Asian Legend

Stopped by for dinner and was not disappointed.
Portions were bigger than i expected, ended up ordering way too much for 2 ppl but finished everything anyways because it was THAT good.
The food came fast and was decently fresh — dimsum was steaming hot, but our cold noodles were stuck together (maybe left out too long?).
I liked how their menu included pictures so none chinese folks can have a glimps of what some of the dishes look like (ones we got loomed identical to the photos)
I took one star away due to their poor service. Our server sat us down, took my order paper, and was nvr seen again. Though it was a busy night it. does not excuse them throwing down our menus and bill.
Pros: great food, lots of variety of dish
Cons: loudness of clanging utensil at the back & lack of good service.
Would recommend to friends

Asian Legend has become a go-​to restaurant for my family. We’ve been coming here for well over 10 years and I am happy to say that the quality of food has not gone down. It is impressive how consistent it has been, especially across all the restaurant locations.
Family favourites:
— Soup Filled Dumplings ($ 5.99): ah XLB… while I wouldn’t say it’s the best that you can get in the city, it is way above average
— Steamed Chicken Dumplings ($ 5.99): juicy and plump
— Rolled Onion Pancake with Sliced Beef ($ 5.99): portions have been shrinking over the years, but it’s a great way to have your sliced beef and green onion pancake all at once
— Deep Fried Tofu with Garlic Sauce ($ 3.99): actually ordered this by accident once, but what a great mistake. It has a good combination of saltiness, crunchiness and sharpness that comes from the garlic.
— Peking Duck ($ 39.99): not my #1 spot for peking duck, but it’s pretty good and the duck is leaner than other places if you’re health conscious
— Braised Beef Noodle Soup ($ 9.95): I have yet to find a place in Toronto that does this better than Asian Legend. The price has been going up on this dish and portions have been shrinking… but it still tastes good after all these years.
— Cold Noodles with Shredded Chicken & Spicy Peanut Sauce ($ 6.99): the noodles are a little chewy which makes it great. Make sure you mix it all up before eating it and it does have quite a bit of garlic, so I wouldn’t probably order it if you’re dining for lunch on a weekday.
— Fried Rice Cakes with Pork & Pickled Vegetables ($ 10.99): rice cakes are properly prepared, they aren’t soggy or overly hard to chew. Note, rice cakes in general are hard to reheat as they stick together and become quite hard — try to finish this dish and not take it home.
I would stay away from the Westernized dishes (e.g. beef w/​broccoli, sweat & sour pork, etc.) as I haven’t found them to be any good. Desserts are average.
The service here is a bit chaotic, but you will never have an empty teapot. There’s a dedicated person that just walks around every 5 min or so to check if you need more hot water (props to that guy).
I have been to the original Din Tai Fung in Taipei and other locations in Shanghai, Hong Kong and LA. While Asian Legend isn’t at that level (yet), I’m still quite satisfied with the food that comes out here.

Used to come here 2 or more times a week but over the last couple of years have noticed that the quality has deteriorated a bit. The food is still ok, but not great. I would actually give them 3.5 stars if I knew how to add half a star.
They have the typical Shanghai food, and the price is pretty good. If you like the place, on your first visit buy a VIP card that is valid for 1 year and costs $ 20. It gives you 10 percent off every time you go.

Is it just me, or are the portions shrinking? Well, the rolled onion pancake with sliced beef, anyways. It’s still very yummy, but it seems much smaller than usual. Less beef and smaller pancake? My brother’s piece also wasn’t hot enough.
Braised beef noodle in soup seems to have risen in price by quite a bit. About $ 9.50 now. That’s quite a bit for a bowl of beef noodle soup. It wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t pay $ 9.50 for it.
Fried tofu was good. $ 3.99. Decent portion. Probably the most worthwhile thing we ordered today.
143 (no number) — cold noodle with shredded cucumber in chili oil? Yeah. Lacked depth. Sauce was vinegar and chili oil. I expected that. I expected a savory component that I did not find (for example, a touch of soy sauce). For $ 6.99/$ 7.99 (I forget which), I did not find this worth it at all. So easy to make. One thing I did find slightly mystifying was that they used a spice that I have yet to be able to distinguish. I really want to say it tasted like lemongrass, but since when do they use that in Northern Chinese cuisine? All in all, I won’t be ordering this again.
Hit and miss here. I’ll still most likely be back.

