Magic Noodle

I like their handmade and shaved noodles, it’s not overly doughy and taste fresh. However, I do think their soup bases and overall flavours could use some improvement. I ordered the beef brisket noodle over the weekend, and it was pure oil. Their appetizers are a bit stingy and of course customer service does not exist. I would still come back since it’s one of the better handmade noodle places in Toronto.

I want to get the bad out. The customer service is scary so I recommend to go during non peak hours.
This is a northern Chinese restaurant so expect cumin in almost everything and that’s exactly what I want during fall and winter. There’s nothing like bold spices to warm the soul. Just like other Unilocalers, go with the beef brisket. Now that it’s summer get the lamb and tofu skewers with a cold beer.

We went to Magic Noodle because of my friend’s recommendation, she said that they have good noodles etc.
We went three times in 3 weeks between March to April and our experience went from very good to «no thank you, I won’t be back» .
Why? It is all about service …
The firs time we went was a Saturday at lunch. We ordered the original and lamb noodles. The table as well set up with their spare bowls and ready to drink water jug which I found a delight in a CHinese place.
Even though it was busy, the food was great and the noodles were definitely home made with a great broth. On the Menu, it said that you may ask for additional broth for no charge. Being a broth lover, I asked for some and it came promptly with a smile in two small bowls (yes, this is the service differentiator) …
The servers were polite and I thought that this would be my best find in Richmond hill, and saved me time to go downtown.
The second time we went was a mid week and they were not too busy. We ordered the BBQ lamb skewer. And 2 bowls of noodles. This time, we had no bowls on our table and we had to ask for water. It went okay with the food being delivered. When we asked for additional broth, they gave us a look and grudgingly took OUR bowls which we were using to eat, and brought it to the kitchen and poured broth on it.
We looked at each other and found it odd that they would take a customer’s bowl (saliva and all) and pour broth on it.
York region health inspector would have a field day! So this was our odd experience.
The third experience was worse. It was an icy April evening and they were not that busy. They sat us near the front where the cold air just blew through .we figured that they probably had reservations for other customers but I observed that they would let their mandarin speaking customers to pick their seats. We were too hungry to worry about little things but again they would bring spare bowls for the mandarin speaking customers and we had to ask for them. The KICKER was when we asked for the broth. The sever said that they do not offer it even though it was still listed in their menu. Really? What a crock of lies! So we ended up eating oir food and vouched never to return…
Unless you are mandarin speaking, don’t come here. They don’t want our service and man, don’t ask for the free broth.

I came to the realization that if you’re in this area looking for a late night meal, then this place is probably your best bet. The service is quick and the food is good — for eating at a restaurant at this time in the night, you get a bang for your buck.
My only warning would be that my lamb skewers were overly seasoned with MSG/​salt (although it was more meaty this time since my last review). I mean, it’s the perfect type of food for a hangover. but not so much when you’re sober.
I also found that the lamb noodle soup was lacking in actual pieces of lamb meat but the broth was very flavorful. Oh well, I guess that’s what happens when lamb is expensive and the selling price is kept reasonable. Overall though, the soup noodles are fairly tasty (especially when you’re craving something hot and filling past 11pm).

I’m a big fan of noodles and came across this place thanks to Unilocal when i was searching for nearby noodle places. This place did not disappoint! Their selling point is they do their own noodles and thus, it’s supposed to be super chewy and it lived up to that reputation! I had their hand cut noodles and regular noodles already and both were amazing! Soup base is very flavorful and if you are into spicy noodle soup, this place has those as well. My bowl of beef noodle soup was amazing, beef was very tender and noodle is so chewy!
One star off due to the a minor language barrier (they tend to speak mandarin only) and sometimes not as attentive. If you go during lunch or dinner hours on weekends, good luck finding a table within 20 minutes.

Our go to place for noodles and asian food!
Their noodles are hand-​made fresh on the spot which you can watch the chef prepare! It’s pretty cool to watch while you wait for your food.
Being hand made and fresh the noodles itself is definitely the star of every dish — it’s never too chewy or soft — always the right consistency. The broth they use is full of hearty flavour goodness (which the noodles soak up too!). Prices aren’t bad either. My favourite is the bbq duck & pork noodle soup bowl. They duck and pork is savory and always retains is flavour unlike most other bbq soup bowls where the soup soaks away the bbq flavour.

Coming here during a weekend lunch hour required a 10 minute wait. They hand you a tag and when it beeps you can get seated.
The seating looks similar to the location in downtown. However, the menus are different. There are no cute names for each noodle, such as G.I. Ju for the pork intestine noodles. I assume it’s due to the fact that they try to liven it up downtown where all the students are.
The regular ramen noodles here seemed to be machine made… given the uniform shape. When i ordered the same noodles downtown, they didn’t look like this. Again, the noodles were over cooked. The knife cut noodles were better, but a bit thinner and smaller than the ones from the location downtown. The pork intestine noodle also looked different from the menu. I do have to say that there were a lot of noodles in the small size that I ordered.
The traditional LanZhou beef noodles only had 4 thin slices of beef, the soup base was very ordinary. As for the beef noodle soup, the noodles were again slightly over cooked, but the beef had tendons attached and very well braised.
The Shanxi style cold noodle appetizer was not worth ordering. The noodles were very oily with a strong peanut flavour to it. It also didn’t look like what was pictured in the menu. The noodles were alright, they were like rice noodles.
I personally like the downtown location better for the noodle quality. However, if you are around Markham/​Richmond Hill and want some Chinese noodles, this location is okay.

**BAD SERVICE**
This place is always busy especially on a weekend or Friday night. But the good thing is they give you a beeper and when you’re table is ready, the electronic device beeps and you know to head back to the restaurant. Very convenient if you don’t want to squish inside and get in the way of people walking in and out. Wait time is usually 15−20mins.
The place is quite small so as for their tables, if you’re in a group of 4 and get one of the square tables, having a bowl each on it is ridiculous, there’s basically no space you can place your bowls, nerveless the side dishes which you have ordered! In order for them to max out the seating space, they have stool along the walls where you can face the wall to eat.
There’s basically no service here, so don’t expect any! They just sit you down and give you a bowl of WARM lemon tap water which you self serve. The menu is pretty simple, noodles, rice, side dishes nothing too fancy or unusual but PLENTY of pictures in case you don’t understand what it is, which I find great!
We ordered a few side dishes, the lamb skewers and pig ears to share for the table. And each one of us ordered a bowl of noodles. Noodles don’t come at the same time even though you ordered at the same time. We waited 15mins from the first to the last bowl so we could eat at the same time. Noodles tasted great, as well as the soup but as to portion size, it was LITTLE! The side dishes were also good! I would recommend ordering the pig ears and lamb skewers.
As we finished and wanted our bill, they brought us a new bowl of noodles and charged us for it. We told them we didn’t order and the fact that we didn’t place a second order and we were clearly finished eating, they were so confused! They brought it back to the kitchen and came out again with the same noodles to our table and asked if we could pay for it and take it home!
After a 10min discussion, they finally agreed on removing it from the bill.
Terrible communication and forcing customer to pay for something they did not order! Very bad service because they don’t care! Would come back again for the FOOD but hate the service!

Came in during dinner time and it was full, luckily there was a table leaving so there wasn’t much of a wait. They said to sit down at the unclean table first and totally forgot to come by later to clean up. The tip from the previous customers was still sitting on the table. It was also a task to try to flag a server down. They seem to make eye contact but then go in the opposite direction.
Hand pulled noodles are consistent with the other location, the entire meal was very familiar. Good standardized product, this location is much bigger and can sit a larger party if needed. The sliced noodle definitely soaks up a lot of soup so it would be wise to eat up while its fresh and hot. The braised pork was really tender and fatty, very delicious. Only disappointing thing was the soup. It just seemed like a soya sauce soup, probably the braised pork liquid. Would be nicer if it came with the beef or pork soup from the other noodles.
Overall, noodles the same as the other location but service was worse so will stick to the other place closer to home.

