Aurora Chinese Restaurant

Expensive. If you can drive 20 minutes south… i say DRIVE. That said, it’s not crowded or busy, you can get your dim sum fix. I felt like the portions were small and the staff not particularly attentive. It is the right type of food — just pay less and drive South.

Bad service, food is under average, you don’t get what u pay for. First and last time go there.

A lot of Chinese Buffets and Restaurants seem not to survive here in Georgina, so myself, my wife and our daughter wanted to try one we always saw in Aurora, the Aurora Chinese Restaurant, and we are so glad we did.
Food was fresh, vibrant in both appearance and taste, vegetable fried rice was the best in a long while.
Selections for everyone, only down side was the lack of meat in the Chicken Balls, but everything else we had was great, we ordered enough to doggy bag for 2 meals more at home, reheats just as nice as served fresh.

If you’re in Aurora and you want Chinese food… I would recommend driving to Richmond Hill. But if you are in Aurora, «Aurora Chinese Restaurant» is available. It’s the only place in the area, that I’m aware of, that does dim sum. The quality is so-​so. The prices are above average. Definitely check the prices of what you’re ordering, because a bunch of really standard dishes are «J», meaning 8.99, which is a lot for dim sum. They have a good amount of selection for both dim sum and the regular menu. You can do so much better for price and quality elsewhere though (outside of Aurora).
If you order off the regular menu, I would recommend the sauteed beef and onion dish. The beef was cooked really nicely.

Being surrounded by a lot of trees, and well… more trees, means that my Chinese food options are somewhat limited, but I think Aurora Chinese Restaurant is a real diamond given the distance to my house. It’s situated in a relatively busy plaza that backs onto a Wal Mart, EB Games, and a few other stores. The décor, while a bit odd and dated, but it does remind me of the numerous Chinese restaurants I frequented with my parents’ as a kid. (Except minus the Colonial artwork… still haven’t processed that one.)
The menu spills into two separate pieces: a dim sum and fried foods menu, and an everything else menu, which I think they’ve done this so those who want easy access to the dim sum don’t have to wrestle the 40 cm’s tall menu. (Seriously, I almost lost an eye to that thing.)
Like anyone who’s eaten Chinese cuisine before, while the title of a menu item may share similarities to others, it’s up to the Chef’s perception of how they’re going to recreate it, so do bear that in mind when ordering some ‘staple’ items off of the menu and don’t be thrown off by any colour or taste variances, it really is a unique experience.
Now onto pricing, I strongly recommend you to be mindful of HOW much you’re ordering and watching the costs. We left with a $ 95.00 bill which really had us scratching our heads given we went for Chinese food which doesn’t tend to have a perception of being ‘expensive’, but when we started to do the math and realized: «okay, that noodle dish *was* $ 12.99…» you will notice that some of their menu items have experienced a hike in price as the $ 10.99 has been struck out with black Sharpie and replaced with $ 12.99 on a lot of items.
All in all, the food was good, the waitresses were relatively attentive given we walked in at 5:30 on a Monday night, and the tea was ample. We’ll come back again if we don’t feel like trekking out to Markham or Richmond Hill.

Sad to write this updated review but I must as in recent visits to what once was a place I favoured in Aurora, I can say that I will NEVER be returning here again! I will drive to Markham or Richmond Hill for my «authenticChinese food». Why? because this place doesn’t understand service is related to customer satisfaction and cost of the food to the actual amount you get (it is overpriced.) Over the past few months the amount of food you get has been dwindling. The taste is ok — they had really put effort into the food when they first opened. They are never busy enough at lunch or dinner for the service to be lacking in attention to their customers, you feel like you are bothering them when you need something. There is only woman server who really tried (short hair & glasses) .incase the owner actually reads this. They only had 3 servers ever. My last visit was a few nights ago where My family & I ended up walking out after waiting 1 hour to receive nothing we ordered yet! I am a very patient & understanding person to the restaurant business but this visit was the final breaking point. Thing is 2 families of 7 and 6 walked in after us placed their order 15 minutes later and received food before us who hadn’t received anything in 1 hour. There was only 5 tables seated (2 of which were 2 couples) my table was only 4 people. The table of 7 people actually were stunned & surprised they got food before us.(we shared a brief conversation). I told the owner & the terrible server on our way out and all they could say is «sorry — we have a lot of takeout» a very contrived «sorry». Not even please sit down & we will make it up to you. I’ve been trying to overlook disappointing details about this place for awhile because of the proximity or closeness of a authentic Chinese restaurant in Aurora and I didn’t want to see what a lot of the people in Aurora & nearby were saying for a long time about this place but I am no longer «blind» to the enormous failings of this restaurant and had to do my part as an Elite Unilocaler to inform everyone.
Never to return. I would give 0 out of 5 stars if I could.

