Lee Garden

This is a venerable institution in Chinatown. Recently, there was an article about it, how it's the main destination of Jews on Friday nights for their Chinese food fix :) . We went there at the request of a friend, as she didn't get to go that often, as Chinese people apparently think it's not -that- "chinese-y". Well, admittedly, only half of the restaurant was filled with Chinese people, and the rest were of all other cultures and colours, but the food was still good. I agreed with her; I'm not really sure what the stigma is against the restaurant. Had a nice mixture of tofu, chicken, noodles, beef, lamb, fish, etc; all of it was lovely, and we even finished with red bean soup.... hardly a "non-chinese-y" dish in the bunch....

Merlot

This is a small bistro-esque eatery in the Kingsway Village; went with an old friend for lunch. Had a lovely farfalle with rose sauce, finished with a custard flan... lovely.... was stuffed to the gills.... had been told before that this place gave very generous portions.... they weren't kidding....

New Generation

This is a longstanding sushi restaurant in the Annex. Went with some friends who go religiously at least two to three times a week (!). Had the salmon sushi box, which was just lots of salmon yumminess with spiciness to boot! Plus, they threw in some ice cream, just for the 'regulars'...

Neon Lobster

There is a real name for this resto, but for the last ten years, we've been calling it the Neon Lobster, so there we go... in the heart of Chinatown... haven't been for years, but came here for lunch... we noted that there's a change in decor: new paint, new chairs (though, we were told by the serving staff, that the new look has been around for at least a year).... ordered the typical chicken, noodle, rice, veggies dishes... it's good for the value, though I must say, quite greasy-yummy... It mainly amazes me, that, as meat has always traditionally been the sign of an affluent society, and that as many of the Chinese population still lives in poverty, the abundance of meat in Canadian Chinese restaurants seems a bit ghastly...

North-East Chinese Restaurant

This is in the basement of one of the stores in Chinatown. I am still not entirely sure how we ended up here... you walk through the plastic drapes to get into the restaurant.... now, this is getting particularly difficult with my 'no red meat to keep you from stumbling' policy, but that's besides the point... certainly, ambience is NOT the forte of any Chinese resto. This was no exception. Now, of all the things we ordered, I didn't eat that much that was on the table: had some of the very spicy tofu (which was tofu fried in chili oil, no special chili sauce or anything), and the vegetable dumplings (which only had chives in them... certainly, there must be SOME better way of doing vegetable dumplings than that! From what I understand, back in the 'home country', most of the Chinese rarely have meat... why can't they do decent vegetarian dishes here???).

El Trompo

This is a Mexican resto that was recommended to me by a friend. It's in Kensington. Went there with a friend of mine, and we both ordered fajitas... now, one thing that was promising was that everyone in the resto except for us, were speaking Spanish. That's not necessarily something fail-safe, as that certainly does not hold true for Chinese restaurants. However, we were hopeful.
Now, it was a bit different, as, instead of in many Kelsey's/Montana's type restaurants, they give you separate containers with all the things you need for your fajitas; instead, it was all mixed together on a plate, with a whole bunch of melted cheese on top. Very tasty, but hard to decide what you wanted on your fajita, b/c you didn't get to decide. Furthermore, we had authentic corn tortillas, which was nice for a change. But they were very small, relatively speaking: they were only about 5cm in diameter, which didn't hold too much of the fillings! We ended up eating a lot of tortillas!
However, it was still quite tasty, so not bad.... I think we could've tried eating some other things, if we'd been more hungry in the first place...