Love the food here! This is one of our favourite places for noodles. This restaurant is always busy during peak lunch/​dinner time, but we arrived early for dinner one evening and didn’t have to wait for a table.
We ordered:
— Steamed chicken with hot sauce: The sauce is super delicious — peanut-​y and quite spicy! It has a numbing affect on your tongue so beware if you can’t eat too spicy!
— Grilled tofu: They douse the tofu in seasoning but it’s sooo good.
— Signature beef soup noodle: This bowl comes with a bit of everything (beef, lamb, pork, egg, turnip), and the noodles were cooked perfectly. The soup base has enough flavour but they provide chili oil on the side if you want a bit of a kick to it.
— Szechuan style fried sliced noodle: The sliced noodle works really well in a fried dish but it’s quite a challenge to pick up with chopsticks. This dish was cooked in a tangy and slightly spicy sauce with a chockful of celery, onions tomatoes and meat. Yum!
Magic Noodle is a cost effective and quick place to eat (quick provided that you don’t have to wait too long), but don’t expect great service here. The waitresses literally drop off your food without even a blink of an eye at you. At least it’s quite entertaining to watch the noodle chef at work!

Hand made noodle soup — good but doesn’t stand out from others
Location/​décor:
— The restaurant is located on the south side of 16^th avenue. If you miss the early turn in to the plaza, you’ll have to do a u-​turn at Valleymede to get back in to the plaza.
— We went early on a Saturday night expecting it to be quite empty but it turned out the place was busy
— Inside you will find a modern and clean looking set up where you can even watch the chefs in the back pull and pound the noodle dough on the counter. Very cool to see!
Food:
— The menu is quite good with a combination of soup noodles, dry noodles, hot/​cold appetizers and grilled snacks.
— We ordered the following: Magic Noodle Signature Beef Noodle Soup, Hand Pulled Noodle with Roast Duck and BBQ Pork, Fried pancake with leek and Grill squid tentacles.
— For the noodles, we ordered the small size which is definitely quite filling and the noodles came by very fast — matter of minutes after ordering. However, when it arrived, the food did not quite look like the menus. But appearance is not the only factor. The soup base was tasty but I found the toppings for both noodles to be a bit of let down e.g. my beef noodle has a pieces of beef and porkchop tucked underneath the noodles and soup while the other only had 3 pieces of duck and 2 pieces of BBQ pork. The noodle themselves were great — chewy and thin which worked with the soup.
— For our snacks, the fried pancake with leek was a hit! Crispy outside while stuffed with leeks inside — must try it with the vinegar! However, the grilled squid was a miss — I was expected a bunch of large tentacles on the skewer but it was tiny little piece. It was also quite chewy and it did not taste good.
Overall — I give it a thumbs up for the noodles and soup but the rest could be improved upon as more toppings would have been better. In the huge flood of noodle places, this one is good but it doesn’t quite stand out from the rest.

Yeah, yeah. I’m back. Now I know what you’re thinking. «Hey Allen, if you hated it so much the first time, why did you come back?»
I recently saw a post on blogTO about magic noodle and figured I should really give it another shot.
I’m glad I did!
I came in during an off-​peak time on purpose because last time I came in was very busy (as it usually gets here). My first impression of this place, with a fresh outlook, is that it’s a quick and delicious and economical place to have a good lunch or dinner anytime. They’re open hours are absurd from 11 a.m. until 5 a.m. the next day, which makes it very convenient for some. I came in and ordered the braised beef soup and was not disappointed. It came separately with the noodles and all the fresh greens in one bowl and the soup with the protein in the other and by mixing them together only when you’re ready to eat it creates a really fresh and delicious meal. The only complaint I would have about the food that I received is that a couple pieces of beef were pure blubber, however the rest of it was so delicious it’s almost not worth mentioning.
The reason I gave this place 3 out of 5 stars is because if you come in during on peak hours you’re not going to be happy with the service. It’s kind of hard to give a place a 5-​star review that doesn’t deliver consistency. I deducted another star because I have a problem with their options on the menu. As delicious as my braised beef soup was, there were really limited options, especially for vegetarians. I have to say, off the top of my head, I know more people that eat chicken than do haggis, but unfortunately chicken is not offered as a protein option, but you’re in luck if you like haggis! They only have lamb, beef, and pork. I can imagine that, as they are now a franchise, they should consider adding new options to their menu to cater to a wider audience (vegetarians, pescatarians, chicken, and vegan). But otherwise this place was quick economical and truly delicious for a quick bite before work.

