Soos

The meal was a journey for the senses.
We went with the «feed me» option which they served us the best of their best.
About 6 separate course challenged our preconceptions of food.
The first course took us on an ocean cruise where it taught us to play on the upper deck with the sea creatures.
We also partook in the teapot shots. This was a refreshing take on cocktails served in you guessed it, a teapot. These were so good I almost drank a candle.
Highly recommended to anyone that is in mood for a culinary journey that will take you on a world wind tour of Malaysia.

Small place with excellent service and interesting food. We went for the Chef selection, which was a good choice. Spicy Edamame; tacos excellent a bit greasy; yellow lentil curry good; If it looks like you might not get some prawn crackers, ask for them specially, well worth it. The pork belly was very rich and cooked to perfection. We drank Cava at $ 50 per bottle and it was fine.

Stopped by the other day for dinner and was by far the best decision of the day. The food, service, and décor was all amazing.
I haven’t had great service like that in a long time. My glass was never empty and the girls were on top of everything ⁵⁄₅ service.
I tried several items from menu and I have to say the coconut rice took me back to my time spent in Kuala Lumpur a few months back. The chef did a wonderful job of keeping the authenticity of the Malaysian dishes. I would strongly recommend the fried banana with bang bang ice cream. ⁵⁄₅.
The décor of the place was well done as well. Each table and room had a little different look to them.
I can’t wait to go back on there Special Malaysian nights where they cook numerous authentic plates.

My partner and I came in on a Thursday night and was excited to try out Malaysian food for the first time. It could be because the food was fusion but the food was mediocre. Exceptional customer service by the waitress

This place is better than A-​OK… just not four stars for me (I’m semi anti-​fusion. for those who know me)… but I have to say that for a fusion Malaysian place on Ossington, it’s pretty solid.
I’ve been here twice. Once with a friend for appies, which was more subpar, and the second time for a full meal, better than par… so here’s my joint review.
The first time — I was sad that the laksa dumplings were out so we ordered two smaller dishes to share on our night of food hopping. I vividly remember ordering the shrimp, which came in skewers. they were grilled fine, but nothing over the top… I can’t remember what the second dish was, so clearly not a standout in my mind.
The second time, surprisingly, I got the same set of seats at the bar as the first time and am pleased to see that an establishment such as Soos is ALWAYS BUSY. No joke. On such a competitive restaurant street like Ossington, it’s good that an unpretentious restaurant can do so well. That’s a super plus.
This time, the pork belly on root chips, pulled chicken tacos, and laksa were shared. I’m not a fan of pork belly but my eating partner really likes it so I don’t mind having it once in a while. The layer of fat was glissening and it was cooked really well. The pork belly was super flavourful and the root chip had a nice crisp to it. The chicken taco, continued the road of tastiness with bursting flavours.
The laksa was creamy and had a couple of different thickness of noodles, which was interesting. Along with chicken, there were also deep fried tofu balls. On a cold day, this would be an ideal treat and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
One thing that does not disappoint was the service of the restaurant. The staff is always friendly and efficient and I also see the owner /​manager doing a lot of work and chatting to different guests to make sure everyone is satisfied. For those who want to host a party, there’s a larger room in the back to accommodate groups.
Prices for generally a little higher but I think it’s worth it here. I’m interested to try the $ 35 chef’s choice meal but you’re not really going to go wrong with any of the items on the menu.

We’ve eaten here numerous times and will be back as many more. I read about Soos in an article in the Toronto Star about the family last year– it turns out the old Mata Hari on Baldwin, an old favourite of ours, was theirs up until ten years ago when Johnny Soo was forced to return to his home country of Malaysia. When he returned about two years ago he opened this place with his wife and culinary-degree’ed son as chefs and daughter Lauren in front.
There they serve Malaysian food that is at least as good, if not better in the sense of more creative, than the old Mata Hari. We’ve been to Malaysian restos all over, incl. the oft-​mentioned Restoran on Major Mack in R. Hill, and the Fatty Crab that got famous in NYC (& whose chef wound up on food network) and I can honestly say that Soos is better, more inventive, tastier, punchier.
Last summer we had a big birthday party in the backroom others here have talked about and service was incredible. The big hit was the pork belly on crispy rosti-​style potato cake. An incredible dish, the kind I would like to be served on the day I die, one of the most memorable things I have ever eaten.
An added bonus is that the drinks, including the ‘tea shots’ (which are served in tea kettles if a larger amount is desired) are also quite creative and really stand up to the other cool spots on Ossington.
Seriously recommended!

