Hanoi Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

We’ve passed this little hidden place several times and finally walked in for the time this month. It’s quite conspicuous from the outside as the glass is all barred up with metal and besides a board sign that sits outside the door, you don’t really get a sense it’s a restaurant. It appears more like a pawn shop from the outside.

Walking into the restaurant, you are welcomed, first, by a strong scent of incense.

The owner/chef is sitting on his gaming chair (a very comfy one at that) with a large flat-screen blasting the local Vietnamese news. He pours himself a cup of tea from a traditional mini clay tea pot and in an instant, you are transported back to perhaps an extended relatives’ home in VN. Over 35% of the interior is made up of statues of buddhas and structures for traditional offerings. The restaurant doubles as a manufacturing facility for their Vietnamese rice cake business - offering banana/pandan flavoured cakes, mung bean cakes, and the like, which are packed and packaged for delivery on site. If you peer into the restaurant from the outer window, you will see the cakes for purchase on display.

The toilet is in the back near the kitchen, where you navigate boxes of cakes being packed, a mini toaster oven on a trolley (used for making their bahn mi (Vietnamese subs), and past the cash register and a large deep freezer to arrive at your destination. Inside, the bathroom doubles as a furnace room and storage room of boxes - old cat litter boxes and grocery boxes (emptied)

The service is welcoming and you get what you need. But don’t expect anyone asking you how your food was. We saw 3 different men come into the store. 2 of which never smile, while the other definitely does more of the servicing. One of them grunted at me when I began my journey/scavenger hunt to find the toilet and almost went to the basement — to signal I was starting on the wrong path.

Food is made to order and comes out on plastic plates and bowls with traditional East Asian patterns. The mint is likely homegrown - the leaves are huge! Food is homemade and something out of the kitchen of a home cook rather than a chef. Don’t expect fancy but you will get all the traditional ingredients one might expect from a Vietnamese meal! Water is served in plastic milkshake cups and are starting to brown. Likely due to the longevity of them being at the store/restaurant.

The walls are decked in paintings (wherever it fits) and handmade signs for product offerings written in Vietnamese. It’s everywhere so you’ll have to play some Where is Waldo with your Google Translate app if you can’t read VN.

If you’re looking for a zero frills experience and just want to fill your tummy with some sustenance while being transported back in time, check it out and dine in. If you just want some flavourful food, maybe do take out. (Note: the quality of the rice noodles I had were ok. It was boiled but overcooked so almost mushy and the rice starch was not washed out.)

Payment: while not advertised, an automatic 15% is added to your bill. I believe this applies to takeout orders too, but...

Here's some things you should look for in an Vietnamese restaurant:

A few Google reviews that complain about the service Smell of incense Owned by an older couple that speaks broken English Decor that hasn't been updated since the late 90s Shrines everywhere that don't serve any real purpose Visible colouring on old white signs and menus, bonus: If they used tape to cover up the old prices and wrote in new prices, instead of printing new menus

This place has all of that and more! It's one of the older restaurants in that part of Parkdale. Dates back to the 90s when the area had a lot more Vietnamese owned businesses.

My recommendation: Pho beef Sot Vang. It's a Northern Vietnamese dish (from Hanoi) where the beef is marinated in red wine.

Do not take dates here until you've confirmed they're long term material. If you've been seeing someone for only like 2 weeks, take them to one of those pho places downtown where you are charged $23 for...

Most Vietnamese places in the West are Southern (Saigon/HCMC) based. This is a rare Northern Vietnamese variety and thus has specialties you won't find elsewhere.

The front of the store is all locked up with grilled bars and messages like "Keep Out !!!" and then when you enter, it feels like some hoarder's bedroom with hundreds of shrines, incense sticks, cardboard boxes etc. You feel like running away immediately, but resist that urge.

The food here tastes EXACTLY the same as street-food in Hanoi. Don't order Pho or Banh Mi. Order regional specialties of the North - like Bun Cha (grilled meat with green papaya), Bun Reiu (Crab Roe noodles) or Cha Ca (Grilled Fish with herbs). I also got some green-rice sweets to-go.

This is the REAL DEAL. I don't know what's going on with the restaurant, but please support their business. I would hate to see authentic places like these close down and be replaced with generic...