Great Fountain Fast Food — Restaurant in Toronto

I visited this restaurant after a over 15 + years of not coming here. My mom used to bring me to this area for piano lessons, and we used to come to grab a meal for takeout to bring home. I had a UberEats promo credit expiring, and was exploring the featured restaurants that had great ratings and Chinese food. I stumbled upon Great Fountain Fast Food, and was like wow they are still around?! I ordered the T89 Chicken with Portuguese Sauce Rice which included the soup of the day and bubble tea. I also ordered the classic T5 Cantonese Chow Mein that also came with a soup and I went with the Iced Lemon Tea drink.

The Chicken with Portuguese Sauce Rice due to the fast food and quick Uber eats turn around time, was rice on the bottom layer and then the chicken and the Portuguese sauce on top. Not what you typically expect from a Chinese restaurant, but due to speed, they can’t be baking this dish for 10-15 minutes. Understandable, but it was still very tasty and hit the spot.

The Cantonese Chow Mein was typical and exactly as described. This is a food court take out location, and not a Congee Wong/Queen type of restaurant, so the noodles/sauce/meats/vegetables were all in the same container. Noodles on the bottom layer, meats, vegetables and then sauce on top slowly making its way down to the noodles. The noodles was great, I enjoyed it, taste and sauce recipe exactly what I was looking for with the oyster sauce being the secret sauce/flavouring one is accustomed to.

I especially liked the value pricing of the restaurant, as the Chinese restaurants around North York, where we came from has risen prices quite a bit higher and they don’t include a soup or drink.

I then stumbled upon their Instagram page, @greatfountain and saw lots of postings, of food, and how they are family owned, and purchased from the original owner a few years back. A bunch of postings they made, made me very hungry and wanting more!

I ended up returning for lunch a few days later with a few co workers and ordered the Thousand Island sauce spare ribs dish with rice. This came with two pieces of Chinese vegetables, a nice amount of fried rice and the pork pieces and the signature sauce drizzled on top of the pork. This was so delicious, and brought me back to my childhood. I said hello to the Instagram poster of @greatfountain and let her know how great the food was.

This location inside the dynasty plaza and can be a bit hard to find, but look for the white banner and go inside and turn either left or right towards the food court signage. You can’t miss the restaurant as it’s in the middle with all their dishes accompanied with a picture lining all...

Great Fountain is that place that young Asian kids always dreamed of eating at when they were growing up, but look it exists so go fulfill your gluttonous dreams NOW.

You remember when you ate at the kids' table during those big family dinners and they brought out the sweet & sour pork and 6yo you just wanted a whole meal of that but it's too "unhealthy" and you "need more choi"? Well a whole box of that + fried rice is $7.95 BAM take that mom I have money now so I'm stuffing myself full of sweet and sour goodness.

Or that time you were 8yo and your parents were giving you the classic "be a lawyer or doctor ASAP so you can provide for my easy retirement" talk while shoveling fried pork cutlets down your throats because somehow that would convince you to spend 20 miserable years in school for their sake? Well look at me now I'm a lil' porkier than you expected your kid to be because here I am inhaling pork cutlets with steak?? meat sauce?? fish?? idk man it's M E A T not familial pressure or guilty depression and it's still under $10!!!

But let's not forget the best part: the iced lemon tea and the Hong Kong milk tea!! All them newfangled bbt chains out there charging you 6.55 for a green tea with some lemon syrup in it when you can roll up to Great Fountain and get THREE ICED TEAS for the same price lawd have MERCY on my soul I have a sugar addiction. And you can't get away from it either, because that ultra-cheap behemoth box of food you just ordered for under 10 bucks? The drink is included!!!! A soup too but mate let's be real here we all know that the soup is like the cheeky rookie actor tryna going for a breakout performance, but the tea is that talented side character that steals the show and wins Best Supporting Actor and eventually stars in its own spinoff series.

Seriously though there's hundreds of menu items so you could come here every day associating a new dish with another classic childhood memory and your stomach would probably explode before you tried everything. My favourites include the Curry "I forgive you for beating me with the feather duster" Beef Brisket on rice, the Dan Dan "I will remember my heritage and stop associating with gwailos" Noodles, and the Mapo "no dating until university" Tofu on rice :)

5/5 I'm insane but so are Great Fountain's food and prices so go eat there and don't forget to tip the nice ladies because they are very nice and friendly too

And bring cash if you're going because cmon guys it's a Chinese place in a food court...

This is for takeout

My favourite item is the stir-fried rice noodles with beef or gon chow gnow ho. Since the pandemic started, it’s also a dish that I’ve been getting from various Chinese restaurants around the city, always disappointed with the outcomes. Hence, after seeing it featured on Great Fountain’s Instagram feed, I worked in a visit to the eatery after dropping off provisions to my mom, who lives in the area.

The stir-fried noodles with beef ($7.50) was exactly what I had been craving - the noodles cooked long enough so there are bits of caramelization on the ends and to give the dish wok hay. There was enough soy sauce and condiments to flavour everything giving the noodles a lovely deep brown hue, yet they remained dry and not clumped together. I could even do without the beef, to be honest, as what makes the dish are the chewy aromatic noodles, sweet onions and chives, and crunchy bean sprouts. If it is this good after a 20-minute commute, I can only imagine how delicious it would be dining there.

Perhaps there was a bit too much bean sprouts in the Singapore stir-fried vermicelli ($7.50) as the noodles were a little soft for my liking. My hypothesis is the water from the bean sprouts soaked into the thin noodles as it sat in the container. Slivers of green bell peppers would have been a nice addition to substitute for some of the sprouts and add a pop of colour. Regardless, the dish a lovely curry flavour and was a nice balance of noodles, barbeque pork and vegetables.

Each dish is served with a complimentary drink (I skipped to cut down on plastic waste) as well as a free soup. Great Fountain’s hot and sour soup was still surprisingly warm after the drive home and while it’s not the greatest, it’s also not terrible for a free addition. It could be a touch spicier, but where it lacked in the “hot” there was enough of the “sour” element to give it flavour. It reminds me of the hot and sour soup found at Chinese buffets, and even comes packed with big cubes of tofu.

The popcorn squid ($5.99) was the sole disappointing dish; another item I’ve ordered regularly during the pandemic, and once again reminded why it must be eaten in a restaurant. Of course, it was no longer crispy, which is such a pivotal part to making the squid delicious, but Great Fountain’s also lacked seasoning, despite the slightly...