Wonderful Northern Chinese restaurant serves soup dumplings, peking duck, steamed fish and some fancy vegetarian dishes.
Toronto has a gazillion Chinese restaurants, so be impressed that the sturdy Asian Legend chain continues to thrive and prosper. We went to the Scarborough location at Sheppard/Brimley which looks like it was a converted Swiss Chalet. Inside, the decor is sleek and modern. Service is attentive. The menu is extensive.
A sour note is that the washrooms are deep downstairs in the basement - you might think you've entered into a Look of Kohler dungeon! Another sour note is that in spite of the spacious looking lay-out, once the restaurant was filled up, it was next to impossible to back out of your chair without hitting the table behind you!
Food presentation was first rate. We had sliced drunken chicken that was practically ginger-thin sliced! The peking duck wasn't prepared at the table but presented in a giant platter, hot and crispy with steamers of wrappers. We had a steamed sea bass with ginger and onions - wonderfully light and tasty BUT they didn't do that great a job of scaling the fish. We also ordered a vegetarian dish of edame beans with bean sprout pasta and enjoyed a complimentary dessert of red bean/coconut hot soup - a nice finish to a wonderful meal!
Of course, no visit to Asian Legend is complete without an order of northern style soup dumplings which are currently all the rage (just like Pho!). Asian Legend features a variety from seared, vegetarian to various stuffings of "potstickers."