The Good Fork

So I've been trying to get to the Good Fork for a while and finally managed to meet up with my bestie there! I used to come here all the time when I didn't care about waiting 45 minutes for a table (aka before I had a baby), but luckily my friend was able to meet me for brunch on a weekday.

Restaurant: The Good Fork
Location: Bloor West Village
Meal: Brunch
Day: Monday
Son's Age: 6 months

I had made a reservation, but once we arrived the hostess asked to wait a few more minutes because they had originally reserved a table upstairs, but upon seeing my baby in a stroller, they thought it would be better for me to wait for a table on the main floor. The hostess also noted that the second floor was a bit colder.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
High chairs are available but since my son isn't great at sitting still they let me park the stroller next to the table.

There is also an accessible washroom on the main floor with a change table provided so it's easy to just wheel the stroller in. 

There's not really anything more you can ask for to be baby friendly, so as far as accessibility goes, the Good Fork gets five stars. 

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I appreciated being seated on the main floor and everything went smoothly - food arrived promptly and there were no issues splitting the bill. My small quibble is that I had to ask for a coffee refill a couple times, but overall service was great. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is one of my favourite brunch places in the city. A lot of times, I find one restaurant and one good dish and I order the same thing every time I go. Not here. There are genuinely multiple dishes that I would recommend, and it's great for larger groups or pickier eaters because there's a large variety of brunch and lunch items, with a good mix of meat versus vegetarian and healthy versus indulgent. On this occasion, I had to order the fork scramble.

This is a puff pastry topped with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, whipped chive crème fraiche, and dill, served with a side of salad. The puff pastry is light and fluffy and all the components just go so well together. It's filling without being heavy, which is just lovely. Lest you think that I'm on a diet all of a sudden, I should explain that I wanted something light to offset my order of a side of red velvet pancakes.

Yes, you read that right. Red. Velvet. Pancakes. Seriously. If you don't order this, you are insane. It's served with a vanilla cream cheese frosting, powdered sugar, and maple syrup. These are without a doubt my favourite pancakes in the city. You can actually get a full sized order of this, but I opted to get the side and split with my friend so that I could ultimately get a combination of sweet and savoury without stuffing myself.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
This is such a great place to brunch with baby. The restaurant itself is so baby friendly and accessible, and the food is delicious. If you come on a weekday, you can actually make reservations too. I highly recommend trying this place out if you haven't already. 

St. Clair Banh Cuon Pho Ga

There are actually a few Vietnamese restaurants in my area, but my favourite, sadly, has closed down. Determined to find another one, my husband and I decided to try St. Clair Banh Cuon Pho Ga.

Restaurant: St. Clair Banh Cuon Pho Ga
Location: Corso Italia
Meal: Lunch
Day: Sunday
Son's Age: 6 months

I admit, typically when I think Vietnamese, I think pho. Specifically, I think house pho (probably menu number 101) - made with rare and well-done beef, tendon, and tripe, sometimes with beef balls and/or brisket thrown in. My husband is a little more adventurous with the menu (with the exception of my favourite place which had six courses of beef - and that's the last I'll say about that since, as I said earlier, it closed down). However, as the name of this restaurant suggests, their specialty is in banh cuon and pho ga, so naturally, we had to give these a try.

Accessibility: ⭐️
This shouldn't really be a surprise, but this place is not super baby friendly. We brought our son in his car seat and placed him on a chair.

There is a step to get into the restaurant, and there were no high chairs in sight. The place is quite small, and the washroom is down in the basement, so definitely not stroller friendly. On top of that, there is definitely nowhere to change diapers in the washroom. 

I suppose if you were really desperate, there are some deep freezers in the basement as well right outside the washroom that provide a flat surface. 

Please note that I am not recommending you do this, because, you know, hygiene, but I'm acknowledging that sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Service was pretty much what you would expect from a Vietnamese restaurant. Everything was fine, but nothing was particularly memorable and servers certainly don't go above and beyond. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We decided to order the banh cuon cha lua banh cong, which, according to the menu, is steamed rice flour rolls with ground pork, sausage, and cupcake. We also each ordered a bowl of pho ga, which is chicken pho. 

So I feel the description needs to be clarified. The rice rolls are similar to Chinese cheung fun stuffed with ground pork. The sausage comes on the side and is reminiscent of cold cuts. The cupcake is like a deep fried cake with shrimp inside, about the size of a small cup, so while the description is technically accurate, it is somewhat misleading. The dish is served with fish sauce. Personally, I found the whole dish to be very tasty, although I could have done without the sausage. My husband didn't think it was particularly special, but I really love cheung fun so this dish was right up my alley. As for the chicken pho, I definitely recommend it, especially for people who like chicken more than beef. I thought it was delicious, although I personally prefer beef. The pho was served with a plate of bean sprouts, lime wedges, and basil leaves, as well as some cut up chilies, which I like better than the whole chilies that most pho places give you. I wouldn't mind eating here again, but I should note that my husband wasn't impressed so it's not a place for everyone. 

Overall: ⭐️⭐️½

Despite the food being different and enjoyable, this place is really not designed to be baby friendly and the service doesn't help improve the situation.

SongCook's

I was meeting my mom and my aunt for lunch, so we found a somewhat halfway point and ended up at SongCook's.

Restaurant: SongCook's
Location: Thornhill
Meal: Lunch
Day: Friday
Son's Age: 6 months

As you probably know, I've already reviewed this place once before, and actually did not take any photos because I was not planning on doing another review given that I ordered something similar as last time. It turns out that I do need to update my review, so I'll make this short.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
As I mentioned in my last review, there is an attached parking lot and plenty of space in the restaurant for the stroller. High chairs are available, and there is a nice change table in the washroom. Of course, there are still steps going toward the washroom so it's not entirely stroller accessible, but obviously I did not expect that to be corrected since my previous visit.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This was why I needed to update my review. Our server was a very nice lady who was prompt in taking our order and bringing our food. She made sure we had enough banchan. She seemed absolutely delighted to see my son and interacted with him. When I had arrived, it was raining outside, so I had a rain cover for the stroller and an umbrella for myself, not to mention a diaper bag. My mother tossed my things onto the table next to us, which I didn't really appreciate, but she insisted it was fine and no one was sitting there. Midway through our meal, a hostess was showing a party of four to the table we had taken over, and when she saw our things there, she quickly turned around and found another table to seat them at rather than tell us to move our things, which I thought was extremely courteous. Also, I was claiming a free pop, but since I don't personally drink pop, I asked my server if she could just bring me the can without opening it, since I wanted to take it home so I could offer it to a guest at some point in the future (yes, tacky, but I tend to have guests over last minute and I don't drink pop or juice so I can pretty much only offer water, milk, and alcohol). She was very nice in obliging my request. My mother also asked for a takeout container at the end since she did not finish her cham pong, and our server happily packed it for us. She noted that there was not much soup leftover and asked if that was okay - my mom had intentionally finished all the soup, so she was fine with it, but I can't help but wonder what our server would have done if we had said we were not okay with that. All in all, my experience here was tremendously improved based on the service that I felt went above and beyond.

Food ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I ordered the cham pong, just like my mother. I said this in my previous review, but the noodles here are the best I've had in the GTA, so if you are craving Korean noodles, this is definitely the place to go. I'm not sure how the other menu items taste since I generally order the cham pong and/or jja jang myun, but I'm sure it's worth trying another time.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Considering the quality of food and the overall accessibility, I think this restaurant is worth trying. Throw in the amazing service I experienced here and it's pretty much a no brainer to check it out if you happen to be in this neck of the woods.

Ravi Soups

I was meeting my bestie for lunch and as chance would have it, she wanted to try Ravi Soups! I love their soups so I agreed to meet her there.

Restaurant: Ravi Soups
Location: The Junction
Meal: Lunch
Day: Friday
Son's Age: 6 months

This post is going to be relatively short since I recently wrote a review, but I did order something different so I thought it was worth reviewing.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️
Same situation as before. I actually ended up sitting at the same table, so had no issues parking the stroller, but there is still no change table in the washroom located in the basement.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
As I mentioned in my previous post, service is cafeteria style, so not particularly memorable, although the food did come out quite quickly.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
And the food is still as good as I remember! This time, I ordered the chicken hot pot broth.

The soup contained coconut milk, lemongrass, cilantro, kaffir lime, fresh noodles, bok choy, edamame, mango, pineapple, Thai basil, crispy shallots, and fresh herbs. This is a great soup to have as a meal as the chicken and noodles are more than substantial. The soup is also served with a cheese biscuit and red pepper jelly, which is such a nice complement. I still love how it is served on a lazy Susan.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
This still isn't the most accessible restaurant for baby, but the food makes the visit worthwhile. If you're looking for a nice, warm bowl of soup, this is still my favourite place to go to 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. 

