Fantaxia

Yup, still good. I organized a dinner for a group of visitors from Montréal and Ottawa.
I actually booked months in advance, but I think a few weeks would suffice.
I spoke with the woman in charge, explained my budget, dishes of interest, and we confirmed about 5 days in advance of our reservation.
I’m pretty sure I know my favourites now! I think I knew them before. :)
The presentation is quite unique. Everyone was very satisfied with the food, quality and taste.
The restaurant is not fancy by any means, but they definitely put in a lot of time and effort to create the set «fancy» meals.

So before I start, I’d like to say that the key to this place to view it for what it is. Because the tricky part is that it’s a smörgåsbord of food establishments. Part café, part restaurant, part bar!
CAFE:
— no café menu, only one type of coffee (I never order it, so I don’t know what it is)
— there’s no wifi, no need to fight for power outlets… since there aren’t any, :)
— the lounge tables are super spacious and comfy, tables are large, great for all sorts of work, from textbooks, tax forms, to picture gallery work
— mostly quiet environment, unless we’re talking busy meal times
RESTO:
— yes, décor’s a little ‘unique’, think rustic cottage
— washroom’s a little cramped
— they regularly accommodate for large tables, work with you to come up with a customized menu
— large room in the back if you want privacy as well
— food is done well. Not the best, but definitely above average. Very consistent quality. Always good with special requests (e.g. no MSG, little oil, no sugar, etc)
— combo entrees come with a variety of drinks, their milk tea is my go-​to
— staff/​owners are usually friendly (the guy won’t let you leave once you get him started). I can understand some times when they’re not; I’ve witnessed people tip 1% of their $ 8 bill after their sit-​in dining experience
BAR:
— you wouldn’t really think people would come here to drink, but low and behold, I’ve seen it with my own eyes!
I usually come over whenever I need to work on some image post-​processing, food refill after tennis or swimming, occasion order pickups if I don’t have time to cook, etc. So I’m not bothered by the décor, nor do I stay long enough to use the washrooms, so this place works great for me, but only because I take it for what it is.

If I can give this place no stars I would. Idk why people giving this place higher stars since the food is blend and the service is extremely bad. Walked in and we were even helped I had to ask for a table. The food is tasteless such a waste of my money.

If you are looking for some different Chinese food. This is one of he good place I like. They are able to custom make a full dinner course for you if you provide what your budget will be. Usually, the dishes are pretty unique. Our favourites are fried oysters and stuffed chicken with sticky rice.
Overall, I have nothing against the food. It’s just the service is really poor. I think they only have 1 waitress for the whole evening and she is definitely not on par. Not to mention the weird Chinese lady owner there. I don’t find her friendly and she is very inflexible. Sometime she comes across as rude. I can’t believe they don’t serve any dessert at the end of our meal which they used to have.

I’ve only been here for the special menu and I have to say that the food was fantastic and so unique. We had two massive tables. The chef was given a budget of $ 25 per person and the restaurant really delivered! The soup starter was really cute — a soup loaded with seafood was cooked in a hollowed out whole winter melon. As with other reviewers, the boneless chicken stuffed with stick rice as absolutely delicious — I can’t say that I’ve had it any where else. The skin was perfectly crisp and the meat succulent. There was a dish where the base was a massive load of sweet, smooth egg white, topped with eye popping green veggie stuff. How many eggs it it take to make that? Rather than the usual ground/​shredded duck to be scooped into lettuce wraps, we had a mountain of ground/​shredded quail. That’s a lot of work to get at those little birds. While the restaurant itself isn’t much to look at, I would definitely recommend coming here for their special menu, especially for those used to the same-​old-​same-​old Chinese food around town.

–mixed two dishes which we did not get because they gave it to the table next to us which was FULL when we only had 1 dish
— the 2 dishes that were for compensation did not even match the price of the original two (original is quail to stuff in lettuce and they replace it for chicken & quail takes a lot of time to get the meat off the bones because it’s so small and has a unique flavor, to give us chicken instead is not enough. The other one I forget which we had ordered but they replaced it with duck which was very salty and sticky.)
–did NOT get one single apology from the owner
–acted like they don’t need any more clientèle because they have so much when a large amount was introduced by the wife of a family friend that was with us
–I had seen one table was waving down a waiter and waiter just looked at them and walked past them.
–they were VERY unprofessional. The owner was yelling at the other owner in front of customers and they had also argued with one of us because we didn’t tip…
In my opinion I would not come back due to poor service and mediocre food.

I’ve been to this place many times when I spent a summer living at my friend’s dorm @ Seneca.
This place is mad cheap always. But the food. huge portions (good for student budgets!) Quaility. not so great.
Beef Brisket was good actually.
They have a Chicken with «African» or «Portugese» sauce … my friend loved it.
Super cheap and super close to Seneca.
Go for it students!
Ps, I found the servers here to be extremely rude…“Is that all your leaving for tip!!!”

