YuanYuan Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

I ordered the Ge Da (geda) soup, spicy chicken and jellyfish with corriander, and egg-and-chive pie. I’ve included photos. The soup’s broth was delicious; the soup included little dumplings (like German Spaetzle), dried shrimp and cabbage. The chicken dish was one of the best things I’ve eaten this year. The seemingly “shredded” chicken was perfect, and I love corriander. The jellyfish fulfilled its role of providing a subtle, contrasting texture to the generous amount of corriander. The sauce was your typical Northern Chinese chili oil sauce but not too spicy. The egg-and-chive pie’s texture was on-point—crispy, piping hot and delicious, with a generous amount of chives. Service was speedy. Hey, despite it being clean and all, don’t come here for the ambience. But the food is good. I’ll be back.

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Ok, it’s now a month later and I’ve been back during their slow time, just after the lunch rush. I was the only one in the restaurant and I witnessed them doing an intensive cleaning of the entire place. It looked like a routine thing they were doing, so rest assured hygiene and cleanliness are looked after despite the dated décor.

Now, for the food. Northern Chinese food was an acquired taste for me. It’s very different. I love spicy food and the fish in spicy soup did not disappoint. I’ve had this elsewhere and this is the best version of it I’ve ever had! Fragrant, spicy and generous.

I also had the Napa cabbage with dried shrimp sauce. The dried shrimp paired surprisingly well with the cabbage, and it was a perfect, non-spicy counterpoint to the spiciness...

We're kinda new to northern chinese cuisine. the dining area wasn't super full when we visited, this is our 2nd visit as of this writing.

Yuan Yuan took the space in the plaza where Spicy Garden used to be.

Service is typical chinese service - kinda rude, so nothing new there

As for the food : we ordered braised pork burger, scallion pancakes, soft tofu soup, potatoes and garlic & seafood noodles.

braised pork burger : ok meat to fat ratio, not enough sauce, good ratio of amount of pork filling to the bun, bun was crispy on the outside, but the bottom half of the bun was kinda thick.

scallion pancakes : nice and crispy but barely any scallions

soft tofu soup : both myself and the wife enjoyed this, kinda like dessert tofu with a lightly sweet soup, down side was we only ordered the small size :)

potatoes and garlic : first time trying this, has some hot oil, not super spicy at all, would order again.

seafood noodles : nothing super fancy about these noodles, lightly sauced a bit on the oily side. Likely not to order this one again. Note : their noodle selection is very few.

Likely to visit again to try other dishes.

This resto accepts cash & debit, uncertain as of this writing...

I would’ve given No Star if possible!! Just went there with a friend of mine, we both had high expectations because we went to the old location very frequently whenever we are in Scarborough. This time all the food tasted totally different; doesn’t taste very authentically like Northern Chinese cuisine at all. The best part is, we ordered a kidney and liver dish, and would like to add some spiciness to it, the server said it’s an extra $0.75, ok that’s fine. But when the dish came, it’s just some chilli sauce drizzled on it, no garlic, no dried chilli peppers, not authentic at all!!! The worst part is, the kidney were not prepared and cooked properly. We can smell a strong urine smell before putting it into our mouths. We asked if they can take it back, the owner said no, that’s the way it is, the kidney supposed to smell like that!! Wow, ok, so we ended up paying for a urine smell dish that we didn’t touch at all!! We’ll never go back to that restaurant...