Very much enjoyed our dinner for 4 at Soos. Happy that we went with the ‘Feed Me’ or Chef’s choice at roughly $ 35 per person. Most of the items are on their regular menu, so there should be no surprises if you’re a repeat customer. With the ‘Feed Me’ option, Soos will adjust the portion size as necessary, and bill by the menu price plus any adjustments.
We liked most of the chef’s creations, except the sauce on the pork belly. It’s so overpowering that it renders the tacos dish which arrived immediately after it super bland. We were absolutely stuffed at the end leaving us no room for dessert. Mind you, 3 out of the 4 of us are big eaters. So I suggest that you either come hungry or go a la carte.
Our Singaporean friend commented that the Rojak salad would have costed about $ 3 in Malaysia or Singapore. At Soos, it is $ 12. IMO, I don’t find their prices too outrageous as exotic or specialty food always commands a premium. Plus you get excellent service and nice modern décor!
Will definitely return to Soos when we crave modernized Malaysian street food. For a more pocket book friendly version, I highly recommend Restoran Malaysia on Major Mackenzie if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

Hot tip: Sit in the back room at the communal table which implies less privacy but oh no honey, this intimate and gorgeously decorated nook is where its at. Date spot. Friend spot. Take out your own damn self spot. The service is awesome. The food is Modern Malaysian & amazing (the sliders!). Apparently the crispy fettuccine is a must try. So we did and can, CONFIRM. For dessert? Head to Bang Bang across the street. Sorry Soos — you can try, but you can’t have it all.

I was too busy eating the food to take pictures. A must have was the pork belly! the sliders, the braised beef, slaw, red chilli wings. I could go on and on but just go in and try it for yourself. The staff was very friendly and service was great. Time for me to fall into my food coma :) oh and Wednesday are 15.00 off bottles of wine!

Ok, this post is long overdue. I had a party of 12 in the private dining room. We had friends visiting from out of town so wanted to take the somewhere on the Ossington strip for good food and drinks after. If you’ve read some of my other reviews, I’m all about the total experience. Of course the food has to be good, but so should everything else in my humble opinion. Since we were a large party I booked in advance via email. I dealt with Lauren (one of the owners) and she was super communicative, friendly, and accommodating as I had to refine my reservation a few times. The décor is nice and warm and was perfect for our group. Cocktails were good and the food, served family style for sharing was very tasty and came in good portion sizes. We were totally stuffed by the end of our meal and had leftovers for home.
If you’re booking for a larger group they have very reasonable priced tasting menu style set menus. I def recommend going for it as it will save you the work of picking and choosing, yet you’ll be able to sample the majority of items on their menu.
The added charm of this place is that it’s a family owned and operated resto and everyone seemed to pitch in at some point to interact with us, whether running food, filling water glasses or taking another drink order. All in all an extremely positive experience from start to finish. I even got a nice follow-​up note from Lauren thanking us for coming in and inviting us to dine again.
We’ll definitely be back.

Amazing experience. My wife and I called the night of, an hour or so before showing up. When we arrived advised the staff we were in a rush to catch a show, ordered right away, and asked them to expedite whatever was possible to do.
Staff was friendly and accomodating, cocktails were excellent, and the food was extremely flavourful.
For apps we got the tofu/​fish balls with laksa broth (excellent — wish we had also order the proper laksa); and the chicken wings were hot and delicious. One of the staff mentioned the fried chicken is better, but we thoroughly enjoyed these.
For mains we got the char kway teow ($ 14 — delicious, complete with large juicy shrimp) and the beef rendang ($ 25 — also delicious although heavy and i was expecting a more watery sauce as i had enjoyed in Malaysia).
The portions are proper foodie adult sizes… never felt like they were undersized.
Thank you Soos. We’ll be back!