Asians are such foodies. I think its just bred in us and eating is such a big part of the culture.
Needed to get away from the office and just chill on my own a bit and decided to head to this typical congee hole, however this isn’t the usual spot I go to as there are two other places that are more my regular hideouts in this suburban strip mall. But for whatever reason, I took a pass on the others and went straight in here.
This place is fairly big for a congee hole, however, its very much dated, and everything in here is a tad worn. Not quite downtown Chinatown worn and dingy but more like a bad theme restaurant that hasn’t seen an upgrade since Nirvana’s last hit. It’s got several large tables a few booths that are well spaced out, but it makes it feel less busy.
I managed to sit at a booth across from a table of seniors, and as I was by myself reading the NY Times from my phone, I listened in on their chatter. Between the talk of their grandchildren, bragging about who the smart ones were and conversely what trouble makers others were, and their world travels to such places as «Bah-​see-​lone-​ah» and how they loved eating Spanish dim sum (Tapas) the conversation always focused on the food. They’d be spending their time pushing each other as their dishes arrived to fight for the honour of serving each other.
One grandmother would get up and pull off her kung-​fu tai chi move to fend off another grandmother. «This is my dish, we have to try this… I will serve it».
It’s funny how times have changed though. As when I grew up, if you were Chinese there were two predominate languages, Cantonese and Tao-​san. The way I’d classify it is that Tao-​san is much akin to thick southern accent, as I am one, and we’re really the rednecks of China. However, both could handily understand each other with minimal confusion on some of the colloquial aspects. For example, rain is «Rain» in Cantonese, but the Tao-​sans say «its falling water». But now, there’s as many Mandarin speakers as there are the two combined, especially in the service industry. Mandarin is something completely different spoken, although they share the same written language, it might as well sound like French and English.
I listened as one of the grandmothers tried to ask for more side plates, and the younger most likely in university waitress struggle to understand her. it’s like when we encounter other foreigners, we say things slower and louder like they will understand. The grandmother shouts and gestures for a plate in Cantonese, and holds up her tea cup plate, until she gives up and says «plate» in broken English. «pah-​layt-​ah. pah-​lay-​t-​ah». Finally another granny, speaks up in broken Mandarin saying the word «plate» over and over until she thinks she got the pronunciation right and the waitress nods and heads off.
The first grandmother says in Cantonese «aiya. my mandarin is so awful, I’d never survive in China. Isn’t it sad that I know more English than I do Mandarin now?» and they all chuckle.
Dish after dish, they’d all compare notes. «This was too salty», «Amazing textures», «I’ve never had this before, this is nice». Then they’d start talking about cooking, and how they’d do their version of the same dish. «You know, Wolfberries would be perfect for this dish!». «My fried rice always has ginger onion sauce».
I sat enjoying my meal, feigning my interest in my Smartphone while listening in, thinking about how much I missed growing up listening to my grandmother and other older aunts and uncles talked each other, while I’d sit intently listening in on the recipes they’d share. Funny enough, my grandparents only lived about a block away from here.
As for me, the curried brisket I had was very mild, and nothing very noteworthy. Since I’m going to China in a few weeks, I tried practicing my Mandarin with the waitress. I only barely understood her, yet I faked it all and just nodded most of the time and said the only few words I knew. «Che Che». Thank you. Or vice versa «Bu ke Chi» when they thanked me. «You’re Welcome.»

I’ve been here a couple months ago and didn’t have the best experience, but i decided to give a second choice, since there are a few places to eat around my college, especialy when you don’t have a car and don’t want to loose too much time.
It was ok i should say, but for sure not a place to come often.
— the waiter don’t give attention at all, and don’t botter asking about the menu choices cause he won’t give a nice answer;
— green tea comes for free and it is good, but again the waiter won’t come around to refill;
— what i asked didn’t look too attractive and either too tasty, but for $ 6 I guess I can’t say much;
— the owner is a nice person, not that talked much, but gave attention and asked if I liked.
For the rest of it, was worthy the try… Just try… Back to the books!

Our family came here for dinner as a pre-​Chinese New Year’s celebration. Because of dietary restrictions on the part of some family members, we had elected to go with the «tasting menu» or the chef’s choice, giving the chef a budget and the food constraints.
The end result was… well, A-​OK.
The food constraints were that there were not to be any shellfish, to minimize foods prepared by deep-​frying and low-​sodium. Giving the chef a budget of $ 400 for 9 people, with these constraints was probably our mistake. Since we’re cutting out one of the most expensive ingredients in Chinese cooking — shellfish like lobster, crab, abalone — I would have expected the chef to choose ingredients that are finer or of higher quality or just special in some way to substitute. Instead, he compensated by increasing the portion size. Hmm… it’s just not the same.
To be fair, I didn’t get a chance to review the menu before hand and thus, otherwise I would have raised this concern with the chef.
That being said, the food was generally pretty good, if a bit over-​sized. One of the more impressive dishes was a fried chicken with a glutinous rice stuffing. The chef had basically de-​boned a whole chicken, roasted it till it was perfectly done — the chicken was moist and tender, but the skin crispy — including the stuffing which was pearly white tender grains of rice.
Another favourite of ours was the duck braised with sour plum. A roasted duck was probably used since the skin was browned and flavourful. The sauce was rich, its sweetness offset by both the sour plums and pickled leeks, the latter adding an extra bit of kick of contrast. Very nice indeed.
Dessert was not the usual azuki dessert soup, but ginger milk curd, which was a nice change. All in all, not a bad experience.
Note that this review is based on ordering the chef’s choice or tasting menu, which had to be booked in advanced. I haven’t tried this restaurant’s a la carte fare since its renovation about a year ago.