A dozen years after it galloped from our personal pastures, the year of the horse is upon us once again. Best to celebrate its triumphant return this Chinese New Year in a style that befits its regal presence. In other words, let’s do this annual celebration that ushers in the next 12 months on the Chinese calendar up big.Here are five of your Chinese New Year best restaurants:
Chinese comfort food (think tasty dumplings all cinched up in bundles of flavour and homemade buns so juicy you could water your lawn with them) awaits at this Chinatown treasure. Plan to ring in the New Year here, but do so with the knowledge that you’re not alone in this pursuit. Mother’s Dumplings are so good, the word has spread well beyond the family.
Go all gung hay fat choy on this place, where a truly spectacular abundance of yummy Cantonese-style fast food lies in wait. Assign jurisdictions to tablemates in surveying this Chinatown delight’s massive menu, lest you get lost amidst the rice, fried noodles, casserole pots, curries, vegetables, soups and barbecued goodies that so copiously populate it.
This downtown fave has a standing berth in the best-Chinese-in-Toronto lists, and the spot is well earned. A Chinatown mainstay since 1995, Lai Wah Heen delivers fare consistently excellent enough to attract a steady stream of regulars, New Year’s or no. They come for dim sum as hearty as it is innovative, crispy Peking duck carved tableside and Cantonese standards done well, like dungeness crab fried rice, siu mai, and hot and sour soup.