Shanghainese Restaurants near Markham, ON

“I first noticed this spot at Pacific Mall late last year, and today I headed straight there without hesitation for a bowl of classic Shanghai-style pork and vegetable wonton soup.

We also ordered the duck blood vermicelli soup. Not the most traditionally “Shanghai” choice, but on such a cold day, something brothy felt absolutely right.

The wontons tasted exactly like the version I remember growing up with. The pork-to-vegetable ratio was well balanced, the seasoning just right, and the broth clean and comforting. The vermicelli soup was also surprisingly good, with quail eggs added in, which gave it a nice extra touch.

We had planned to try the pan-fried dumplings, but the minimum order was eight pieces and we didn’t have the appetite for that many, so we skipped it this time.

While waiting, we watched the staff hand-wrap large and small wontons and bamboo shoot pork siu mai on site. You can really feel the freshness. We ended up taking some bamboo shoot siu mai home. The owner even gave us a friendly heads-up that some customers aren’t used to the flavor, but for anyone familiar with authentic Shanghai taste, it hits the spot.

A good strategy is to dine in first and, if you enjoy the flavors, pick up some frozen items to take home at a better unit price.“

“It is a famous brand, but I think it has no relationship with the famous brand originated from Taiwan. Don’t know where to start. We arrived on a Saturday evening around 5:30. It is 70% occupied, the waiters were cleaning some tables and collecting dishes, making very very loud noise, I mean really loud. It seems they don’t care about the customers dining there. We were quickly seated after the table was cleaned. We ordered some soup dumpling and fried dumpling. The soup dumpling was not too bad, holding up the standard, but the fried dumpling, it is not Shanghai style. I don’t know what kind of style, it is just not to our liking. We also ordered seafood soup, there was a lot stuff and veggie inside, but soup was bland, if you don’t like oily Chinese dish, order it. The meat had no taste, and too much fat though. Anyway, maybe we didn’t order the right thing. But the noise is something we cannot accept. It is a beautiful restaurant, it could have a decent dining experience if they pay more attention to the service.“

“Good global Taiwanese chain making standard Shanghainese origin traditional foods. We got several cold dishes, dumplings, fried dumplings, Pea sprouts with shrimp. All was pretty good!! The jellyfish had too much oil, and should have cucumbers on side, maybe too complicated for a younger crew to know how to hit it perfectly right.“