Shanghai Shikumen Fine Cuisine — Restaurant in Markham

November 2021 3.5★ Located in First Markham Place plaza, this restaurant has been here for many years. At least 5+ years now. Walking inside, there's a bit of Asian decor, probably from Shanghai along with photos of the chef and presumably some celebrities hung at the front. During the pandemic, there's a take out desk right at the front for places like uber eats and fantuan - a Chinese version. There's probably about 12 tables and can seat about 40 or so in total. There are about 3 private / large rooms. The China/tableware was already set up before you sit down and were a bit greasy/sticky. Honestly a turn off. As expected, the washroom was no better and like most other Asian places, there's no hot water. Ordered the house special - Saute Diced Chicken with Chili and Pepper Szechuan Style and while it was flavorful, the meat portions were small. It was also not hot enough. The House Special Pan Fried Buns were decent. The buns are an ok size and it was fairly juicy. The House Special Steam Pork Bun skin was thin, but didn't have enough soup filling. The Shanghai Style Fried Noodles were ok, but was really drenched in dark soy. The Pig's Intestine with Spicy Sauce was probably the best of the dishes I had. Though there weren't enough pig intestine and had a lot of mixed fillers like luncheon meat.

Personally, each dish was ok. There were two prices based on membership ($20 to join and can be applied immediately) and unless you either eat here again, or spend a lot of money, it's really...

I wish I loved this restaurant more since my family has been looking for a Shanghainese restaurant in the GTA for a while now. Unfortunately, I think there were more misses than hits here - accentuated by their higher price point.

We ordered the Shanghai Style Five-Spice Fried Fish ($16.99), Egg in Braised Meatball ($21.99), House Special Braised Pork ($24.99) and Gluten with Mushroom in Casserole ($17.99). None of this is considered cheap - especially that braised pork, which only ended up being a small portion! That was the biggest disappointment, as the pork was not hot and there was no sauce at all. It ended up being quite dry in the mouth, while the flavour was okay.

The casserole was good, as well as the meatballs. It was a bit weird to see the classic Lion's Head Meatballs made this way, with an egg in the middle. The portion was very good though and the taste was decent. The spiced fish wasn't my favorite - while the flavour was right, the texture was odd. I usually like my spiced fish a bit more dried out and with the bones easier to pick out or even crispy enough to just eat.

Overall, I may be back to try some of the other dishes. It was quite busy when we went (Saturday night) which is great for the business. I think we could find some dishes we do like, just would not re-order the majority of what we ordered today. It ended up being $98...

Came here for dinner on Sept. 7, 2021 and we ordered 3 things: cold jellyfish noodles, a tofu dish, and crab XLB. The first 2 dishes were decent, flavourful, and ingredients seemed fresh. This place gets a 1 star review though because of what we experienced with the crab XLB. When the XLB arrived at our table, we took a bite and realized that it was in fact pork inside. We called one of the servers over to confirm our order, and he was adamant that the order was correct. The server claimed it was pork meat mixed with crab meat. However, this made no sense because the menu SPECIFICALLY said crab meat and had no indication of pork being mixed in. I took a bite of another XLB and made an effort to taste for crab and it absolutely did not have any. We asked the server to eat one and confirm for us. He did not and we started to get the feeling that they had messed up our order and were trying to cover up their mistake. It's no big deal if you make a mistake, just tell us so and give us the dish we ordered. But the fact that they tried to cover it up and in essence cause us to pay the price of crab for pork left us with an extremely poor experience, not to mention it made them look like fools when we figured it out. When we asked for the bill they told us "We took the pork buns off the bill" which confirmed...