Graceful Vegetarian Restaurant

Had dim sum here today, it’s no where near what I’m use to. It’s definitely not fresh, steamed food tastes from frozen and fried rolls tasted as if they had them sitting in the kitchen ready to serve, not fresh! The soy sauce by far was the worst, not sure what kind they use but it’s very pungent. I could not finish eating my meal. Only upsides was the tea and that it was not expensive.

It was quite busy the day we went for dinner. Smaller restaurant but lots of tables and staffed well. The Ford carnet out in good time but we weren’t a fan. Dishes were either under seasoned or over seasoned. Prices are higher given we’re in Markham and there’s lots of competition. Probably wouldn’t go back unless we had to.

Ambience & Décor: Ethnic, traditional.
Service: Service is very good. The staff are welcoming. Some of the waitresses are not fluent in English but the men who run the place do speak it fluently.
Food: Very good. This is the place for vegetarians & questions about menu items are answered. They don’t seen to have egg-​free noodles on the menu, though. Maybe they can substitute egg free noodles? It would also be nice if they added vegetarian congee to the menu.
Graceful Vegetarian — a vegetarian friendly place.

I’ve eaten here twice. As a vegetarian it was quite refreshing and all the dishes were creative and delicious. Staff were polite. Definitely coming back.
I thought the mock Chicken kabobs and the sweet and sour mock pork were great.

My sister is vegetarian, so I’ve been to many vegetarian restaurants and this one is the only one I’d be down to go again. Service was professional and I liked the appetizers and tofu. My sister did the ordering so I’m not exactly sure which dishes I ate.

On a normal basis, I typical avoid strictly vegetarian food-​it never appeal to me or the people I tend to dine with. Rarely do I enjoy an all veggie meal. I did so at Graceful Vegetarian Restaurant. Though there are a lot of mock meat dishes, you have to remember to take most of the description with a grain of salt, try to remember that these are standalone dishes by their own rights-​and are not meant to be compared in likeness to their meaty counterparts. With that being said… we also, all need to remember that it the sheer cost of time and energy put into these tiny dishes to perfect the taste and texture of various type of soy to make it palatable in for many ways.
The food was very well prepared and tasted of quality. We came late before closing (yes, we were one of those dreaded diners that night) with very little expectation of being blown away. We ordered only a few dishes-​there were some misses and some were great hits. Even the misses had redeeming factors, it was just not for me. As a small app, we decided to go with the jelly fish, the texture was not exactly alike and was a bit tough and chewy, yet the marination the went with it was very pleasing. The Siu mai was delish, once again not exact but was none the less a strong alternative to actual pork siu mai. The hai gow was where I felt it was lacking, though my boyfriend loved it. The skin was well made but the filling was made to replicate the looks of shrimp but fell short on texture-​it came out rubbery and tasted as so. My absolute favourite dish was the mock sweet and sour pork, it could’ve rivaled its counterpart. Most ill-​prepared sweet and sour pork can be over-​fried to achieve its crispy exterior leaving the meat dried and rubbery or sometimes, restaurant cut cost by going with a lower grade meat that once prepared, taste stringy and almost gamey. This, however, the sauce was a lovely combination with the crispy, slightly chewy (in a good way) fried pieces of soy gluten-​crispy battered exterior and lovely juicy interior.
The restaurant was very nicely decorated-​clean and bright. The price is steep but justifiable because of the quality. It was a nice change of pace-it’s not any healthy but a nice alternative to meaty Chinese cuisine. You should come in for a try when you’re feeling a case of the fancy or simply want to try something new yet familiar.

Love, love, love this place! My hubby brought me here on one of our first few dates and we absolutely loved the food. It’s great food for vegetarians who like tofu and mock meat. We have been back numerous times and also when I had cravings during pregnancy.

Nice veggie restaurant, the dishes here were not too oily. Love the fresh tofu/​vegetables here, very close to the pacific mall

Fake meat costs more than real meat but I have to say the fake one worth a try!
We had lotus fired rice, crab meat broccoli and eel
Eel is a must-​try!
Unfortunately, today is the the first day in lunar calendar so the menu is limited
Will come back and try the other food

I can’t believe I’ve never reviewed Graceful Vegetarian. This is my ultimate favourite vegetarian restaurant in Scarborough.
Graceful definitely has a special place in my heart; my family and I frequented it lot since my 20s. I cannot even count how many times we’ve eaten here. I’ve had major gatherings here, even including birthdays and post-​funeral dinner. I’ve also ordered ginormous take-​out orders for parties at my mother’s house. The managers and the waiters here, although I still don’t know their name, pretty much recognize me and also my entire family. They’re always kind, prompt and respectful.
The food here is amazing, no matter what you order. Some of the regular dishes we get are the fried taro fish and porkchop fried rice (vegetarian with egg).

Garbage. It was my mother’s birthday, we spent almost $ 500 a table. We read the set menu, and expected something spectacular. This was not the case. Every dish that came out tasted EXACTLY the same — flavorless. Seemed like the chef slapped the food together within seconds. The presentation was terrible.
If disappointment is what you’re looking for, search no more.
All in all, we felt ripped off. We will never go again.

If you are vegetarian or just avoiding mystery meat dumplings all together, Graceful Vegetarian is a nice option!
We arrived at 10:15am to find out they open at 11am on Sunday.
It is conveniently located at Pacific Mall, so you can wander around before or after your meal.
The restaurant is clean, bright, and much more elegant than expected. The service was attentive for a Chinese restaurant. There were only a few tables with customers, the restaurant is quiet and less hectic than most other dim sum places.
We tried a few items but I can’t say any of the items were amazing.
The BBQ buns (similar to BBQ pork buns but vegetarian) were hot and steamy, but not as sweet at the meat equivalent.
The vegetarian «shrimp» dumplings were mushy.
If you squished them with your chopsticks they almost fell apart.
The deep fried donut and rice noodle wasn’t bad but very crispy.
My favorite item was probably the deep fried tofu!
Then again, I like almost anything that is deep fried!
Overall, not a bad meal, but I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to revisit.

Nice veggie restaurant, the dishes here were not too oily. Love the fresh tofu/​vegetables

This is one of the best vegetarian restaurants for dim sum that my family has ever had. There are numerous varieties of dim sum dishes that are tasty.
Their service deserves a full 5 stars for their friendliness, prompt service, polite staff who bring your food and the owners are very nice one of the them offered to help us take a family photo after seeing us attempt to do a selfie. We ordered a few dishes from their dinner menu and the food was average as it lacked slightly in flavour and the rice noodle dish came with a lot of noodles but very little vegetables. The tofu casserole dish lacked salt and flavour. Ever since we started going here we have been going back 5 times for their dim sum.

My husband brought me food from there that I ordered over the phone. I ordered the lemon chicken and sweet and sour chicken. The sweet and sour chickn looked like the photos and tasted ok… in my opinion not enough batter. The lemon chickn was ridiculous. I got about 15 pieces of dried up chickn with the tiniest of little lemon sauce on the side. I mean tiny. If I had been the one picking up this food I would not have paid for it. Oh well I guess I am out 30 dollars. You live and learn. Maybe the food is better when you actually eat there than take out. I will stick with Zen Gardens from now on.

If you are vegetarian, you never get to truly enjoy dim sum, so for all you veggies, this place is dim sum heaven. They have a meat free version of nearly anything you’ve ever wanted, including butterfly :) The chairs are covered in fabric like you’re at a wedding and the servers are cute and friendly. The whole experience is entertaining and fun.

This place blew my mind.
I am a big meat eater. Everyone who knows me, knows this. But it was my cousins birthday and she and her husband are vegetarians and they chose the restaurant. I would have never chose this place on my own.
This place is completely vegetarian, even the seafood dishes are created with mock seafood meat. Some of the dishes were really comparable to actual meat. Some dishes that stood out for us were the Deep Fried Spare Ribs and the Jellyfish dish. How did they get it so spot on?
The dish to stay away from is the siu mai. The texture and taste of that wasn’t the best.
Service here was really good too, servers are attentive and kind which you don’t always get at a Chinese restaurant.
5 stars for really impressing me — without meat.

3.5÷5
I’ve visited Graceful a couple of times when I was little, but mainly stuck to Lotus Pond since their portions are larger. However, I had to go to Pacific Mall this past weekend, and to avoid driving all over the place I decided to have lunch at Graceful.
Lunch on Sunday wasn’t too busy, but then again there was the freezing rain the night before, which might have explained the wealth of parking spots available. The server gave us the dim sum menu, however he didn’t give us the giant menu book until we asked for it… tsk tsk.
We ordered siu mai, vegetarian abalone sashimi, sweet corn soup with mock ham, mixed mushroom fried noodles, and the vegetarian mix (medley of mock meats together… forgot the exact English term). I absolutely loved the abalone sashimi and the vegetarian mix, and would’ve ordered seconds or thirds if I were hungrier (I did buy a vegetarian mix home though). The siu mai was nothing memorable, and the sweet corn soup was decent, though the mock ham was too grainy (Lotus Pond has it exactly like chopped ham pieces). The biggest ripoff, however, was the mixed mushroom fried noodles… one person can easily finish the plate, yet it was around $ 16. The taste wasn’t bad, but definitely nowhere near a $ 16 value.
I think my experience would’ve been better if I stuck solely to dim sum. The end result was around $ 68 for 3 people! If I take away the noodle dish it would only be around $ 50, which is the average I spend for dim sum for 3 people.
Our dessert also took a while to come out, and we had to ask the server to follow up twice on it. The sesame balls tasted very good though, so maybe it was worth the wait?
I’m torn between whether to add the .5 for not for service, as I found it to be overall borderline. I believe considering the cost factor I’ll leave it at 3.5, and in my next visit if I had a better experience I’ll upgrade to 4.

Have been eating at Graceful for several years now though not as often as I like. IMHO it is the best vegetarian dim sum in the GTA. Service is impeccable, very gracious and efficient. Prices are a bit high but you get what you pay for.
Definitely try the mock chicken satay. It is amazing. Hot and sour soup, the red type, is also very good. I like how they have replicated a lot of typical dim sum dishes.

