comically large considering I'm heating up a 2 oz baby cube, but it got the job done. The server checked in with us several times throughout the lunch to make sure we had everything we needed for the baby, as well as extra napkins, which I found to be very thoughtful.

Food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
We ended up ordering several dishes, and probably way more than we needed. We started with some fried dumplings and green onion pancake.

You can't go wrong with either of these dishes, in my opinion, as they are both Shanghai classics. We also ordered the rice cakes with shrimp and pork again.

Still delicious, obviously, since we always order this one. This time, we also ordered a ja jeung mein, or as the menu calls it, minced pork with noodles in peking sauce.

In case you're wondering, yes, this is the original dish that inspired the Korean version of jja jang myun, but made with minced pork and shredded cucumber. It was very satisfying, but don't order it thinking of the Korean dish because it's not same. We also got some fried noodles with chicken.

I have to be honest - this one is not my favourite. It's quite bland, it pales in comparison to the other dishes, and given how much we ordered, it was highly unnecessary. I think we decided we needed to offset the saucy noodles, since we also got some dan dan noodles in peanut sauce.

It's funny - I always forget about dan dan noodles and then get very excited when it's put in front of me. It's delicious, and if you like peanuts, you definitely need to try this sometime. Of course, no visit to a Northern Chinese restaurant is complete without xiao long bao!

Classic pork dumplings with soup - always hits the spot!

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐½
It's definitely possible to bring your baby to this restaurant, since there are high chairs and the food is delicious and served family style. The setup and decor of Asian Legend is also more comfortable and less intimidating than other Chinese restaurants, if you are trying Shanghai food for the first time, but the food is still very good. That being said, if your baby needs a diaper change, it is probably more convenient to run out to your car than to use the washroom there.

Golden Jade Restaurant

For my aunt's birthday, my cousin arranged a surprise family lunch in Markham, and of course I brought my baby along with me.

Restaurant: Golden Jade Restaurant
Location: Markham
Meal: Lunch
Day: Sunday
Son's Age: 7 months

Apparently, this restaurant actually relocated from the Steeles and Silver Star area. The entire meal was ordered ahead of time so I must admit that I am not always aware of what I ate or what it would be called on the menu, but I can still review how I liked it!

Accessibility: ⭐️
The good news is, there is a dedicated parking lot. I brought my son in his car seat to place on a chair at the table.

Of course, since this was a family function, the moment I set the car seat down, a family member came and scooped him up, so here is a photo of the empty car seat! The washrooms, on the other hand, are far from accessible.

There is absolutely no counter space to change a diaper and no change table. If you drove, I suppose you could change your baby in your car. Also, I did not see any high chairs around, nor was one offered to me, so I suspect they don't have any, in case your child is old enough to sit in one.

Service: ⭐️⭐️
Despite the fact that it was a surprise lunch, my aunt was actually quite punctual. Lunch was already late (1pm), but food did not arrive until an hour later. I'm particularly aware because my sister could only stay for an hour and thus was not able to eat anything for lunch. In general, the servers barely acknowledged us, and the only reason I give two stars is because they helped arrange the surprise birthday party and helped us take a group photo afterward.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I am going to try my best to describe each of these dishes as accurately as possible. First, we started with soup.

Generally, I enjoy soup, and I found that this was no exception. It was a nice way to start the meal on a cool day in November (although it would be nicer if I didn't have to wait an hour for it). The next dish was chicken and jellyfish.

The chicken was served cold (intentionally - not a product of the late start). It's quite good once you wrap your head around eating cold chicken, and it goes surprisingly well with the jellyfish, which I usually associate with pork. Next there was this dish.

I have to admit that I don't remember what this was or how it tasted, but clearly it did not leave any kind of impression on me, good or bad. We then had some fried fish.

This dish was pretty tasty albeit a little dry. There was a little bit of chilli on it, so it gives a little bit of a kick but still manageable for those who can't handle their food too spicy. This was followed by beef and mushrooms. 

This was also good but relatively generic, so it provided a bit of variety to the meal but was not a standout. We also had sweet and sour pork. 

I actually really enjoyed this because it wasn't too greasy. For those of you who are not accustomed to Chinese food, this is not the sweet and sour pork you get from Manchu Wok. It has fresh peppers and onions and a good amount of sweet and sour sauce. The next dish was bok choy. 

