Eating @ Sika Deer Chinese Cuisine (Toronto)

9:31 AM

Brought the in-laws and family (with kids) to the beaches in Scarborough. Since we were coming home late, I thought it would be a perfect chance to sample this restaurant, Sika Deer Chinese Cuisine. I had heard too many wonderful/positive reviews from the Facebook Toronto Chowhound group. Even though I tried this restaurant (for a birthday celebration) and didn't have a good experience (maybe we didn't get the right signature dishes), I was willing to try it again but with some initial online research.

Reviewer: Eating with Gordon
Cuisine Style: Shanghainese
Visit: 8/14/2016
Food Rating: 4/5
Service: 2.5/5

Atmosphere:
Upon arrival at the restaurant at 7pm on Sunday, it was extremely busy with customers (a good sign). We had to wait 5-10 minutes for a table to accommodate the children. The restaurant isn't large but it had a few tables packed together. In addition, there were 3 private rooms for larger seating reservations. There were booth seating along the south window sides.

Service:
A nice English booklet menu was made available. In addition, there was a master ordering list (only in Chinese) that you would mark and submit to the servers. The English booklet menu was quite helpful (this wasn't available the last time I visited!).

The servers started well with getting drinks, accepting our order menu and helping to get the high chair. Towards the middle of the meal, the servers just started phasing out. They forgot to bring our plain white rice bowls. I gave up requesting for drink refills.

Food Comments:
From the online foodie community, this restaurant was supposedly the best Shanghainese restaurant in Toronto. For the dinner meal, we ordered the following dishes:

Pan Fried Meat Buns ($6)

Xiao Long Baos (says "Steam Bun" on menu ...) ($5.75)

Braised Bamboo shoots with Fatty Pork Belly slices in Sweet Sauces ($14)

Fried Beef with Dark Honey Sauce ($14)
Noodles with Bamboo shoots, mushrooms in Pepper pork broth soup ($6)
Green Chinese Vegs

The braised bamboo shoots in a dark brown sauce was tasty with the thin pork belly slices. The fire pot kept converting the onions into a sweet sauce.

The beef with the honey sauce was executed very well. The beef had a more complex texture with the frying and the dark honey sauce added another richness to the dish.

The half dozen Xiao Lung Bao were great. Skin was very thin and had a lot of flavourful soup within in. The meat wasn't overly "hard" compared to the one I had at "Yu Garden". However, I still prefer Northern Dumpling Kitchen for more flavorful broth and slightly better seasoned,wine infused pork filling.

The Pan Fried Meat Buns were amazing for the meal. The dough was very fluffy which was a complete surprise. Inside, the meat was soft with the juiciness leaking down to the crispy pan fried base. Each bite was very enjoyable with the contrasting textures and juices.

Overall, the meal was good. My in-laws and SO agreed that this restaurant was definitely worth coming back.

Food Photos: