Casa-Imperial Fine Chinese Cuisine — Restaurant in Toronto

Even though they do not offer an early bird special, the restaurant is still fairly busy, especially on holidays and special occasions – skip Mother’s Day unless you like waiting around and fuming. As for their pricing, it’s in line with the regular menus found elsewhere: $3.80 for small, $4.80 for medium, and $5.80 for large with $1.50 per person tea charge.

My must-have dish is a siu mai (L). The conpoy (dried scallop) topping the pork and shrimp dumpling adds little to the experience and gives the dish a boring beige appearance. Nonetheless, the siu mai itself is tasty; a balanced combination of filling to ensure it’s hearty but not hard.

For something a little more Instagramable, the scallop and spinach dumpling (L) has a nice pop of colour. It’s also fairly flavourful with enough seasoning added to the shrimp filling and wrapper, compared to other places.

Casa Imperial certainly isn’t afraid to lay on the spice, there’s plenty of it in the curry sauce marinating the steamed baby cuttlefish (L). The seafood is enveloped in salt and heat, to the point that you may want to ensure there’s a neutral rice dish to pair with the cuttlefish

Something like a steamed rice pot, as the sticky rice with conpoy and chicken in lotus leaf (L) already has a lot going on in the fragrant parcel. Aside from the chicken and dried scallop, there’s also pieces of Chinese cured sausage and salted egg yolk, traditional fillings that have been substituted by cheaper minced pork at other restaurants.

The crispy bean curd rice roll with shrimp and pork (L) is such a great combination of textures. Soft silky rice rolls surrounds a shrimp and pork sausage like filling that’s encased in a crunchy bean curd sheet. It’s a little heavy, so make sure there’s at least four of you to share.

Our meal seemed to include a lot of things that spent time in the deep fryer. The crispy meat dumplings (S) and chicken wings with lemon grass (L) both arrive hot, hot, hot! While they’re nothing to rave about, they’re still solid offerings, especially when they’re so fresh from the fryer.

It’s not every day you’ll find fruit mixed with shrimp. In reality, the peach in the crispy spinach nest shrimp roll with peach (L) is simply the puree dipping sauce on the side. The puffy spinach laced batter is pretty, but also fairly oily… I personally still enjoy the plain Jane bean curd sheets. Yet, this combination was better for my denture wearing grandmother, who had no difficulties biting through the airy crust.

Same with the soft black sesame dumpling coated with cashew nut (L), a ball of sticky glutinous rice filled with a warm oozing black sesame paste and covered with powdered and crushed cashews to keep everything from sticking together. It’s a nice way to finish after all the deep fried dishes that graced the second...

Don’t come here expecting any reservations to be honoured.

When my mom and I arrived for our reservation for dimsum at 12pm, we were put on a wait list behind 6 or 7 other people who also made reservations for a 12pm spot. Everyone had to wait in the restaurant’s lobby to actually get seated, even if they called ahead to make a reservation. My mom and I waited for over 1 hour before we got a table—many of the other Chinese/Vietnamese families seemed to have also been waiting for 1 hour or more just to get seated, even if they made a reservation (including families with young children, the elderly). Many customers seemed unhappy in the lobby.

I understand that they may have been busy, but every other dim sum restaurant I’ve been to in the GTA doesn’t have an issue with seating people at the time they actually reserved. So if you reserved a table for 12pm, those other restaurants really will reserve one for you at 12pm—not 1 or 2 hours later, like at this place. My mom and I were lucky that we didn’t have anything planned after this restaurant.

The parking lot at this place is also too small for the number of customers (at least during dim sum time, anyway). It’s easy to get stuck in the right side of the parking lot—there is barely enough space for two cars to pass each other and cars can easily be hit. The left side is better, but there are some spots where I saw cars get boxed in by other vehicles. We’ve heard from other people that the parking lot gets even smaller in the Wintertime due to the pileup of snow from snow plows pushing snow against the sides of the parking lot.

The restaurant is fairly isolated, and right up against a busy 3-lane road, so if the parking runs out there, and you have to walk to the restaurant from a more distant parking spot, then it could be quite difficult or dangerous, especially if you have people who can’t walk easily with you.

Finally, the decor in the restaurant seemed to be a bit dated and old. Some of the decor also seemed like it hadn’t been dusted/cleaned in awhile.

I will say that the food was pretty good at least, though there are better dim sum places than this restaurant in my opinion. Our waiter was also very nice, fast, and attentive so that was good. These are the only reasons why I would give this place 2 stars instead of 1. I am surprised by the number of 4- and 5-star reviews for this...

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Dim sum here is phenomenal, you can distinguish the effort and care they spend on ensuring you get one of the tastiest Dim Sum you can get in the entire GTA area. This place unequivocally has my favourite Shrimp Dumplings/Ha Gow. Come here and have a good time with family and friends!

Ha Gow - Giant, and filled to the brim with crisp, bouncy and fresh shrimp. The wrapper is thin, yet springy and slightly chewy, perfectly cooked. One of best ha gow I've had.

Siu Mai - Topped with crispy and aromatic scallop, with the most tender pork inside, shrimp on top is crisp and bouncy. Wrapper is thin.

Chu Hou Chicken Feet - Very tender, but still holds onto the chicken feet, with a well seasoned chu hou sauce.

Baby Octopus in Curry - Tender with a bouncy texture, the tentacle part slightly crispy/crunchy, curry sauce is richer but more subtle on the curry flavour.

BBQ Pork Bun (abalone sauce?) - Bun was too wet and dense, didn't spring back and had a bad texture, but the pork itself is one of the best, good meaty texture, more lean than fat, with a savory taste, not overly sweet like most places.

BBQ Pork Pastry - Pastry was butter and flaky, but soft and a little too rich. The bbq pork was gooier than the bun.

Pan Fried Squid w/ Five Spice - Tentacles were quite large, crisp exterior and interior is moderately tender, fragrant oil and five spice flavour.

Taro Dumpling - Very moist, black pepper sauce and minced pork filling with some chives. The outside is fried delicately, crispy, and taro is tender, moist and fragrant.

Pan Fried Radish Cake - Slight sweet taste, tender texture and slight saltiness of the lap cheung, but it highlights the flavour of the radish.,

Shrimp Chive Cheung Fun - Cheung Fun was quite thick, shrimp was average but fresh.

XO Sauce Cheung Fun - thick and big rolls of cheung fun fried with an xo sauce and bean sprouts which tastes good, but didn't quite permeate through the interior, not too oily.

Beef Tripe XO Sauce - Crisp and satisfying chewy texture, XO sauce was diluted but still slightly spicy and...