These are reviews I wrote before leaving Toronto in 2008. They encompass a wide range of cuisines, either authentic representations or cultural adaptations, or somewhere in the foggy middle ground, of the city I called home.
Spring Rolls
40 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON
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3/10
This is the restaurant for the mildly hungry person who knows they want Asian food and needs a lot of options, but is 100% sure that once they have seen the options they can quickly make a decision. Otherwise you’re still staring at an enormous menu 30 minutes later wondering if it’s a pad thai night or a green salad with honey garlic tarragon dressing night and yes, the latter option really did just use four consecutive nouns. The ‘fusion’ is also evident in the triple cheese dumplings (“Imitation crab smothered in a creamy, mild cheese blend”). Which mild cheeses are these? Does this blend come pre-packaged? These are the questions that this popular restaurant inspires. Service is usually efficient, not friendly, as the restaurant seems to always be too busy to get a refill on your glass of water. The food is usually tasty, but not so filling as to not leave room for a drink, an appetizer and a dessert. I recommend narrowing your Asian culinary desires to a single country, if not a single region, on a particular night, and seeking out a non-chain restaurant where the food is more important to the owners than how many times they can ‘flip the tables’.
>Thai Basil Mango Beef and Tiger Shrimps $12.95
“Meaty short ribs and tiger shrimps marinated w/ rich seasonings and slow cooked until tender”
What’s the plural of shrimp? This Pan-Asian Restaurant has been around too long and has grown into too big a chain for it to be cute to misspell words like more endearing restaurants in Chinatown. A most delicious mango sauce, however, makes me forgive the error(?) and thank someone up above that they don’t bread their beef like they do their chicken. While not the most succulent shrimp(s?) that will, hopefully, ever grace your palate, the sauce is tasty when the mangoes are ripe. Cross your fingers that those mango chunks were chopped on the premises and not in their native lands before being forced into dark, little jars, suffocated/drowned and forgotten about by their assailants, only to be resuscitated in a land far, far away for your personal enjoyment. I hope they liked the feeling of being stuffed inside an object the first time around. After all this abuse we still can’t get their plural correct. May we not just call them prawns?
Seafood “Ho Fun” in Black Bean Sauce $11.95
Really ‘no fun’, this black bean sauce can only be complimented on the fact that the sauce isn’t too salty…except I thought it needed some salt. Other than that it was overwhelmingly bland and disappointing.
Ah, Pad Thai $9.95
Do these photos looks a little different to you? Hmm…they shouldn’t. One is from the menu and the other from the meal. Sure, lots of people don’t actually eat the cilantro garnish or strips of green and red pepper, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with scrapping them in favour of yet more noodles and dessicated broccoli. Someone out there’s favourite part of the meal could be the two slices of orange which have mysteriously disappeared. Nowhere near authentic, Spring Roll’s ketchup-y version of pad thai hits the spot to which Torontonians expect it to go. You’ll like it if you don’t know what you’re missing, but you’ll like it. It’s good for what it is and what you can get in Toronto.
General Tao Chicken $9.45
“Lightly breaded chicken, broccoli, peppers and asparagus in Chef Hai’s unique General Tao sauce”
Quotable Chef Hai: “The modern woman doesn’t want to cook,” and “The best way to a woman’s heart is to pick up the tab”
I bet these are funnier in Thai…
Plan to Spend: $12 per entrée. $40 per meal including appetizer, dessert and a passable lychee martini, as well as perhaps that tip you didn’t necessarily want to give but did because you’re a good person.
For a look into the world of effective marketing visit the Springrolls website at www.springrolls.ca
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