Ginger And Onion Cuisine — Restaurant in Toronto

2025

It's been a long time since I've been to Scarborough's Ginger and Onion, and first time for dinner rather than dim sum. I was here for an early meal with a group of over twenty friends, old and new, before it got busy.

Our meal started with Crab and Corn Soup, before moving on to Sweet and Sour Pork, and Roast Pork. Next was a dish of Seafood and Vegetables, Chicken with Ginger and Onion, a Mixed Vegetable dish, and Fried Rice. Dessert was Sago.

Every dish had generous portions and tasted really good. We left with lots of takeout containers.

The staff were very friendly and helpful, despite not being able to communicate very well in English (my only language).

2020

There is certainly no shortage of places to enjoy dim sum in Scarborough. Ginger and Onion has been around for a while but is relatively new to this location. With MANY Chinese restaurants to choose from, this was actually my first time here, although several friends come here regularly. Hmmm, why haven't they invited me?

On this day, we were entertaining a friend from Florida who had come to town for a recent wedding. There are far more, and better places in Toronto for dim sum, compared to Florida. Trust me!

We decided to go ahead and place our order while waiting for some friends to arrive. They showed up just as we were about to hand in the order and they added a few more items, doubling up on some of the popular choices.

The food started showing up soon after and just kept coming. What the heck did the latecomers add to this order? The table was soon packed with baskets of food! Our order included a lot of the popular dim sum items, like har gow, siu mai, spare ribs, bean curd roll, chicken feet, and more. Lots more, apparently!

Everything looked and tasted good! Some items, especially the siu mai (steamed pork dumplings), har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings), and pai gut (steamed spareribs) were larger than most places I've been to. We were all getting pretty stuffed, with a couple of the larger dishes to come. There was still food on the table and with everybody feeling full, we cancelled the last two (larger) dishes. It still took about four large takeout containers to pack up the leftovers! Roll me out!

A lot of the dishes were a bit larger than I'm used to, so was the cost, although not by much. I guess we got what we paid for, compared to other places. The food tasted good and the service was good....

July 2024: Came by for lunch dim sum and tried some new items on their updated menu. Unfortunately it was pretty terrible. Shrimp toast was incredibly soggy and oily with the bottom being a pale colour and when we told the staff, they said that's just how it is. See pics - they're self explanatory.

The smoked bean curd roll was ice cold in the middle. Sure it's supposed to be a cold dish but the inside filling was literally icy and defrosting. The smoke flavour was also like smoke from burnt plastic, not at all appetizing at all.

Crystal truffle dumpling was way overcooked and the crystal skin was like jelly.

12% top included on the bill.

Ginger and Onion has early bird pricing for dim sum before 11am so this place is guaranteed to be busy in the mornings, especially on the weekends. The restaurant is tucked in the corner of the Alton Towers plaza and the inside is quite cramped as well.

They have some unique dim sum items as well as a few old school, hard to find dim sums too. We tried their deep fried beef and enoki seaweed roll, steam bean curd roll, steamed vegetable dumpling, fish maw cotton chicken, mango pancake, rice roll with fried dough stick and baked BBQ pork bun.

The beef enoki roll was crispy outside, tender inside. Bean curd roll tasted good and was tightly wrapped but their chopping of the ingredients inside is sloppy, some were properly julienned others were whole large pieces. The spinach dumpling filling was great but wrapper was more soft than bouncy. Fish maw cotton chicken tasted great but wish there was more than 2 small pieces of fish maw. Rice roll with fried dough stick tasted good but the dough stick was under fried and very soft. The mango pancake didn't have much mango and the pieces that were in there were sour. Lastly the BBQ pork bun was just slightly undercooked inside so the dough was still white and gummy, an issue that might be solved by switching buns from the top/bottom rack of the oven, or wrapping without the bigger pinch of dough in the middle.

we also got a Singapore Vermicelli that was cooked well, just lacking in a bit of salt.

overall, the food is okay and more worth if you're dining during the early bird morning period. They also add an automatic 12% gratuity to your bill but they...

Ginger and Onion is a surprising hidden gem at Alton Towers lol. It's in a good location with a supermarket, Dollarama, Chinese bakery, etc nearby. Parking here can be tricky given how busy this plaza is.

I arrived around 12pm on a Sunday. There was no lineup but maybe it was because of Daylight Saving Time. I was seated immediately. Upon first glance, the restaurant was clean, modern, and relatively busy. Almost all the tables were occupied.

I was given a paper to order dim sum a la carte, so there are no ladies pushing dim sum carts around. Prices range from $3.38 to $6ish depending on the size of the dish. They do have Happy Hour where dishes are $3.38. The portion sizes were surprising - Shumai was huge with lots of pork, shrimp. It was cooked perfectly too. The Hagow was pretty standard. The beef short ribs were REALLY good, they were sweet, easy to eat, and tender. I also liked the chicken feet, fried octopus tentacles, pork spareribs, silken tofu and egg tart (it had crispy, flaky pastry with a warm egg custard - it was perfect!). Shrimp Cheung Fun is usually a favourite but at Ginger and Onion Cuisine it was just ok. I think what was throwing me off was the Chinese steamed vegetable in the middle of the cheung fun. It took away from the taste of the cheung fun and shrimp.

I liked the service and attention at Ginger and Onion Cuisine. Staff were super friendly, filled our teapots quickly, apologized for dropping the teapot lid near us and took it away after it made contact with the floor. Mid-way through our meal, they also replaced our used small plates (where bones were placed) with clean small plates. I've never had any dim sum restaurant do this small, simple gesture. It was much appreciated!

All in all, the quality of the food was great and I thought the value was pretty decent. I loved the location, service and attentive staff (this goes a long long way!) I would...