While it doesn't seem impressive, this was a welcome reprieve from all the other heavier dishes we had been eating thus far. Plus, it's always good to eat your veggies! After this, we had a much more memorable dish. 

I don't know what this was exactly, but it was shrimp coated in something orange and fried. Flavour wise, it was delicious and unique. Texturally, the coating was very powdery, which I thought was strange and off putting, as it left a weird aftertaste in my mouth. The consensus around the table seemed to be that the flavour more than made up for the texture, though, so I guess I kind of recommend it? Although how would you even ask how to order this? That weird orangey powdery deep fried shrimp? I don't know. Anyway, the next two items were your standard noodles and fried rice. 

I actually don't even remember the noodles, and I remember the rice even less 

As far as the whole meal goes, the food ranged from delicious to unmemorable yet inoffensive. I'd say that makes to a rather enjoyable lunch overall. 

Overall: ⭐️⭐️½

The food is pretty good, but the service was less than impressive and the restaurant itself does not make it easy to bring a baby. As such, I wouldn't recommend bringing a baby here (not to mention that the location itself is already pretty inconvenient if you live in the city). 

Asian Legend

We were celebrating my brother-in-law's birthday and decided to go for Shanghai food. My in-laws are particularly fond of Asian Legend, so we decided this would be a good place for lunch on Thanksgiving Monday.

Restaurant: Asian Legend
Location: Scarborough
Meal: Lunch
Day: Monday
Son's Age: 6 months

Asian Legend is actually a chain, and it tends to look nicer and cleaner than a lot of typical Chinese restaurants. My in-laws have been graciously bringing me takeout from here on several occasions.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️
I thought that this would be accessible since there is a large parking lot and a ramp to get to the entrance. We placed the car seat on a chair at the table.

He seemed quite comfortable, and I noticed that there were also high chairs available for older (or less wobbly) babies. The washroom, however, was downstairs, which definitely means that this place is not exactly stroller friendly.

There is also no change table and barely any counter space. If your baby doesn't really wiggle, this might be fine for you, but my son is getting to a curious age where putting him on this counter could be rather precarious.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another benefit of a chain restaurant is that the server takes a little more time checking in with you, rather than making you feel rushed. I found service was very good, and our server seemed very comfortable with a baby at the table. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We ordered a variety of dishes, starting with some boiled dumplings. 

These were good and tasted best with a bit of vinegar and ginger. If you like dumplings, though, you really need to order the xiao long bao.

This dish is always a favourite and they did not disappoint here. Asian Legend actually has quite a variety of xiao long bao, but I always prefer the classic pork soup dumpling. Next, we had fried rice cakes with shrimp and pork.

This is also a dish that Asian Legend does quite well. The photo doesn't do it justice - I know it looks plain but it tastes really good. Finally, the last dish was a braised beef noodle soup.

The soup is nice and hearty, which is ideal for a cool autumn day. There is also a little bit of spice to this one, although it's very manageable even for the faint of heart. Considering the whole meal, I think the food is pretty delicious overall.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
As I just said, the food is good and the service is reasonable. My complaint is that the setup of the restaurant isn't as baby friendly as I'd like, but it's still more than possible to bring your baby to eat here. 

Noble Seafood

For my cousin's birthday, my family got together for a big banquet dinner in Markham. Now, going to Markham is a bit of a trek for me, which makes arriving on time difficult because I rarely get out of the house on time as it is, plus traffic issues have a higher impact on a longer journey. Additionally, I had to be home before my son's bedtime. This means that I was about half an hour late and I had to leave early, so I cannot comment on the entire meal or experience end to end.

Restaurant: Noble Seafood
Location: Milliken
Meal: Dinner
Day: Sunday
Son's Age: 6 months

This restaurant is fairly new and meant to be high end Chinese food with a bit of fusion elements. Unfortunately, there is no website that I can find, and as I mentioned, I was late arriving, so I don't actually know what all the dishes are, nor can I cross reference with any menu online. I'll do my best, so here goes.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Being in Markham, the restaurant has an attached parking lot. Furthermore, the restaurant has quite a bit of space, so I had no trouble bringing my son in his car seat.

The washroom also had a proper change table available, which is always appreciated.