Hong Kong style eateries are usually hit or miss and this one is definitely a miss. O. k, its open 24 hours, has fairly good pricing and a good selection of items to choose from. The bad? Under-​cooked noodles (maybe they rush them when they are busy) and too many fillers (using more sauce and pastry when they should be using more meats and vegetables)
Service is average here and they don’t pay attention to small things like keeping your water glasses full. The dishes I had there were very bland and lacked the ‘wow factor’.
Its not very often I regret coming to a restaurant, but I definitely regret coming here, especially with so many great options in this neighborhood.

Very tasty! The food definitely lives up to the name. I ordered the Shanghai stir fry noodle and the classic Lanzhou beef noodle soup. Everything tastes very fresh, and you can even see the chefs making the noodle by hand. Super cool!
A few pointers for the daily noodler:
— free soup refills!!! This is very important since the noodles absorb soup over time, and they don’t give you a proportional amount of soup for the large slab of noodles in the dish
— extra noodles does not mean extra noodles. Spare yourself ur buck and just upgrade to a large/​buy another bowl
— the leaf cross section noodles are my favourite :)
— the fat flat noodles taste best stir fried
Would consider coming here again. v

I give 4* for the food, an extra star for its magic of making my parent happy.
The Richmond Hill location is more spacious than the one on Midland /​McNicoll. It was really busy but luckily we didn’t have to wait for a table. The place was kept pretty clean. Service was good and I like it was very family-​oriented. They provided a pair of scissors to tables with kids to cut the noodles.
We ordered the House special noodle and Traditional noodle. Good portion. The handmade noodle has a good chew. I prefer the thicker triangular noodle but I think I should try the thickest just for the fun next time. The regular noodles kind of get soggy at the very end. Don’t think there are too much msg in the broth as I wasn’t quenching for water afterwards.
The tofu skewer was loaded with cumin and hoisin sauce, a bit sweet but I like it. The lamb kabob honestly was one of the best. It was very tender and and I like the spices.
It is now opened from 11am to 5am! Late night snack!!!

Magic Noodle is simply amazing. I love freshly made noodles, but then again who doesn’t? These are the words that I live by with food. «Nothing better than fresh!» That is basically what these Magic Noodle bowls are filled with. Freshness in every bite, it is almost Magical ;) What makes these noodles so magical and fresh you ask? Its hand pulled in house. You can go right to the back where there will be someone making these noodles right in front of your eyes. Its an art of hand stretching and slamming the dough on the table, and it is quite entertaining to watch.
There is a wide variety of bowls and dishes, but when you visit you need to order a bowl of noodles, specifically freshly hand pulled noodles. If you are not sure what bowl to get, just go for the Traditional LanZhao Beef Noodles. It’s my go to bowl of noodles. I have tried the Magic Noodle Signature Beef Soup Noodle, and the Hand-​Pulled Noodle with Braised Beef Brisket in Beef Soup. They are all great but if I had to die eating my last bowl of noodles at Magic Noodle, the Traditional LanZhao Beef Noodles would be the way to go. The soup broths are a tad bit salty but the noodles are what you are going there for. What are you waiting for? The magic is waiting… Until next time, JimStar Out!!!