Decent Chinese food in the area but definitely can’t compete with chinese restaurants in Markham/​Richmond Hill area. Price is a little higher but the dishes were quite good with right ingredients. Service is so so, not impressed, considering this restaurant is NOT cheap. The décor looks nice but if you are looking for a real Chinese affair please drive the extra 15 mins down to hwy 7.

We heard about this from my friends, apparently they are the only Chinese Restaurant that offers dimsum in Aurora/​Newmarket area. Maybe because of that, since there are no competition, the price are outrageous! Price range from $ 2.99 to $ 12.99, but each plate has 4 small pieces of dim sum items, so the portion is not huge. Two people can easily eat 10 plates to only start to feel full.
They have all day dim sum which is good. Some of the items are good, but not worth that price. From 87 dim sum items, only 16 is small ($ 2.99), 27 medium ($ 3.99), 28 large ($ 4.99), 12 special ($ 6.99), 3 xl ($ 8.99), 1 xxl ($ 12.99).
The décor looks fancy, but western neoclassical décor with western victorian people in parties), the background music is just live streaming of local English-​speaking radio show, which is little weird to find in Chinese restaurant, no chinese songs at all.
I will come to eat again only if I’m very desperate for dim sum and am too lazy to drive half an hour to Richmond Hill where vast amounts of cheaper and better quality dim sum can be found!
As an experienced dim sum go getter, we would say that the quality of food matches those of most chinese dim sum restaurants, fine and fair for those who want the craving.

based on where i live, to get chinese food my choices are 5 minutes up the 404 to this place or 10 minutes down to markham /​r. hill.
for the convenience given the area, i gave them some points.
décor: didn’t deduct anything because someone may actually like the place — a matter of preference.
service: well, they were to the point and efficient. good enough for me.
food: for what i ordered (fried rice and sweet and sour pork), i’d say its comparable to first markham place food court. it was OK, not great.
price: 13 for fried rice + 13 for SS pork= i was made a chump!
final comments: order your food in some sort of combo or try the peking duck. they have a set menu with a pop for around 8 bucks– thats not bad. Ala carte is a ripoff. if it wasn’t for a pregnant mom having weird cravings on a weekday night, I would have went south.

Worst Chinese restaurant I have been to in GTA… I am not a picky person but their dim sum dishes are really not good. When we found a hair in one of the dishes, they offered to bring a new one but never said sorry… I wouldn’t recommend this place to anybody.

I’ve been to a lot of Asian restaurant and this is overall not a bad one. Of course there’s so much good Asian food in markham but I can say this place is great! Their services are pretty nice especially the owner of the place, he’s super nice! This place is so pretty inside and their food is delicious. Dim sums are okay but I really really recommend you to come for dinner combo because it is super super cheap with a few darkest if dishes!

Great food, crazy over the top opulent décor, service is a tad slow but you can also lounge without being bothered which is nice. They also have a cute private room area which would be nice for a larger party (20 – 30 I’d say). Decent all day dim sum menu and some congee options. Here’s what we ordered (see pictures)… Garlic Shrimp and snow peas entrée ($ 13) and some dim sum: Shrimp rice noodle ($ 7), mushroom dumplings ($ 4) and Shrimp wontons ($ 6). A wee bit pricey, but best chinese food in this part of town so far, so I’d say worth it. Just don’t expect too warm a welcome/​service. I’d give it a 4 star for take out!

I have been ordering from them for take out only. I am giving them a four for the yum, the amount of people (20 including children) who can eat from it and even has left overs and the bang for your buck.
I order party trays for my parties and they cost $ 35 per tray. First, in September for my husband’s surprise party. I ordered in three other restaurants, mind you. Sometimes, the same food but from different menu.
I ordered Peking Duck (which is my all time fave). They are tastier than chicken. I like doing the first as I call it. On flat bread, I put the crispy duck skin, then maybe a little meat, one piece of cucumber and another piece of another vegetable and hoisin sauce roll it up like a pita sandwich and voila! Ohlalala, yum!
I forgot what else I ordered from. As soon as I get hold of the list, I will update this. Anyway, all I can remember is, yes, the service is quite slow.
Come, New year’s eve, I ordered Garlic pork chops, Beef Chow Mein, and Peking Duck again. Garlic Pork Chops was saleable. (20 people partook including children and there was still left overs.

We tried the dim sum here, it was ok.
The place looks really nice but it is pricey. They have set sizes for all dim sum items, such as fried squid we could only get size xl for 6.99 $. The service could be better, and the food was nothing outstanding.
To be honest I would not to go, probably better options highway 7 or Markham area.

Worst Chinese restaurant I have been to in a long time. We ordered some dim sum, congee and fried noodles. Food was similar to food court quality and service was horrendous. There were only ten tables when we where there, and the waitresses couldn’t handle the volume. Took forever to get their attention for anything, and they would give you attitude if you asked for anything. We were also charged for tea, but we had water, and again the front desk manager gave us attitude when I asked him to remove it.
Being a Chinese person, I can tell you that you are much better off driving ten minutes down to hwy 7 and picking any chinese restaurant there for food.

Contrary to my last review, where I only gave this restaurant one star, I am upgrading it now to 3 stars. They have improved in both the speed of their service, as well as the tastiness of the dishes.
We ordered soup, which came promptly, followed a bit too quickly by the dishes we ordered. Lemon chicken, Cantonese chow mein, and General tsao beef. All were good, not yet outstanding, but I appreciate their efforts to improve and use the feedback of customers. Also contrary to my last review, we will go again.

This is a great place to eat. It’s hard to find good authentic Chinese food in the area so I am thrilled that this restaurant opened up!
Restaurant: The restaurant is large and nicely decorated. It looks like it would be a very up-​scale pricey Chinese restaurant but it’s really not. The staff is always nice to us whenever we have gone. They are attentive and make recommendations. The price is a tad high but really it’s not that bad.
Food: the food was great! Every time we come here the food is always spot on. The portions are large enough to feed quite a few people. The portions are large and the quality of food is great. I believe that the prices are reflective of the food.
I would highly recommend you check this place out.

This restaurant was a pleasant surprise. The menu is well illustrated, and lets you find most of your favourite dishes quickly. The dishes were prepared and delivered fresh and hot. The various dumplings are larger than normal, and the cuttlefish was tender.
Between the two of us, we ordered an ambitious 8 plates. Six would have been fine, since we had to bring an overlooked dish home. We did ask to have it removed from the bill, but they delivered it «to go» anyways.
This place is expensive. Just shy of $ 50, and to drink, we had tea (at $ 1 per person). Did I mention there were only the two of us?
Make sure to read the fine print in the pricing of each dish. $ 7 per order of shrimp roll seems a bit steep, as good as it is.

Aurora Chinese Restaurant is a good addition to the neighbourhood which lacks authentic Chinese restaurants.
At least the dim sum dishes I tried were quite good. And on a Sunday prime dim sum time there was no wait, as there was just another table aside from us.
Chiu Chow Dumpling ($ 2.99)
Shrimp Dumpling ($ 4.99)
Chicken Feet ($ 2.99)
Beef Rice Noodle Roll ($ 4.99)
Deep Fried Sesame Dumpling with Duck Egg York ($ 3.99)
Pricing are comparable with the higher end Chinese restaurants in Markham/​Richmond Hill area, though the quality might not be as good.
I just have to say I dislike the deco here. Trying to imitate the likes of Crown Prince and Crown Princess but just falling short. Most of the suppose «French Baroque» details are just cheap and rough copies — a tacky «dollar» store vibe instead of that grandiose atmosphere they want to achieve.
I would not make a special trip from Markham/​Richmond Hill to dine at Aurora Chinese Restaurant. However, if I am in the area or meeting some friends or just don’t want to handle the weekend crowds, Aurora Chinese Restaurant is definitely a good option!

So I did go back the next day for the Shrimp Wonton Noodle Soup. 5 golf ball sized wontons wrapped around crisp fresh shrimp, on fresh noodles in a delicious clear broth, and decorated with a few greens. For $ 6.50 it is a great lunch, or late night snack.
And I went back another 15 times just for the soup since I wrote the first review. No, I am not addicted. (or am I?)…
…A year later: still as good as the best in Richmond Hill.