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| - I came here during my search to find Salty soy milk soup (Xian dou jiang) while in Markham/Toronto. For a place so full of incredible and authentic Chinese food, it was surprisingly hard to find a restaurant that served this.
Asian Legend had it - we ordered it, with some sweet soy milk (which came in a bowl - I thought it would be served in a cup), some dumplings, and some sesame bread (which is often eaten with the salty soy soup and fried bread sticks from what I understand). Oh, we also got fried tofu (age tofu basically) I believe.
The food was pretty good, though I won't say it was the best I've had. The dumplings were quite good, about as good as you'll get at most places, and they tasted home-made. But don't expect the super juicy, flavor-saturated stuff you might find at Ding Tai Fung. But they were good, and it's hard to go wrong with dumplings.
The sweet soy milk wasn't as sweet as I had hoped - maybe some will prefer it that way, but when I ordered it I expected a sweeter drink that came in a cup, as you can find in some places in the Asian malls around Markham. Could just be lack of knowledge on my part. It's something I look for often, because I swear that Chinese soy milk is different from western soy milk.
The sesame bread was pretty good, with some flaky texture, but it wasn't great. The salty soy milk was good as well, but not as flavorful or salty as I hoped. I did add some soy sauce/dumpling sauce in, and it tasted better. I just remember having this dish at some other restaurant, and it was thicker, with more dried shrimp, more spice, more flavor. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as good here compared to my memory of that other restaurant.
The tofu was great, though. Plenty of flavor, nice crispy texture.
The service was wonderful as well. The servers were very nice, and frequently came by to refill water and see how we were. The atmosphere is quite nice as well.
Nearby there is a small supermarket and bakery which is fun to check out too.
Overall, pretty good food, but not the greatest; wonderful service and atmosphere. Maybe a tad on the pricey side, but I don't think it was too bad.
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