Linda Modern Thai

I found myself in the Don Mills area one day and decided that I don't eat enough Thai food (that's not entirely accurate - I tend to get takeout), so my mom met me at Shops on Don Mills.

Restaurant: Linda Modern Thai
Location: Don Mills
Meal: Lunch
Day: Thursday
Son's Age: 6 months

Linda Modern Thai is an upscale restaurant brought to you by the people behind Salad King, aka the place that made me realize that I like Thai food. Obviously, I went in with high expectations.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Right off the bat, this restaurant has an automatic door, which, to be fair, is probably meant for wheelchairs rather than strollers, but worked well for me nonetheless. The host seated us at a table for four and removed a chair so that I could park my stroller.

Side note in case you're wondering - my son can only sit unassisted for a little at a time and thus cannot sit in a wooden high chair yet, so I keep him in the car seat whenever I eat out in case I need to fold the stroller up. You probably don't actually care. I just feel the need to say it because my son does in fact now sit in the proper stroller seat. But anyway, back to the topic. Washroom!

This is pretty much the best scenario. Single washroom with more than adequate space for a stroller, plus a proper change table. Perfect!

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The service was good - I had an embarrassing moment where I figured what I wanted to order and loudly said "okay someone serve me now!", and immediately the server was at our table. I wasn't actually being demanding; I was just joking around with my mom, but man are they prompt. The server also commented on how cute my son was, which I always appreciate.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The restaurant has a weekday lunch menu, which I like since dinner portions tend to be too large for midday. I ordered the panang curry with crispy beef.

I admit that I didn't know what I was expecting when I ordered this. I suppose I thought the beef would be entirely crispy somehow, although now that I say that I don't see how that makes sense. Anyway, the beef has a crispy fried skin around it, and is then sliced to reveal tender beef on the inside. It is also sitting in the curry rather than mixed in. I found overall it was quite good, although the beef was slightly on the dry side. The curry had great flavour, and there was just enough for the rice to soak up without a lot of excess sauce.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
The food is nice and the place is very baby-friendly, so overall I recommend bringing your baby 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.

Ravi Soups

Holy crap, my son has been alive for over half a year! I'm more than halfway through my maternity leave! This is like the equivalent of two co-op terms in university - meaning I've had desk jobs for half as long! Insane. Whoo. Okay, now that I got that out of my system (psych! That's like two trimesters!), let's talk about dinner with a good friend of mine who finally got to meet my loin fruit. 

Restaurant: Ravi Soups

Location: The Junction

Meal: Dinner

Day: Friday

Son's Age: 6 months (whattttttttt)

Ravi Soups has multiple locations and offer soups and wraps. It's cafeteria style, so you order and pay first and then sit down and wait for your food to be brought to you. Water is also self serve. The decor is pretty mismatched but somehow works. 

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️

For starters, there's a step just to get into the restaurant, so that's already a bit of an obstacle with the stroller. I do have a large stroller so I had to move a chair to park him next to the table. 

Luckily the place wasn't busy, because otherwise I'm pretty sure the stroller would have been in the way. The washrooms are in the basement, so again, not stroller friendly. More importantly, there is no change table. 

Also I don't think I could change him on that counter. I give it two stars, though, because I did see high chairs for babies that can sit unassisted easily (aka longer than a few seconds). 

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

As I mentioned, this is cafeteria style, so service is pretty minimal and therefore unmemorable. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is by far my favourite place to get soup. If I'm feeling sick or the weather is bad, nothing warms my heart and stomach like a bowl of soup from Ravi Soups. I ordered a soup and wrap combo. 

The soup was corn chowder with blue crab, Thai basil, and crispy shallots. The wrap was curried lamb with baby spinach, roasted yams, edamame, mango-pineapple salsa, cilantro, and green aioli. The soup was warm and creamy with a bit of a kick, and it really hit the spot, with the shallots providing a nice crunch. The wrap had a great meat-to-veggie ratio so I was satisfied but still felt like I was being somewhat healthy. The lamb was warm and tender and also a little spicy. I also like how the food is served on a lazy Susan so I can spin it around depending on whether I wanted the soup or the wrap without having to rearrange the dishes. It's a seemingly small detail that helps make life easier.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

This is undoubtedly the best place to get soup in the city, but the baby-friendly aspect is a bit lacking. It's still worthwhile to check this place out, but my recommendation is to get takeout to save yourself some hassle.