Asian Legend

Being from Vancouver, and home to some of the best XLBs around, I knew coming to Asian Legend while in Toronto was going to be a bit of a let down. However, I was more than a little pleasantly surprised.

Though it's not touted as a Shanghainese Restaurant, per se, they did have Xiao Long Baos on the menu. I decided to give these a try. These were actually pretty good, not great. The skin is a touch thick, but there is definitely a lot of juice inside. I found the top twisted part really thick but there was plenty of meat and juice to make this a good XLB effort. For my favourite in Vancouver (well, Richmond), head to Dinesty. 

This is their Pancake Stuffed with Sliced Beef. It's not much to look at, but it does have a nice pan-fried sear on it. No, it's not one per order, I think there were two. And I just grabbed one so that I could take a good picture without making everyone else at the table wait.
Once you open up the biscuit, you'll see that it is loaded with shreds of meat but the thickness of the "pancake" detracted greatly from the enjoyment of this dish. In the ind, I just ended up eating the filling and leaving the hollow pancake shell alone. 

Another good way to judge a Chinese Restaurant is in their noodle soups. What we have here is the Chunky Beef with Noodles. The noodles were cooked to a good al dente, the soup was very flavourful, but I'm sure there's some MSG in there. What impressed me most was the tenderness of the beef chunks, you can tell they really took their time marinating and braising these "cheaper" cuts of meat, such as the brisket you see here.

That was more than enough food for two people, but for some reason, I had it in my head that I really wanted Mu Shu Pork. Knowing that we could pack this too go, I went for it. And I'm really glad I did. Although the pancakes (hiding in the back) weren't served on a steamer as I had expected, they were freshly steamed and did a swell job of holding all the Mu Shu in. I'm really glad I tried this as the Pork was really well done, with a lot of ingredients such as scrambled eggs, thinly sliced wood ear mushrooms and golden needles, a very traditional ingredient. The also used some matchstick bamboo shoots as well as a less traditional ingredient, the enoki mushroom. Served with some hoisin sauce to bind everything together, this was a good addition to the meal.

Take Note: 

• It's not traditional Chinese fare, more Westernized 
• Good noodles soups 
• Some dimsum items a little rough around the edges, not very refined