sweet and sour chicken on Gastro World

It’s rare for a Chinese restaurant to be fully booked on weekends; yet, if you don’t make a reservation at Fancy Chinese Cuisine, chances are you’ll leave disappointed. Located in a plaza with an infuriatingly lack of parking, the restaurant’s décor has little pomp despite their name. While it’s not fancy, per say, the dining room is brightly lit, clean feeling, and comfortable.

Their pick and choose set meals are popular, starting at $79.95 for Peking duck plus three other dishes to $109.95 for the premium choices (green bass, crab, and lobster) plus five other dishes. For our table of three, the lobster with three add-ons ($89.95) already yielded enough leftovers.

The star of the dinner was four pounds of lobster done old school: stir fried with ginger and onion. These aromatics tossed with crustacean is a perfect combination – enough to flavour the lobster without covering its natural sweetness. Chopped into large pieces, the lobster meat stayed juicy and succulent.

For larger tables, the stir-fried clams in black bean sauce is more of a nibble than something filling. At Fancy, theirs had plenty of wok hay and the black bean sauce’s saltiness was spot on. In fact, what impresses me most about the restaurant is how well dishes are seasoned, at least to my taste. As some Chinese restaurants tone down flavours in an effort to be “healthier” and senior-friendly, I just want one that fulfils the flavours of my youth.

While the fish in the stir-fried sole filet was a bit messy looking, it wasn’t overdone and the celery and snow peas the requisite crispiness.

The sole non-seafood dish of the meal was the sweet and sour chicken with pineapple. Truth be told, I prefer the moister chicken to pork, which sometimes can get chewy. Once again, the sweet and sour sauce was well balanced and had me reaching for just one more piece, despite being stuffed.

Complimentary soup (pork bone broth with carrots and white fungus) and dessert (sweet red bean soup and cookies) rounds out the meal. They’re your run-of-the-mill offerings done solidly.

If you’re in the market for reasonably priced authentic Cantonese fare, Fancy Chinese Cuisine fits the bill. Heed my advice and make a reservation for 6pm or earlier, otherwise you’ll be stuck circulating the parking lot (with little options for alternative spots) for the evening. And no, Fancy does not offer valet.

Overall mark - 8 out of 10

How To Find Them

Location: Markham, Canada
Address: 7750 Kennedy Road

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Gastro World's Grading System

Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back

6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return

7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return

8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend

9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend

10 - absolute perfection!

Is That It? I Want More!

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Song Cook serves up authentic Korean cuisine and a lot of it (good luck narrowing down your order from their extensive spiral bound menu). The restaurant has an equally large dining room that’s separated into areas with regular tables or tatami sitting, if you’re in for a truly authentic experience. As a warning, the tatami tables are the real deal: there’s no hidden cut out holes so your legs can dangle, therefore a meal could really be an endurance for your core and flexibility.

Luckily, service at Song Cook is speedy, so unless you want to stay for hours, food arrives quickly after placing your order. The menu lists dishes by category (noodles, saam, rice dishes, etc.), but pay attention to the prices as some are large platters best shared amongst groups of five or more.

Take the haemul pajun ($27.99), the seafood and green onion pancake could be mistaken for a medium pan pizza. Its sheer size allows for large chunks of octopus, shrimp, and green onion to be incorporated into the batter, which is really like an omelette with glutinous flour added for a bit of chewiness. By itself the pancake can be a bit bland, but a dip into the sweet soy sauce makes it delicious.

Another platter that feeds a crowd is the jap chae ($26.99), the warm chewy glass noodles tossed in a fragrant sesame oil soy sauce with beef and vegetables. It’s a decent version of the dish but surprisingly expensive for what you ultimately receive.

The last of huge shared plates we tried included:

Tang suk yuk ($24.99), a sweet and sour chicken whose sauce, although not the vibrant red variety found in Chinese restaurants, is still flavourful. However, there’s just way too much breading on the chicken itself … really the speck of meat in the middle could be anything.

On the other hand, the spicy don ka su ($16.99) didn’t skimp on the meat, with the cast-iron skillet holding two long large pork cutlets. The dish is best eaten right out of the fryer, when the breading hasn’t gotten soggy from the thick spicy sauce the cutlets are smothered in. Overall, the don ka su could have been delicious (I loved the kick from the sauce), but the breading had a stale aftertaste and needed more seasoning.

As a warning, their grilled ssam dishes don’t actually include the lettuce wraps (for this you’ll need to add $5). The sam kyup sal consisted of three slices of relatively thick pork belly ($12.99). It lacked any flavour on its own, so really required the sweet bean paste and garlic oil that’s included on the side. Without the actual lettuce and herb garnishes the dish is pretty plain. The LA kalbi ($21.99) was better given the short ribs are marinated in a sweet garlic sauce, so is still tasty on its own. Like the jap chae, the kalbi was good, but not outstanding to warrant the much higher price compared to other Korean restaurants.

Not everything at Song Cooks is overpriced; most of their noodle and rice dishes are competitively sized and priced. I loved the chewy doughy noodles used in the ja jang myun ($8.99), but would have liked a bit more salt in the thick black bean sauce and the dish served hotter.

Their del sot bibimbap ($11.99) is fantastic with plenty of toppings and the most wonderful crispy golden crust develops where the sticky rice meets the hot stone bowl. The red bean sauce it arrives with seems spicier, so use less to begin with as you can always add more.

The ddukbokki ($8.99) is stir fried in a similar spicy sauce and intensely flavoured. It’s such a simple but satisfying dish – the logs of chewy rice cakes is addicting. To make it even more filling, we added ramen noodles ($1.00), which is great for ensuring every ounce of the spicy sauce is soaked up.

Perhaps what I like most about Song Cooks is the atmosphere … the restaurant is such a great laid-back anything-goes environment. While some establishments may give dirty looks to large rowdy tables, the staff at Song Cook join in the celebration, even demonstrating and introducing us to new drinking games. It’s that friendly attitude that makes me want to return for another order of bibimbap to wash down the 'Hulk Smash'.

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10

How To Find Them

Location: Thornhill, Canada
Address: 72 Steeles Avenue West

Website: http://www.songcooks.com/

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back

6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return

7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return

8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend

9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend

10 - absolute perfection!

Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:

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