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Kung Hei Fat Choy

Most of you have already broken your resolutions, so renew them by celebrating Chinese New Year. During this holiday, people traditionally get haircuts, buy new clothes and give out money-filled red pockets to children and to unmarrieds, but food is probably the main highlight. From the refined to the special menus to the simply delicious, here are 10 spots to ring in the Year of the Ram.

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1. Luckee

Hong Kong-born chef Susur Lee is serving up four special dishes at his upscale Chinese restaurant from now until March 1. A dim sum basket has four luxurious takes on staples like har gow with abalone and lobster dumpling with truffle there’s also soy and six-spice marinated squab with pomegranate and persimmon Chinese banquet hall staple ginger-scallion lobster with black truffles and the dish most commonly found in Chinese households, the “Prosperous & Good Fortune” platter of pork belly, winter melon, black moss (fat choy) and dried oysters. The restaurant is teaming up with Macallan whisky, so every dish has a different pairing. Alternatively, try the smooth Red Lantern cocktail – speciallly designed for the new year – with whiskey, lavender honey, pomegranate juice and a green tea ice cube.

328 Wellington West, 416-935-0400, luckeerestaurant.com, @LuckeeTO See listing.


2. Taste of China

Come here after midnight and you’ll see Toronto’s cooks eating their supper of stir-fried snow pea leaves, hot ‘n’ sour soup, Fukien fried rice and chow mein. This long-time favourite among those in the restaurant industry – it’s open till 4 am (5 am on weekends) – has a seemingly endless menu. Ignore the stereotypical Chinatown fare like chicken balls and chop suey and go for the more authentically Cantonese dishes. Best bets: king oyster mushrooms with snow pea leaves crab meat with broccoli and yeung-chow fried rice.

338 Spadina, 416-348-8828, tasteofchinarestaurant.ca See listing.


3. Dayali Beijing Roast Duck

Should you and your friends be making a pilgrimage to Markham, try scoring a table (best if you have a Mandarin-speaking friend to make reservations) at this packed Canadian branch of the Beijing-based peking duck restaurant chain. Order the Gold Medal Roast Duck, a sharing platter of paper-thin amber-coloured crispy skin, juicy meat, julienned green onions and cucumbers, little saucers of sweet hoisin and sugar (the latter is a lesser-known condiment) and steaming hot crepes for wrapping. Also worth checking out: duck bones. Seriously, you can order a plate of crispy bones to gnaw on – they are delicious and packed with umami.

20 Gibson (Markham), 905-604-8680, dayalihome.com See listing.


4. Asian Legend

For a taste of Shanghai and Sichuan, Asian Legend is an accessible option, with multiple locations from downtown to midtown to the burbs. The regional cooking here is noticeably heavier and slightly greasier than Cantonese cooking. Some quintessential dishes: soup dumplings (xiao long bao), pan fried dumplings (war teep), ma po tofu, Shanghai fried noodles, moo shu pork with an extra order of crepes. Though not as traditional, deep fried bananas drizzled with hot syrup are hard to resist as a dessert. Like most Chinese places, it’s best to bring a bunch of people since the portions are big and you want to sample as many things as possible.

418 Dundas West, 416-977-3909 900 Don Mills, 416-443-8880 5188 Yonge, 416-221-9797 4452 Sheppard East, 416-298-8081 125 Ravel, 416-756-9388 3636 Steeles East #152 (Markham), 905-947-0370 505 Hwy 7 East #77-79 (Thornhill), 905-763-8211 asianlegend.ca See listing.


5. Crown Princess Fine Dining

There are two kinds of dim sum restos: the old-school type with plastic tablecloths and servers pushing carts, and the newer kind with opulent golden everything that’s rococo by way of Caesars Palace. This is the latter (marble columns!), but the afternoon dim sum is the traditional stuff of har gow and siu mai. For special group dinners, reserve the large-format set menus designed for up to 10 people to get a bit of everything: peking duck and lettuce wrapped, stir-fried lobster, crispy chicken, stir-fried scallops, fried rice, noodles with abalone sauce. If you’re in the celebrating mood, this is the place.

1033 Bay, 416-923-8784, crown-princess.ca See listing.


6. Pearl Harbourfront Chinese Cuisine

Ignore the unfortunate unintentional reference to WWII – this is an excellent place to take out-of-towners. The second-storey restaurant inside Queen’s Quay Terminal offers panoramic views of the lake, particularly beautiful during the day as the boats sail back and forth. This is also where to go if you’re a fan of dim sum carts stocked with pillowy barbecue pork buns, crispy golden-fried shrimp dumplings and silky smooth rice noodle rolls swimming in sweet soy sauce. It’s a tad pricier than its Chinatown counterparts, but the atmosphere and, of course, the top-notch dim sum are worth it.

207 Queens Quay West, 416-203-1233, pearlharbourfront.ca. See listing.


7. Chinese Traditional Bun

You can see (and sometimes feel) the steam wafting from the kitchen near the entrance of this little basement restaurant in Chinatown. It’s charmingly dingy, and the prices are cheap (bring cash). Start with go-bu-li buns (pork with green onions), crispy lotus root salad and the spicy dan dan noodles, and for dessert, steamed buns filled with sweet red bean paste. Since it’s the year of the ram, order a bowl of mutton noodle soup. 

536 Dundas West, 416-299-9011 See listing.


8. Tian An Cuisine

For lovers of spice, this peppercorn haven focusing on China’s southwest region will surely get brows sweaty and faces beet red. The Sichuan menu has peculiar ingredients like crawfish smothered in a spicy peppercorn sauce and even slow-cooked bull penis, which is actually not that bad and tastes like any mild offal that relies heavily on seasoning. Surprisingly, one of the best dishes (and also on trend) is cooked cauliflower dripping with tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorn sauce that goes well with bowls of plain steamed white rice. Seriously, this is one of the spiciest restaurants out there, not for anyone who can’t handle chilies.

492 Dundas West, 416-977-3311 See listing.


9. Go for Tea

The bustling bubble tea café and Taiwanese restaurant is the default weekend hangout for Markham’s 20- and 30-somethings. It’s big, dimly lit and has a loungy atmosphere, so it’s perfect whether you’re there with friends or a date after Chinese New Year dinner with the family. The main thing to get are giant steins of sugary bubble tea (choice flavours: lychee, red plum and barley embryo), little sharing plates of sliced pig’s ear marinated in soy or, for the trend-seekers wanting to get a head start on one of 2015’s biggest food trends, thick slices of toast slathered in condensed milk. Complete set dinners are also available for those who want to spend the entire evening. Racks of gossip and fashion mags and WiFi keep you occupied.

3700 Midland, #113-115, 416-292-0221 230 Commerce Valley East, #2 (Markham), 905-886-0221 gofortea.ca See listing.


10. John’s Chinese BBQ Restaurant

For those entertaining at home for Chinese New Year, nothing is more impressive than setting down a giant barbecued meats platter on the dinner table. This sit-down, cash-only restaurant does a brisk takeout service, assembling impressive platters packed with char siu, roasted duck, marinated squid, roasted pork with oh-so-crispy skin, and bean curd marinated in sweet soy sauce. Obviously, the bigger the platter, the more advanced notice you should give the restaurant, especially at this time of the year, but they’re used to the high volume, which means everything is always fresh.

328 Highway 7 East, #10-11 (Richmond Hill), 905-881-3333 See listing.

Don’t forget the sweets!

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