A Fancy dinner for a milestone: Grandma’s 65th dinner at Fancy Chinese Cuisine

My mom loves seafood so I tried to look for a good seafood place that we haven’t gone to before to celebrate her birthday. Of course, Chinese restaurants with tanks of live fish and crustaceans would fit the bill. We decided to try Fancy Chinese Cuisine restaurant over at Markham. Apart from Chinatown, Markham would be the place to go to for Chinese! And Chinese restaurants are also known for having creative names. Hahaha. Well, we were celebrating a milestone so we wanted something fancy for dinner. This place would not have us guessing. Apparently, the Chinese name of the restaurant is translated into the name of a Chinese millionaire. Ooh. Fancy :)

We arrived for early dinner as we heard the place gets packed and it is quite difficult to get parking. By the time we left, about 8pm, we realized we made a good call in going early! The place was already packed for a weeknight. And, with snow taking over half of the parking lot, there was even less slots. The interiors were indeed fancier than most and the servers had some very cool LED name tags. We were seated quickly and the host spoke good enough English to get our orders and requests correct.

Anyway, we ordered HoFun noodles (for long life), Yeung Chow fried rice (my mom’s favorite staple), and of course, sea food! The complimentary bone soup hit the spot on yet another cold winter night.

The rest of our orders came soon after. The Fried HoFun noodles with beef and Yeung Chow fried rice came first. These were both pretty good. The noodles were not too oily for me as that is what I was expecting from this. Hubby found it on the oily side. The rice had a good amount of shrimp and Chinese sausage. It was quite flavourful.

We got some sautéed scallops, a fave of hubby and DD#1. The scallops were plump and perfectly cooked. The snow peas were sweet and crunchy.

We also got Crispy Tofu/Beancurd and Shrimp with Chili. They were both so yummy! These were served atop rice krispies with garlic and chili. I actually added some of these rice krispies to the fried rice and it was absolutely delicious! The shrimp was mom-approved (this is her favourite!) and the crispy tofu is the newest addition to our usual order in Chinese restaurants.

I also got the girls some HarGow (shrimp dumpling), but we could have done without it. Hubby said I ordered too much! But the dumplings were good and were packed with full shrimps!

The highlight of the dinner was the Steamed Bass. Seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce and scallions, it was fresh (swimming just minutes before!), sweet and wonderfully tender-- worth the $30 price tag! Our server proceeded to slice the fish and remove the spine. Then, she put the flesh back for presentation. It didn’t stay long that way, though, as we started digging into it.

Other patrons ordered peking duck, which was served table side. It looked delicious! Definitely something worth trying next time.

Complimentary dessert of sweet beancurd, red bean soup and sesame cookies were available. But we were too stuffed we just asked for the sesame goodies. Another hit for all of us, especially DD#2!



Actually, after the first few dishes came out, we already decided we will be coming back here. Food was good and service was courteous and prompt. Each meal would cost about $10-15 but the portions were decent. To boot, the washrooms were clean! Fancy!