Love this place. The food is great. I have yet to try something that I don’t like. I think they really shine in the ‘mock’ meat section. That’s pretty much what my vegetarian mother likes to order from them. I would definitely recommend it for vegetarians looking for other options. The only downfall is that they are pretty expensive for the amount of food you get.

This place is soooo good! Unfortunately, it suffers from a problem unique to Chinese cuisine: too much choice. Whenever I go here, I need someone else to make the executive decisions for me, as I’m always overwhelmed by the sheer variety of dishes that they offer — and considering that all of them are vegetarian means I’m left with many decisions…
Frequently, I’m unaware of what’s coming next, and despite this, I’m always delighted.

My cousin took me here for dim sum as she is Vegetarian, and I was quite surprised by the extent of options on the menu. Overall a good experience but, I have yet to be wowed by anything particular yet so, I will have to come back and try more items!

I’m pretty much as far as a vegetarian as you can get without mainlining bacon fat into my veins — but m’lady be a vegetarian and I wanted dim sum in Markham, so Graceful was the compromise.
I’m treating this place as fairly as possible for what it is and in comparison to other vegetarian places I’ve been to — it’s pretty middle of the road. I’m not sure if it’s the Buddhist influence, but the food is pretty bland.
If you’ve tried Chinese ‘faux’ meats before, you may be impressed with their efforts to approximate the full meat experience — but the food was a lot better and more creative at places like Joe Yee (now closed)
The two of us ordered 8 dim sum dishes — the total came to $ 40 with tax and tip ($ 3 — $ 5 per dish) and we were stuffed, but neither of us were satisfied. Pretty pricey compared to normal dim sum, but I guess they are serving a niche market.
The har gow (‘shrimp dumpling’) was extremely thick skinned and was starchy — ‘faux’ filling notwithstanding, this was off to a bad start. The sui mai (‘pork meatball’) had an odd sticky texture. Xiao long bao (‘Shanghai soup dumpling’) are usually sucky even at a regular dim sum places (you really have to go to a good specialist for this) — but the XLB here was bad even by dim sum XLB standards — had no soupy or savoury element at all, just a slight ginger hit. I won’t have been able to guess they were try to imitate XLB if I ate it blind.
The passable items were the smoked ‘duck’ which bean curd wrapped veggies with a strong taste of smoke — not like duck at all, but at least it was interesting. And the deep-​fried items were not bad — but I noticed most Chinese vegetarian places do a good job of faking deep-​friend things — so this might be inherent.
Oddly, the best thing we had the chicken nugget. If you fed this to most people and didn’t tell them, they would probably think they were eating a pretty good chicken nugget from the freezer section at a grocery store. So — I guess this was good?
This was my first time having faux meat dim sum, and it was pretty bland. Even when accounting for the inherent difficulties of attempting vegetarian dim sum — things like thick dumpling skins are big mistakes. While the most of dim sum looked the part, many of the textures/​tastes were very off.
I will say that the service was excellent and it’s hard to slam people for trying something as ambitious as this. But like Icarus, they flew too close to the sun… on wings made of dyed, reshaped and poorly flavoured tofu.

This is the only restaurant I do not have to worry about which dim sum item does not contain meat or fish — this is a vegetarian/​vegan place!!!
I wish I have more room in my stomach to sample all their dim sum items, they are just splendid!
I had dinners there several times too. I just love their quality of food and presentation.
The location might not be convenient for people living downtown, but it is worth having a ride there for a good meal.
I will be back for more & more!

This has got to be the best Vegetarian Dim Sum place I’ve ever had the pleasure to eat at.!! I’ve really only been there for their dim sum but I’ve heard from a hardcore meat eater, the fake meat there tastes better than the real deal. HA!
One dish that I completely fell in love with and can’t get enough of is the Turnip Cake with XO sauce. It is cooked to perfection and generous amount of spice. Try it!

Although service can vary a little i have always found good value (prepared veggies are more expensive folks) and generally good food. Some days differ a little depending on the chef, which may explain the occasional bland dish. But it is one of the best Buddhist type (no garlic, no onions) Vegetarian Restaurants in the city.
Best way to find easy parking is to enter off Kennedy and turn immediately left to the north of the parking lot.

I went here yesterday after the good reviews from Unilocal.However it was for dinner and not dim sum.
The food came out slow but service was excellent.
Food was okay, having eaten at a few chinese vegetarian restaurants it was not bad, good selection of dishes. Nothing spectacular though.
the restaurant décor is quite nice, very comfortable and semi-​grand looking. Big shock from what i thought it would look like from outside.
The major downfall is the price. The prices are quite high and portions arent that big. (maybe its my expectations of having left overs after a meal)
most dishes range from 11 – 17 dollars … most in the 13 – 14 dollar range.

When I stopped eating meat, giving up giant dim sum brunches with my family was the hardest thing. This place was my only consolation! Even my father, who seems to have an innate distrust of mock-​meats, was willing to eat here, and with good reason – the food here is really good. Really really good.
I’ve since started eating meat, but I’ll still make the trip to Pacific Mall whenever someone suggests we go here. Try the turnip cakes – they’re so good.