Tsui Wah

I came here many years ago when i first came to Toronto. Coming back now, nothing has changed, which in this case, is a good thing.
Pros:
Food is well done, specially anything stir fried
Lots of items to choose from
Cons:
Main menu all in Chinese
Tsui Wah is just plain old school. I went to place over 10 years ago and it doesn’t look like it’s changed at all. Small things like the signs and menus have been updated but it’s very much the same place it was all those years ago. Tsui Wah looks exactly like what HK diner would look like in the late 90’s. Everything from the décor and furniture. I normally don’t like that sorta thing, but because their food has stayed the same, I’m good with it. As soon as you walk in, you get a sense of that «wok hei» that Chinese people are so familiar with. When you get a whiff of that, you know the stir fried stuff is going to be good.
I ordered the fried rice noodle with beef and my GF ordered the BBQ pork Gui Lin noodles. This place specializes in Gui Lin cuisine. They have an entire sub menu dedicated to it. In my opinion, fried rice noodle with beef is an excellent benchmark for stir fry dishes at a restaurant. It’s a simple dish to make, but a hard one to master sorta deal. If a place does this dish well, it will pretty much do well on other stir fry dishes. The beef noodle here was excellent, one of the better ones in the city. The noodles has some bite, but were not overly saturated with oil as well. There weren’t too many onions, but it was still very aromatic. My GF’s noodles were great as well. They were able to not make it spicy for our little one’s benefit which was nice of them. The food here is still as good as it was when I first came.
I mentioned this before in past reviews and I’ll do it again. There is no excuse for having only Chinese menus when you’re a business here in Canada. The menus have been updated but the main menu still lists everything in Chinese. I don’t care if you’re base clientele can read it, you’re menus have to have English, plain and simple. My only real gripe about this place.
Tsui Wah is the definition of old school. I feel like I’m back in HK for a bit when I’m here. The décor is severely outdated but the food more than makes up for it. I just hope they get an English menu soon. All in all, a wonderful place to grab a bite to eat.

tiny little shop
i didn’t eat much here. was mostly just spending time with my grams. but what we did order was the lamb hot pot, some salty spicy pork, and veggies.
we ordered a tofu dish too actually, but the tofu was sour, maybe gone bad? they took it away and canceled our order without any issues. the lamb was good, respectable chunks of meat.
one thing that i could add is that i didn’t need to eat rice along with the meal. usually when i do, its because flavours are overwhelming and need rice to make it a bit more bland. flavours were at the right intensity for me.

I like this place. Everything I’ve had from there so far taste good. HK style dishes done well. Good «wok hay» (breath of the wok). Guilin noodles are good, but I like the «old buddies» noodle (the spicy and sour soup base) more. Their noodles are good, my fave is the thick flat glass noodles. Portions are huge. They have a semi-​open kitchen so the place does tend to smell a lot like bamboo and herbs (which they use in their noodles). Décor is simple. Service efficient. But I come here solely for the food. Have not tried their drinks yet, although I see a lot of people order their HK milk tea.

Not a fan of this place. Ordered their lamb brisket soup noodle and the salty-​sour flavour of the soup wasn’t that appealing. When I saw the abundant amount of tomatoes in the soup I thought it would have a very delicate sweet flavour — no such luck unfortunately. Also they were skimpy on the lamb.
The salt and pepper fried pork hocks were delicious though, but not good value-​for-​money as the portion was way too small.

I used to go here every single week. Tsui Wah noodles were good until they change Owner in last Xmas. Quality dropped. And my favorite HK Tea no more good. I still go once awhile now. but still no improvement.

Don’t ask me why a Hong Kong style Café serves Gui Lin style noodle soup… I’ve been asking myself same thing for over 2 years.
The restaurant (or café, by its Chinese name), has two menus, one is for «regular» Hong Kong style café choice. The other one is for Gui Lin style noodle soup and hot pot.
My regular faves is the old friend vermicelli, with a hot milk tea and I am aware that this two thing shouldn’t go together
The old friend vermicelli has a sour spicy soup base, with lots of minced pork (you can change the topping to beef rib or lamb) and special kind of pickle (made from bamboo Lol).
Except the side effect that you and car might smell like this thing right in front of you after you eat it, this noodle soup is perfect and almost a blessing for a cold night.
Milk tea is also perfect, just you have to be really «rude» when you put the sugar in before you taste the sweet taste.
I tried their hot pot once, the lamb one. Kinda disappointed, not bad, but I didn’t expect better given the noodle soup they served.
My other fave will be the noodle with no soup, you mix all the topping together. If you don’t mix, the owner will come by and ask «SORRY, BUT DO YOU NEED SOME INSTRUCTIONS» So cute I love him.
The serves is okay, but too efficient sometimes. Me and my friend, every time we were trying to take a break in finishing the soup (a lot of them), a waiter will come by and ask «ARE YOU DONE?»
So later we just don’t talk during the process drinking the soup and we talk after ~~

You can find Gui Lin Style of almost anything at Tsui Wah!
Curiously if you google Gui Lin cuisine, it is known for the use of spices, especially chili. Gui Lin Style noodle that serves here are not spicy at all!
Beef Vermicelli in Soup Gui Lan Style ($ 6.95) has this brownish meat broth based and garnished with fresh tomato cubes, cilantro, green onion and preserved vegetables.
The chili oil as condiments on the table did make my noodles tasted a lot better! The order was quite sizable and comforting on a cold winter night!
Try not to sit in the front of the restaurant, as you can feel this drift whenever customers come in and out of the restaurant.
Cash only!

Came with my mom on Friday night and this time we ordered the right stuff and it was amazingly cheap and delicious!
We had the Guilin Fried Rice that was a bit spicy, with pickled vegetables, minced pork, tomatoes and eggs. SO GOOD!
The old friend vermicelli was clear yam noodles in a dark broth with sour bamboos and minced pork. The soup was delicious.
We also ordered chinese watercress stir-​fried with garlic.
Notice that west cantonese food tends to lean on a bit of acidity in their dishes – pickled vegetable, tomatoes, sour bamboos.
What makes the restaurant so great is their stir-​fry style. You can tell they use enough fire power to fry the food making the aroma extra strong. This shows the most in their fried rice.
Total was $ 25 AFTER tax. We were stuffed and had food to take home.
Service was friendly. Definitely going to be my new go-​to place when i’m uptown! In fact, i’m thinking about taking a friend there tonight!