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| - My family arrived in this sprawling parking lot hellhole called First Markham Place in search of the fabled popular Ding Tai Fung restaurant, but found instead a long wait for a table. There are a gazillion other Asian food options in this confusing shopping centre for those not in the mood to wait, including the one conveniently right next door: Chef Wong's. There were plenty of seats at lunchtime here, and generally speaking we found this to be a decent choice if you wanna just eat but can't wait to eat and don't mind putting up with the horrible driving skills that seems to be the norm here to be here.
Apparently this used to be a Congee Wong--a familiar name in the Chinese Toronto suburban landscape. The basic clean contemporary decor is heavy in muted olive drab green tones, stuffed mostly with large group tables with diner booths lining the walls.
Unlike other reviewers, I did not experience any food or service woes. Service was at a basic satisfactory level, except for not having a host show up to seat us for a full minute.
We ordered mainly noodles from their overwhelmingly huge menu, generally around $7-10 each for a giant plate to share. Food comes damn quick, but overall I found them to be kind of an average kind of greasy Chinese comfort food like you'd find served in mall takeouts. The fried beef udon noodles for example, though I enjoyed it much like I enjoy a good greasy burger, was heavy on sodium and looked and tasted like it was slathered in Magi (the cheap man's fake soy sauce).
Anything here labelled as 'spicy' should be avoided by true chiliheads. We had also the Szechuan style beef rice noodles-and by Szechuan, they really meant more like "dumbed down Szechuan style for whitey." Which of course meant a severely mild hot dish that suited my don't-like-too-spicy family, but would disappoint those craving authentic bold and hot flavours associated with Szechuan cuisine. That dish in question was also overloaded with a medley of peppers-of the red/yellow/green "traffic lights" kind.
{YRT/VIVA: once you get off the Purple/Pink line at Woodbine, you'll need a car to cut through the giant parking lot sprawl just to reach anywhere in First Markham Place}
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