Made a reservation at Soos on a Friday night for a group of 9. FYI, for groups with 8+ people, they recommend the «Feed Me» option, which is a tasting menu that goes for around $ 35/​person and features some of the best dishes on their regular menu to be shared across the table, family-​style. They also let you «customize» your tasting menu by choosing which dishes you want to be included in the set for sure. Based on the reviews I’ve read beforehand, I made sure to ask for the Red Chili Wings, Laksa (spicy noodle soup) and the Rendang Short Rib.
Highlights of our meal included the Kapitan Tacos, Edamame with Sambal (shrimp chili paste), and of course, the Red Chili Wings, Laksa and Short Rib — which all lived up to its hype.
Chili Wings were my favourite — wings were well-​seasoned with a sweet and sticky sauce (yea, alright, go ahead and crack a joke here), with a nice kick at the end! Short Rib was super tender. A bowl of Laksa was served to each person at the table and the broth was so flavourful. It was so nice to see that they even kept it real by including both rice vermicelli and thick rice noodles.
Is this tasting menu worth it? I’d say so. We left feeling absolutely stuffed by the end of our meal, and extremely satisfied with the quality of the dishes we had. Service was very attentive as well, which is always a plus when you know large groups aren’t always easy to take care of. Atmosphere is pretty chill too, I’d definitely recommend. :)

This Ossington gem has been done Unilocal injustice, so let me be the 38^th honest reviewer to give it the five stars it deserves :3
Like every other resto on Ossington, Soos sits in the confines of a small, narrow space with high ceiling tops. Décor is exquisitely modern, offering both tables and high tops.
We sat near the window, with a full view of Ossington and its dessert counterpart Bang Bang Ice Cream right across. Funny that Soos actually offers BB ice cream on their dessert menu, for those who want to avoid the line across the street presumably .
Started off with the quintessential peach teapot shot. Liquer in a teapot, novel concept? I liked it, a bit strong but I recommend for the novel experience.
The food was delicious in every single way imaginable.
1) Red chili wings
shallots, fennel seed, peanut, sweet chili
Finger-​lickin’ good. Kinda spicy, but definitely delicious and one of the best wings I’ve had. Ever.
2) Char kway teow
tiger prawn, chives, sambal, beansprout, egg drop, charred rice fettuccine
MY FAVOURITE. Honestly, I could’ve eaten 5 plates of this and not regretted any part of it. Tastes especially delicious with the little bit of pepper paste it came with. Just wow.
3) Pulled kapitan tacos
chicken kapitan, house made ‘tacos’, napa carrot slaw, johnny’s tzatziki
Cute dish and pretty yummy, not as big of a standout as the first two but still good :)
4) Sashimi slaw
My least favourite dish of the night unfortunately; we were told that 129 389 481 ingredients went into this plate but in the end it just tasted. confusing.
5) Rendang beef short ribs
rendang curry braise, coconut rice, roti
I liked the roti and coconut rice more than the actual ribs. Carb heaven, worth every calorie.
Also should note this was shared among a party of 3 and we were all decently full after.
I freakin’ love this resto. That is all.

I liked this place but I didn’t love it. The service and atmosphere were pretty good, but the food was only decent — or a bit above decent — in my opinion.
The presentation was great… flavors were a bit flat.
Each of the dishes we ordered could have used a bit more umph. Like the 20 ingredient slaw… compared to Lee this slaw was like eating dry cabbage, it just didn’t have the flavor profile I hoped for. I might give it another try because overall I liked the food and the ambiance, but I just wasn’t blown away.

A surprised fun as my friend and I were walking along Ossington for a place to eat. What caught my eye was the menu posted outside the window; Malaysian street food. Never seen this around the city before. Curiosity struck!
As we walked in, we were greeted by a friendly hostess. The place is small but was not busy at the time. This was on a Friday evening around 5:45pm. I was struck by the super cool urban décor. The colour combo on the walls And the nice lighting was an eye catcher. I saw a private room in the back, for larger groups, which looked really nice!
The menu is tapas style. Not too many dishes to look through so it wasn’t an overwhelming menu. I loved that they attached a glossary of terms for people that don’t know the malaysian lingo. Nice touch! Very impressed by this little detail!
We ordered 5 dishes between the two of us. We weren’t overly hungry so this was a good amount. I think 5 – 6 dishes for 2 will suffice!
*please note that this is my second time having Malaysian food so I’m by no means an expert at malay food. Based on what I had, my thoughts are:
Keropok — prawn crackers with a sweet and peanut sauce. Crackers where crispy and fresh.
Roti: vegan curry dhal with a fluffy roti presented in a cute ball like shape. Dhal was soft and just the right consistency. Flavouring was a bit bland for me. Really liked the roti though.
Chicken Kapitan tacos: infused with ginger and tasted ok. Again, it was a bit bland for me. Hard to pick out the individual flavours. This is their most popular dish. It wasn’t bad, but nothing special to me.
Reconstructed nasi lemak: awesome presentation. Very interesting flavours with a quail egg mixed with anchovies, cucumbers, a red chilli bean paste on a solid piece of crispy coconut rice. Again it was a bit bland, but the textures of everything together mixed nicely in my mouth. Probably the most unique thing I tasted at this place.
Laksa dumplings: deep fried tofu with fish paste in a coconut based soup. The dumplings were crispy and the fish paste flavour was prominent. A good dish to order if you like the fish taste!
The plating of each food was done very nicely. I could tell there was a lot of care put into this. The food came pretty quickly for us and the servers were very attentive. Our water was always filled and they checked in on us frequently.
I think this place has a lot of potential. I would come back and try their other dishes because they all seem very unique. Malay with a Fusion twisted. I also saw that they are hosting a traditional Malay style menu on may 21^st. May be worth a try to see the difference between street and traditional!

