Buddhist Vegetarian Kitchen — Restaurant in Toronto

Long story short, we ordered take out. The person that we spoke to (assuming is the owner?) asked can we come now, we said yes we can so we did. When we arrived at the restaurant, the restaurant was closed! We couldn't receive our order and had to order from somewhere else, which delayed our dinner by an hour.

The next day, she called again though we missed the call because we were away from home. We eventually called her back. Turns out that she blamed us for not coming to pick up the food, but we did! We even confirmed a note that we saw on her window about a private home sale in Markham. If we did not have come to the restaurant, how would we have known about the notice? She also blamed us saying this was the 2nd time that an order was received but nobody picked it up. Of course that is not true...why would we order and not come to pick it up...isn't it silly? She knew we were long time customers too. She said she called our house, but obviously we were not home as we were on the way to the restaurant. She should have asked for our cell phone contact if she wanted to contact us and not assume we were close by (we had to travel for at least 20 minutes to get to the restaurant!). And logically speaking, if what she said was true, why would we even bother to call her back when we saw her missed call?

Super disappointed at her behavior and blaming us for her mistakes. After more than 25+ years of buying food from this restaurant, this is how the store owner treats her long time customers. And the most disappointing thing was she said the next time she sees our number she would not pick up to receive the order. Could you believe that!? This is not the only vegetarian restaurant in the GTA, and certainly other restaurants treat their own customers with respect. Definitely will not order take out from this restaurant...

My first taste of Chinese vegetarian cuisine was from Buddhist Vegetarian Kitchen, a cozy casual restaurant tucked in a dated but nonetheless well-trafficked plaza in Scarborough. Things have changed: lunches were busier in my childhood, whereas on a recent visit there was no wait despite it being the weekend; and things were drenched in oil, while now they show restraint.

What stayed constant is their low prices and simple but satisfying dishes. Do not visit without getting a plate of the vegetarian “dim sum” (the small pictured for $4.50), which is deceiving as it’s not really the steamed dumplings synonymous with dim sum. Rather, they are pieces of gluten and tofu, prepared in different manners (braised, fried, steamed) and flavoured with various sauces (sweet soy, curry, sweet and sour) all served warm to munch on at the beginning of the meal. This is the “it dish” for the place. In fact, you’ll see many people visit just to get this as take out.

The stuffed bean curd skin ($4.50) was one of my favorite dishes, but sadly the recipe has changed. While they’re less oily, it’s now deep fried instead of pan fried so there’s no difference in texture on the wrapper (I loved having the contrasting crispy and silky bites of the past). The filling, which was hot and plentiful in the past, is now stingy and lacks all the different vegetables and fungus that gave it the interesting flavours.

Buddhist Vegetarian Kitchen’s soups are all a combination of bean curd, vegetable, corn and bamboo - the sweet corn soup with vegetable and bean curd ($4.50 for small) is one that offers three of the four ingredients. It’s a simple concoction made with a semi thick cream corn base with tons of tofu and bits of mushrooms mixed in. It’s tasty, but a few chopped green onions would help add...

I was excited to try this place after so many years but I guess there was a good reason for that. Firstly, when we were ordering the food (in-person) the person working there was a bit rude and rushing us. She told us it will take 10 mins at least so we waited outside and when we went to pick it up she just handed me the bags. Only when we got home did we realize that this does not look like what we ordered. We ordered 4 things : vegetarian ball & & cashew nut (i asked her if it was a sauce and she said yes), fried noodles with mix veggies, fried rice, and kung pao chicken. The fried rice barely tasted fried, the noodles weren't cooked properly and frankly it looked sloppy the way they just put the noodles and dumped the veggie and sauce on top. However, what was really infuriating is that we ordered a vegetarian ball but there was no ball... just mushroom and cashews... and then the kung pao chicken looked exactly the same. I've attached the images because if you ordered those items, would you expect these?

We thought maybe they gave me the wrong order by accident (even though when she saw me she immediately shoved it to me). Therefore, we called them... no response. We went all the way back there to ask and it was locked.. no one was there. Mind you this was around 6:50pm.. they say they close at 9pm. I was at least hoping to give this a 2 star rating but the food was not good at all. I don't like writing negative reviews but this was just an overall terrible experience and wanted to warn people before wasting...