I particularly like that the change table wasn't inside a stall, and there was enough room that I could have brought a stroller in. I believe they also had high chairs available, so very baby friendly all around.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
So the service is a bit difficult to rate, because I think the servers really were doing their best, but the situation was just...odd. First of all, I was half an hour late, and my family was just sitting down. Apparently, they had been seated at a table with lots of flies hovering around, so they requested to be moved. I didn't personally experience this, but the previous table was pointed out to me, and it was farther away from the entrance than the new table, so I don't really understand why there would be a lot of flies over there. Then, at the new table, my family noticed it was quite drafty, which I suspect was because we were now by the door but my aunts insisted was a result of the air conditioning. I guess they were right because this was later corrected. The pacing between courses was also a bit off; usually for Chinese banquets, each course is served after 10-20 minutes to give people a chance to finish one dish at a time, for the most part. In this case, some dishes were served really close together, while others had larger gaps of time. When I left, which was an hour and a half later, they were still waiting for rice, noodles, and dessert. My cousin asked me to wait because we had already been waiting a while so surely they would be served quickly, but unfortunately my son was beginning to fuss do I had to excuse myself. I found out afterward that they waited an additional 20 minutes before the rice and noodles arrived, so it was a good thing I left. As far as the rest of the service went, the servers didn't seem to be accustomed to portioning the food out, since some people had significantly more food than others, so finally my family asked them not to divvy up the food for us and instead let us serve ourselves. I've rated service three stars because the actual experience was pretty abysmal, but admittedly the servers did their best to improve the situation and accommodate requests. So...A for effort?

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
So I will try my best to describe the dishes. We started with suckling pig, served with jellyfish and seaweed.

Suckling pig is typically served with jellyfish but not with seaweed. It was an interesting choice, and I quite enjoyed it, so it was quite a promising first course. Next there was a deep fried taro dish. I didn't get a photo of the whole dish, but here is my portion on my plate next to the suckling pig.

I was pretty excited for this because it looked good, and I must say it was disappointing in that it was shockingly bland. It seemed like a good concept but didn't really work for me. Next was a dish with scallops, chicken, and squid.

There was some celery in here too. Usually this kind of dish includes snow peas or some kind of green vegetable, but not in this case. They were quite generous with the number of large scallops, so that was definitely a plus. Next was the soup.

I have no idea what kind of soup this was, but I think there was abalone in it? It was okay, but not as flavourful as I expected it to be. After this was the lobster.

I think this lobster was steamed with butter, which sounds normal but is actually atypical for a Chinese banquet. Somehow, this made the lobster more bland than anticipated and as such, kind of disappointing. After this was the fish.

I have to be honest - as I'm writing this, I have no recollection of this one, which isn't very promising. Finally, there was chicken stuffed with sticky rice.

This was pretty good, but by no means unique to this restaurant. As I mentioned earlier, I missed the rest of the dinner, so this was the last course I ate.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Accessibility is great, and this restaurant is incredibly baby friendly in that regard. The service was strange, although like I said, the servers were really trying their best. The food is interesting and different but not really my favourite. Overall, this isn't a bad place to take a baby at all.

Shangri-la

To celebrate my father-in-law's birthday, my husband and I decided to treat him for dim sum. The best dim sum tends to be in the northeast part of the GTA, so we found ourselves at Shangri-la in Markham.

Restaurant: Shangri-la
Location: Markham
Meal: Brunch
Day: Saturday
Son's Age: 25 weeks

This restaurant is particularly nice because it is also a banquet hall and convention centre. This means that the venue is spacious, well decorated, and clean, and to be honest, it's pretty rare to find a good dim sum restaurant with all these qualities, so that's already a big plus. It's also set up as if for an event (probably to entice people to book their weddings here), which means the tables have clearly marked numbers, so when my in-laws were seated, they let us know which table they were sitting at, which made it much easier to find them once we arrived.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Since there is a large parking lot, we opted to just bring the car seat in and place it on a chair.

It turns out that if we had decided to bring the stroller inside, there was plenty of room for us to navigate to our table, so that's nice to know for the future. I believe I saw high chairs also but I can't be sure. The washrooms are both large and clean, which is amazing and again could easily accommodate a stroller, but more importantly, there was a change table available.

