Hong Kong-style Wonton Noodles in Toronto

Giant freshly made wontons with noodles in soup

On our last day in Toronto we made our way to the airport via a stop in Markham for some wonton noodles at Wonton Hut Noodle Bar.

Chef and owner Eddie Yeung is very passionate about making wontons and dumplings from scratch, having learned the craft back in his hometown of Hong Kong. He puts a lot of effort into the food he makes and it shows.

Traditional dumplings in broth

We had the signature wonton noodles, and we were already impressed by the jumbo-sized wontons almost the size of golf balls that were choc full of fresh shrimp and some minced pork. 

Sui gao or traditional dumplings as they are called on his menu, were also very good, stuffed with shrimp, pork, yellow chives, wood ear mushrooms and shiitake. 

Also well made were the beef meatballs, made with Ontario beef and seasoned with black pepper. The texture of the meatballs were bouncy and tender, though they would have tasted better with a hint of mandarin peel.

The same could be said of the dace fishball, which could have benefited from the addition of mandarin peel, instead of just the fish that is minced and made in-house. We didn't get a chance to ask Yeung why the mandarin peel flavour wasn't added, was it because of cost or customers didn't like it?

Nevertheless, we also enjoyed the braised beef brisket and tendon coated in a thick sauce, though it was on the slightly saltier side. 

Braised beef brisket and tendon

We left sated and definitely full as we had a late afternoon flight to catch and wouldn't be eating until later that evening.

Wonton Hut Noodle Bar

3760 Highway 7

Markham, Ontario

905 604 9060

A Trip Down Memory Lane with Noodles

This shop apparently has better quality noodles

My mom's formative years were spent on a farm in Kam Tin in the New Territories. She has told me many times how after school she and her siblings had to help inoculate lots of baby chicks before dinner and then do her homework.

On the weekends, a big treat was being able to go into town -- in this case Yuen Long -- and watch a movie, and then have a bowl of noodles at Ho To Tai.

Plump wontons with egg noodles in soup

The noodle shop was opened in 1946, and still retains its old school look, with the menu of 16 items written outside the shop complete with a phone number with five digits! Today there are eight.

The interior still has a lot of tiles on the walls, uncomfortable tables and chairs, and glass Coke bottles for drinks. Customers can also buy boxes of dried noodles to make at home.

When we came back this time, our relatives told us the Ho To Tai business had split up between two families, one taking the Yuen Long shop, the other set up the next station over in Long Ping, and the latter's noodles were supposedly better.

So we made a pilgrimage to that place, a quiet district that didn't have a giant shiny imposing shopping mall like Yoho Mall in Yuen Long.

Less than a 10-minute walk from the station we found Ho To Tai and it wasn't busy.

Tender beef brisket with radish

The menu is pretty straight forward and the three of us, my aunt, mom and I ordered several things to share: wonton noodles, noodles with dried shrimp roe generously sprinkled on top, beef brisket with radish, a plate of vegetables, and deep-fried dace fish balls with a briny sauce.

The noodles weren't extra thin and springy like those at Mak's Noodles, but they were comforting to eat, simple and delicious. The beef brisket was very tender, and the dace fish balls were bouncy and flavourful.

It was a simple dinner, and while my aunt and mom ate, they began reminiscing about their childhoods; they are nine years apart in age, so their experiences growing up were different. But it was fun listening to them talk about commuting to school, going to the wet market to buy food for their elder brother to cook, or boarding at school with five other girls in a room.

They had much tougher childhoods than me, though they seemed to find joy in their experiences, or grateful for the discipline drilled into them, or just accepted that this was the way life was back then.

Deep-fried dace fish balls with a briny sauce

After we finished eating, we paid the bill at the cashier, where the were yellow and orangey-red boxes piled high. The yellow ones were shrimp noodles at HK$70, but the latter were more expensive at HK$98! When we asked why, the staff explained it was because they were totally covered in shrimp roe compared to the former.

We only wanted to give the best to my uncle so the HK$98 box it was!

It took us about an hour to get to Long Ping and another to get back, but it was a nostalgic trip worth spending the time.

Ho To Tai

G/F, Fook On Building

67 Yuen Long On Ning Road, Yuen Long (Long Ping MTR station)

The other noodle shop is at

G/F, 67 Fau Tsoi Street, Yuen Long (Yuen Long MTR station)

Wonton Noodle Snack

A snack-sized bowl of wonton noodles

Yesterday when I was in Central for a morning coffee, I realised I should also go hit up Mak's Noodles for some authentic wonton noodles.

The place opens at 11am and when I went in, most of the tables were already occupied by tourists or locals keen on either an early lunch or in my case a snack.

