Lee Chen Asian Bistro — Restaurant in Aurora

My friends decided to go to this restaurant based on a birthday for one of us. I had never been before or really had this type of Asian cuisine before.

We arrived around 6pm with reservations and it wasn’t too busy. The restaurant is decorated very nicely and classy.

The server sat us and provided us with the menu on an iPad.

We each went through picking what we’d like to eat and then we share everything. The food arrived all very close to each other but they bring it out as it’s ready to maximize the freshness and temperature.

I especially loved the crispy tofu, the steamed pork buns and the egg fried rice. Everything seemed like top quality, better than the average Chinese food restaurant.

The owner or manager came over to our group and asked if it was our first time here. We said yes.

A few minutes later he brought over a steamed pork soup dumpling dish and said it was on the house. He asked who will try it first and then asked me. So I agreed.

He then took out one steamed dumpling with his chopsticks and placed it in a small saucer of vinegar with ginger in it. He said it needs to sit there for 20 seconds. He then counted to 20 and then picked it up, placed a piece of ginger on the dumpling and put it in a spoon. He then gave it to me and told me one bite. So I put the whole thing in my mouth and it was like an explosion of flavours. It was truly amazing.

After that we had some more food came which was all delicious and then he brought over sesame balls and said dessert on the house.

The experience here really set this apart from anywhere else we could have gone.

We all loved it and will definitely be...

This restaurant definitely has the potential to be one of the best Chinese restaurant out there. The decor is immaculate with nice Chinese decor and black and white murals as the background. The staffs were friendly than anything, but somehow not very professional, since we encountered some errors in the order even though we have confirmed it. I found that odd why she was asking me why I take photos of the food. I just find the way she asked me was just not too professional. The electronic ordering notepad was just a little confusing since I found it not user friendly at all since there were just too many categories and I couldn't find the items I wanted to pick from the categories.

The food was good, but I found the portion to be a little small. The sweet and sour pork was good since it was still crispy, but there was not a lot of depth to flavour of the sweet and sour sauce. The shao long bao was good with really thin skin, but the skin got cold really quickly and there was not enough broth put into the filling. The fried dumpling was good, but the skin somehow got really cold quickly also that it became really doughy after less than five minutes of sitting. I did like the fact that it was not over caramelized. There were a lot of improvements that can be made. I think maybe the flavours were geared toward local Canadian, so I was not too fond of the mild flavours. Overall, it was still a...

UPDATE Feb 2021:

Just wanted to give an updated shout out to Lee Chen Asian Bistro! We order from them once in a while since the pandemic, and they are always so nice and courteous on the phone. Their takeout containers are wrapped up super nicely (with foil outside plus a sticker to seal it, and they put deep fried stuff in paper boxes so they stay crispy, while the other hot stuff would be in sealed black takeout boxes). They're also always on time ! Today they even treated us to free drinks ( lychee green tea with jelly) and a free sample of Thai fried rice!! It was so nice of them and my heart broke a little as I know it must be so hard for restaurants right now . Their portions are really good! The dessert are sesame balls, they're my kids' favourite, and they always ask us how many ppl we have to make sure everyone gets one. :) I really hope they will stay afloat during these hard times. If you haven't tried them yet, please do!

Glad to have an authentic chinese food place here in Aurora. The portions are quite small for their price. I heard that they are Taiwanese owned so they have the traditional Taiwanese foods such as popcorn chicken and minced meat rice as well as shanghai dumplings (xiaolungbao). I recommend the crispy almond fish, although everything was pretty good. Decor very pretty and very clean. The kid's utensils provided was a...