Came in at 3:30PM which is in between lunch and dinner, hoping the place wouldn’t be too busy. And we were right! Tons of tables open!
My BF got the hand pulled noodle soup with bbq pork. It was delicious! The broth wasn’t salty with just the right amount of flavor. The bbq pork was good. Not very fatty, compared to Imagine Noodle which just opened in Scarborough.
Service is pretty fast when they are not busy. We sometimes have to wave for the servers to come to our table.
I got the shanxi beef burger. The bun is chewy. But it could have used more beef and most importantly, sauce. It was very dry. And there was not enough meat in my opinion. It was acceptable, I guess, for what you pay.
I would go back because I know Magic Noodle is number one when it comes to hand pulled noodles. I will use the technique of coming at 3:30 because then it is pretty dead.

Food 3 stars.+ 0.5 star for services and cooperation. Total 3.5 stars.
Magic Noodle is a good and simple noodle canteen. The decoration is no frills, with just walls of pictures.
We went for dinner last Saturday. Since bowl noodle is not known as dinner food, getting a table took no more than 15 minutes wait. Further parking was a breeze on a non-​Tuesday evening (St Louis next door runs dinner deals on Tuesdays).
We ordered a House Special Noodle (large) and a Classic Noodle (small). I taste-​tested and confirmed that they had identical broth. The broth was clear, flavourful and not overwhelmingly salty. I could not taste much MSG. The meat was average. The portion of the meat was unimpressive. I could not visually see a noticeable portion difference between the small noodle and the large noodle.
The noodle was the star at Magic Noodle. It was high quality, as in it was fresh, smooth and chewy. The noodle itself was one factor that contributes to the chewiness. My BF was correct that the cook was careful not to overcook the noodle, and the technique contributed to the chewiness as well.
The services was very good. We told a waitress that we were in a rush when we asked for a table. She gave us menus to review while we waited. Hence, we literally placed the orders the minute we were seated. We were in and out in 45 minutes. We were quite pleased with the efficiency.

Yay! Finally got to try out Magic Noodle, and I have to say it was pretty good! I had heard that waiting for a table could be killer, but was lucky to get one right away.
Parking is a bit of a hassle in this plaza, as there are very limited spaces, but coming at a later time seemed to help. Upon entering, the 2 of us were asked to sit at the high top area, but there was an available table in plain sight. Not the best impression, in my opinion.
After sitting down, nobody came to check on us for over 5 minutes. Had to eventually call over a server to put in our order. Ended up getting the Hand Pulled Noodles with Braised Beef and the Flavoured Pork Wrap. The noodles in a rich broth and the noodles at perfect tenderness. Definitely a difference with hand pulled noodles! The pork wrap was also very good, with crispy pork on the inside, coming together deliciously with sauce.
Service overall was on the poor side, with them not wanted to seat us at a free table, and only ever coming to our table to give us our food. Overall décor was nice, and definitely enjoyed the open kitchen concept. Just make sure you bring some cash! They don’t take credit cards, which is a hassle for those, like me, who only ever carry plastic!
Guess it’s one of the restaurants you come to enjoy the food only, and the service is virtually nonexistent.

This place is always packed. They give you an electronic device while waiting. One of those that beep when your table is ready. I rarely see this at Asian restaurants.
Their service was typical Chinese restaurant service. Not really attentive and you have to wave them down.
As for the food… Well I prefer the one in Scarborough. Their portions felt smaller. The noodles. I could taste the floury dough. It did not taste like the dough was thoroughly mixed. Maybe I will go back next time and see if that was just a bad batch or their chef just makes it like that.
One thing I liked was their lamb skewers. Meat was plenty and flavourful!
When we got our bill they tried to bring us another bowl of noodles and charged us for it too. the waitress was confused. When we asked whether or not a bowl of noodles was ready (since everybody’s arrived except one) they assumed we wanted another one and went ahead to place the order. When we politely told them we did not order it and would like it removed form the bill. They asked if we could just pay for it and eat it as take out…