Mak's Noodles has had a renovation

It had been a while since I last visited so the place so it looks more upscale with white walls and green trim, wooden furniture with glass tabletops. Long gone are the copies of newspaper and magazine clippings of Mak's Noodles that were so old. Instead under the glass tabletop were copies of the menu and some nice pictures.

The menu is divided into "Noodles" and "Stirred Noodles"... stirred noodles means mixed noodles, as in the noodles and condiments combined together.

While the noodles with shrimp roe is very good, I got the classic bowl of wonton noodles.

The cooks out in front used to face the cashier, but now their cooking stations are facing the outside windows on Wellington Street to create a bit of action to attract customers.

After several minutes, my bowl arrived the way they always serve wonton noodles -- a large clump of egg noodles on top covering four precious wontons underneath.

The cooks face the outside street

The wontons are filled with one whole shrimp and are fresh and crunchy. Meanwhile the egg noodle strands are so thin! Were they this thin before? They also had a wonderful springy texture.

The bowl of wonton noodles cost HK$50 (US$6.43) which is on the expensive side, but they are the real deal, the way they should be cooked and presented. 

Mak's Noodles

G/F, 77 Wellington Street

Central

+852 2854 3810

San Diego: Din Tai Fung

Love this xiaolongbao guy who greets everyone at the door!

The only place I booked ahead of arriving in San Diego to make sure we got a table was at Din Tai Fung! There are none of these Taiwanese dumpling chain restaurants in Canada and the last time I ate at Din Tai Fung was in Hong Kong almost a year ago.

Xiaolongbao with kurobuta pork

We drove about 25 minutes south to a shopping mall called Westfield UTC on La Jolla Drive. It's a huge mall complex with Nordstrom's and Macy's, and I later heard in the last few years the mall has blinged its way up the luxury brand ladder with boutiques like Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Michael Kors alongside H&M, Zara and Apple.

The mall is an outdoor shopping format, taking advantage of the weather and giving people lots of space to walk around and grab bites to eat in kiosks and restaurants scattered all over the shopping space.

Din Tai Fung has its format well established, from greeting customers outside the restaurant -- all members of the party must be present before they can be seated -- and watching the kitchen staff making dumplings right by the window. Some don't want to be photographed or videoed (despite wearing masks and head coverings) that they turn their backs slightly to the window.

Vegan dumplings with so many foldes

Over 10 years ago I visited the branch in Arcadia in Los Angeles and was impressed by the Mexicans deftly making xiaolongbao, but here the wait staff were both Asian and non-Asian which threw me off a bit. Almost all of them wore black masks along with their black uniforms, women had their hair in simple buns.

The interior is very contemporary and hardly Asian -- there are elongated booth seatings for up to four that slightly curves in on each side -- another two people can sit on the outside.

The menu is not like Hong Kong's -- was surprised to find there was no kaofu or braised wheat gluten with mushrooms and edamame, but mostly spicy dishes were there like cucumbers in chilli sauce. We ordered the seaweed and beancurd in vinegar dressing and wood ear mushrooms with vinegar dressing.

Sauteed string beans with garlic

These arrived very swiftly, followed by a slew of dumplings. The signature xiaolongbao with kurobuta pork had the memorably thin wrapper, but the filling was too pureed for my taste; it did not have a meaty, firm texture.

A new one for me was chicken dumplings with so many folds, but seemed thin with the filling and also quite pureed. The vegan dumplings were not quite what I remembered. Biting into it you couldn't quite identify everything in there by sight, though the description said there were glass noodles, bok choy, dried bean curd and shiitake mushrooms and spinach juice to dye the wrapper green.

We also had a portion of wontons in soup, sauteed broccoli with garlic and sauteed string beans with garlic, potstickers, as well as the fried rice with chicken which was very good. The vegetables were parboiled before being stir-fried to stay so crispy and fresh looking.

Fried rice with large pieces of chicken

The staff were very friendly and knew answers to all our questions. One person traveling with us has an allergy to sesame seed oil and the waitress immediately pulled out her copy of the menu with items highlighted in pink that had sesame seed oil. Impressive.

We thought we didn't have room for dessert, but we couldn't pass up the taro xiaolongbao; we could also rest our stomachs for around 10 minutes waiting for them.

They definitely hit the spot, 10 pieces and here the filling was rightly pureed, smooth and creamy, but no dairy, encased in a thin wrapper. Glorious.

Afterwards we rolled out of there, and there were many more people waiting outside for their turn to fill their stomachs with dumplings...

Taro xiaolongbao for dessert

Din Tai Fung

4301 La Jolla Village Drive

San Diego, CA

92122

(858) 375 5988