It's nice because it is not inside the larger stall, nor does it block anyone else using the facilities. From an accessibility perspective, this restaurant is perfect for bringing baby. The noise level in the dim sum restaurant also means that if you have a fussy baby, you don't need to worry about disturbing other patrons, but you can still hear each other and carry a conversation, so again, perfect for bringing a baby.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Service was unremarkable - in fact, they served our dessert dish first. It's pretty much what you would expect at dim sum restaurants - you mark your order on a paper, your server takes the paper from you, then brings your dishes out as they are ready. Very little interaction, but they get the job done. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I've mentioned this in previous posts, but I always have difficulty rating Chinese food simply because I've had so much that I usually greatly enjoy the food, but can't tell if something is particularly outstanding or just average. I can recognize when the food is bad, though, and the food is not bad at all here. Because dishes are served whenever they're ready, I couldn't capture everything in one photo, so I will just post a bunch and comment intermittently. As I said earlier, we somehow started with dessert, which was a sweetened pancake with peanuts. 

It was sweet but not too sweet, so it wasn't that big an issue that it came first. Next was deep fried taro dumplings and turnip cake with preserved meat. 

Turnip cakes are one of the dishes I almost always order at dim sum, and this place did not disappoint. I don't typically have taro dumplings though, and these were really good - crunchy on the outside but smooth on the inside. Then we had siu mai with fish roe and beef balls. 

Both these dishes were tasty, as expected. We also had beef tripe with ginger and green onion as well as spare ribs.

These dishes were both fine albeit unmemorable. We ordered some congee for the table.

Again, fine but not memorable. This was followed by bean curd rolls.

This was nice and juicy - they did not skimp on the sauce here. Finally, the last dish was char siu bao, or buns with BBQ pork.

This was a good finish to the meal, and pretty much what you'd expect for a char siu bao. Overall, I was very satisfied with the food, and there is a decent amount of variety that you can order from, which is great when you are eating with a large group of people.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is probably one of the better dim sum restaurants to take your baby. The food is great and the place is clean and spacious. Not to mention, the presentation of the food is slightly nicer than most Chinese restaurants. I would definitely come here again. 

Lin Garden

I was meeting my mom in Scarborough and we didn't get a chance to make reservations anywhere for lunch, so we thought we would try out luck at Lin Garden.

Restaurant: Lin Garden
Location: Scarborough
Meal: Lunch
Day: Thursday
Son's Age: 20 weeks

Lin Garden is a fantastic Hakka restaurant that I typically do takeout from, so this was my first time eating in. The owner is very familiar with me and he was so excited to meet my baby, which was nice. They have a weekday lunch special which is very typical for Hakka restaurants but I was curious how it would be here.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️
The restaurant itself is quite large. There is a waiting area for people getting takeout, and then there is a separate seating area. I had no issues bringing my son in his car seat.

Unfortunately, the washroom did not have a change table or any place that could function as such, so I would probably have had to run to my car to change my son's diaper if that had been necessary. 

That being said, there was a larger washroom so in theory if I had brought my stroller inside, at least I would have been able to bring my baby with me. Overall, though, I don't find the accessibility to be very convenient. 

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

First off, I want to point out that Chinese servers are generally very blunt. They don't tend to go through pleasantries; they tell it as it is. When we were looking through the lunch specials, my mom saw that there was fried rice and asked the server if she could have manchurian fried rice. The server very bluntly said there were no alterations to the lunch specials and if she wanted manchurian fried rice she could order it off the regular menu. My mom tried to flag down a different server to ask the same question but was similarly dismissed. I still give the service four stars, though, because once our order was taken, food arrived quite quickly, and the owner came over to chat with us and was very pleased to meet the baby. He interacted with my son quite a bit which kept him very entertained while I was eating, and he also inquired after my sister and my husband (I mentioned I'm a bit of a regular customer, right?). While there is room for improvement, overall I felt very welcome with my baby. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The lunch special is served with a choice of soup, pop, or spring roll. Both my mother and I chose to start with hot and sour soup. 

The soup was fine albeit unmemorable. It's not really want the restaurant is known for anyway. For the main, my mom ordered Shanghai style chow mein while I got chicken in chilli sauce. 

The noodles were okay - again, not really the restaurant's specialty, and I question why my mom would order a Shanghai dish at a Hakka restaurant. The food gets four stars, however, because the chilli sauce is phenomenal. I tend to judge Hakka restaurants by their chilli chicken and this isn't even the chilli chicken that I normally get - my takeout order is usually breaded and likely thoroughly unhealthy. This chicken was unbreaded but still in the same amazing sauce which was the perfect level of spice. I still prefer my regular order but I highly recommend this dish as well. 

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

The service and the food makes this worthwhile although the accessibility leaves a bit to be desired. Then again, I suppose there is a reason why a lot of customers seem to prefer takeout.