Came here for dinner on a Friday night with some colleagues. The atmosphere was dim, the seating was limited and felt cozy.
The servers were attentive and knowledgeable. The food was quite tasty, particularly the short ribs. This is a Malaysian tapas place so it gives you the opportunity to share various dishes with friends. It was an interesting experience and for three of us, we ordered about 5 dishes or so. None of us were particularly very hungry, but it was enough to satisfy us.
If I am ever in the mood for tapas Malaysian in the area, I’d definitely come here again.

2.5 STARS
To say I was disappointed with this place is an understatement. First off, the food was pretty good. I don’t have any complaints about the taste at all. It’s a play off of Malaysian street food, with an updated twist. The food was not the issue per say
First off, if you are hungry don’t come here unless one of the following apply:
— you have lots of money to spend because the portions are TINY
— you already ate before hand and are just having some small bites with drinks
— you plan on hitting up another place afterwards because you are still starving
We had to get something to eat afterwards because we were hungry. I decided to go with the red chili wings, the laksa dumplings (the tiniest things I have ever seen) and a drink. My bill came up to $ 40 incl tax and tip. I’m a small person and I was still hungry! Sorry, but I don’t know what Malaysian street this is supposed to be. the upper rich side?
I also tried the sliders and the chicken tacos that the table ordered… both good, but tiny once again. Someone also ordered the roti/​dhal dish. It came in a bowl for the dhal and like 1 tiny roti that was cut up into 5 pieces… so basically a lot of left over dhal. What a waste
Also, make sure you ask for a separate bill if you are in a larger group. I did so as soon as I sat down which was a good thing because the rest of the table got screwed when they asked for this later in the evening. Everyone’s bill was wrong… so it was a lot of handing over money to this person and that person to try and make things work.
For a place to grab a drink and a small bite this is a great place, but since I don’t live close by nor do I want to spend money here only to have to go somewhere else to get more food I think I will pass. n

I loved this place! I went to Soos for dinner with a friend that lived in the neighborhood — really nice place, the service and atmosphere was just right…
We shared the following dishes, and highly recommend them all:
— pulled kapitan tacos
— nyonya oxtail braise
— rendang beef short ribs
I will definitely be going back to try the rest of the menu…

My overall impression is this place is great and will do well.
The ambience is warm (actually very red), the food is excellent. It’s taken traditional Malay cuisine and puts a typical Torontonian fusion spin on it — effectively turning normal cuisine into a unique and palatable upper experience so other less adventurous food lovers will try cuisines from different ethnicities… and enjoy it.
But with this also comes the negative i see happen so often in Toronto — small dishes at high prices… effectively with a bad price to value ratio, but great taste to flavour ratio. It’s really not a nice feeling to leave a restaurant hungry after spending a decent amount. Why don’t more chefs understand this?
I will applaud Soos on one thing — they haven’t fallen into the Ossington trap of terrible service. The waiters are well trained and on point at Soos. Though i do think the restaurant needs to get used to large group service.

It’s hard to find a place that does home proud when it comes to Singaporean /​Malaysian food.
Soos we a neat place that did just that along with a ton of neat fusion combinations added into it. It tasted like home but the price they charge is more than what I’d pay for. It’s a neat place to try once but I wouldn’t be returning as there are other places that are comparable for a more reasonable price point and taste.