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.

Golden Shanghai Restaurant

I had a free day so I decided to meet up with my mom and my aunt on the east side for some good Shanghai food.

Restaurant: Golden Shanghai Restaurant
Location: Milliken
Meal: Lunch
Day: Thursday
Son's Age: 19 weeks

It seems like this was the place to go for lunch with baby as there were four other babies in the restaurant.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I brought my son in his car seat and placed him on the chair next to me, which seemed to be what other moms were doing as well.

I saw that they also provided high chairs for older babies. As for the washroom, as is typical in Chinese restaurants, there was no change table.

I suppose if your baby isn't too heavy that you could hypothetically change the diaper on top of those storage bins. They seemed relatively sturdy, but then again my baby is still young and on the smaller side, weight-wise.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Our server was nice and brought our food out quickly, and I felt comfortable breastfeeding during lunch. I was not the only one, as a mom at the next table also breastfed her baby. I suppose the servers are used to it, which I find reassuring.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We started with an order of hot and sour soup. We figured the small would be sufficient for the three of us.

The soup itself was decent - a bit more on the spicy side than other places, which I like. We were shocked that the size was so small though. Typically at Shanghai restaurants, they expect the dishes to be shared, so even a small size would be bigger. It ended up being the right amount for is, though, because my mom and aunt don't like their food that spicy. The next thing we had, of course, was xiao long bao and dumplings.

I love xiao long bao, and this hit the spot. The wrapper is a little bit thicker than I'd prefer but it's still pretty good. The dumplings were stuffed with veggies, and they were okay but not my personal favourite, although my aunt really liked them. For our main, we got Shanghai noodles.

Shanghai noodles are just delicious greasy goodness, and this did not disappoint. Finally, the real reason why my mom chose this place is for dessert!

I'm not sure what it's called but it's like a fried dough with red bean paste inside, and you put white sugar on it. I love that they bring the sugar on the side - a lot of places serve it covered in sugar and there is either too much or too little. This is one of the best places in the GTA to get this dessert.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
This is a pretty good place to take your baby if you are having lunch with a group of people. The portions are big for the price and the servers are quite accommodating to breastfeeding mothers. Plus, Shanghai food is usually a winner, and you really need to order dessert here.

Da Fu Seafood Cuisine

My mom likes to have dim sum with her siblings on weekdays, and since my son's doctor is on the east side and he was scheduled for his four month checkup, I decided to join her.

Restaurant: Da Fu Seafood Cuisine
Location: Milliken
Meal: Brunch
Day: Thursday
Son's Age: 17 weeks

I feel the need to note that the restaurant is actually called 大福, so technically the phonetic spelling should be "da fuk". Just putting that out there.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️
The good news is that this restaurant has a parking lot, so it's not necessary to bring a stroller in. I brought my son in his car seat and put him on a chair.

That is about as far as the good news goes. The washroom does not have a change table, not is there enough counter space to change a baby if necessary.

There are two stalls, one of which is wheelchair accessible, so I was hopeful that there would be a change table in there, but this was not the case. If my son had needed a diaper change, I probably would have had to take him outside.

Service: ⭐️
I admit, I crashed the party late. My mom and uncle had already ordered before I arrived because I was invited last minute and needed time to get there. They had only ordered a handful of dishes, and once I got there, we quickly put an order in for more food. In dim sum restaurants where you order your food (versus the ones with carts), they usually leave a copy of your order at the table and mark off whatever had been served. When we ordered more, the server picked up the paper with the original order and walked away without bringing back another copy. After an inexplicably long wait, we inquired about the next round of dishes and our concerns were dismissed, because obviously the food was on its way. We had to ask a few times before one dish was finally served. The next one didn't come until we were about to cancel it since we were running short on time - I was taking my son to a doctor's appointment afterward. They proceeded to present the final bill, removing any opportunity to order any more dishes - not that we would have, but I would have preferred to have had the option. As far as dim sum restaurants go, the service here was extremely poor.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Despite the slow service, I must admit I have an unreasonable love for dim sum. The food here was quite tasty - not the best dim sum ever, mind you, but I was happy with the food. As I mentioned earlier, my family had already started without me.

They had ordered Chinese beef balls, beef cheung fun, sticky rice, and egg tarts. Even though the food had been sitting for a bit, everything still tasted good. We then ordered siu mai and pork ribs.

The siu mai came out piping hot. I wouldn't say they were worth the wait but they were delicious. I did not get a picture of the pork ribs since they arrived at the very end and I was getting ready to leave. I'm so glad I got to have some though - they were so good!

Overall: ⭐️⭐️½
As far as dim sum goes, the food meets expectations, but does not outweigh problems with accessibility and service. I have never had such slow service for dim sum, and it's not particularly convenient to bring a baby here.