Came here on a Saturday afternoon. The place was busy but still had empty seats. Parking is horrendous in this plaza. There is lots of parking spaces but just too many shops and restaurants. I had to park on the 2^nd floor cramped parking spots.
Ordered only three items as it was only two people dining for lunch.
Soup dumpling with scallops and pork $ 6.99 — its $ 1 more than the standard pork soup dumpling and honestly I could not tell the difference. Still tasted good though. Mental note: (stick with the cheaper pork soup dumplings). There was even one on the menu for $ 7.99 with crab meat. I bet that will taste the same as well since they dice everything into a paste anyways.
Onion pancake beef wrap $ 5.99 — crispy and soft at the same time. Tasted great.
Dan Dan noodles $ 6.99 — spicy sauce with peanut paste mixed with noodles. People that do not dine at Shanghai restaurants will find the combination weird but its awesome. The noodles were nice and chewy and came in a large portion. It was just the right combination of spicy soup with peanut paste.
Service was fast and amazing. They guy filled out teapot 3 times and we were only there for 30 minutes max.

I’ve been to at least four other Asian Legend locations and this is probably the worst one for their braised beef noodle soup. I thought that the quality would remain the same since it is a chain, but it’s almost night and day compared with the one in say… Scarborough! The noodles they use are also different and flat (although that’s just a preference I guess. but they don’t seem to be traditional Shanghai noodles). The soup was also not as flavourful. The potstickers were also smaller and they sometimes forget to give you vinegar for dipping. I’ve ordered takeout from here multiple times but I’m almost tempted to travel a bit further to another Asian Legend to get better quality food.

Used to be our «nice» dining place when we lived in downtown.
I believed the steamed items and roast duck are fine. Safe to order. Service is okay.
Don’t try other dishes like stirring fried vermicelli (poor portion and bland, for all the Cantonese dishes, I recommend congee Wong nearby) or traditional Chinese dishes like fish flavoured pork slices (鱼香肉丝）, sweat & sour fish is a big joke… check out my photos – it’s even a joke for the Westerners, okay? It’s basically just deep fried fish fillets with warmed ketchup.
I had stomachache right after dining there and low fever which lasted for 3 days. (My husband was fine)
We ordered a bunch of things, the fish flavoured pork slices is the only one he didn’t eat. So…
I like their frozen dumplings, cheaper to buy it in T&T. But hey, are you supposed to be an above average Chinese restaurant first? Come on…

Very good, one of our go to Chinese restaurants. Usually dependable and good food. Service is OK nothing great. Order food you can recognize and it will be good, We like the dim sum, hot and sour soup, cream of corn soup, shrimp dishes, beef dishes, and noodles,

I visited this place with friends. It was Friday evening and it got pretty busy. We were seated at the very back with very little view of the restaurant and definitely fewer visits by the servers.
The food seemed to be made hastily, and if not, certainly delivered so, because the dumplings were all stuck together in one place. In particular, Mapo tofu and cantonese chao mein lacked flavour. We didn’t come for a cheap meal, but the quality of food nor service met our expectation. We did get the red bean soup in the end which was nice, but the overall experience wasn’t great. To sum up, I’ve experienced better.

Visited this North York location with family. It’s a very clean and bright Chinese restaurant. Signage indicates it’s Northern Chinese cuisine. We came for lunch and ordered a variety of dishes including:
green onion pancakes — thin, crispy, delicious
Chive pockets — thin, crispy dough as well. Must have been good as my sister-​in-​law ate half the order herself that I had to order another plate so my husband and I could try.
String beans with garlic — standard
Pan fried dumplings — standard
Shau mai — standard
Soup dumplings — didn’t try as they were eaten by the rest of the family before I had a chance to get one
Soup dumplings with crab egg — good but not sure worth the additional price
Beef noodle soup — I liked the broth as it was spicy and thick (not watered down lacking flavor) and the meat was extremely tender falling apart as you bite
Chicken with mango and onions — my brother described it as sweet and sour chicken with pureed mango. Never tried before.
Service was quick, bathrooms were clean. I’d come back again.

This is one of the nicer Chinese restaurants in the area in terms of service and atmosphere. We ordered the baby bok choy with enoki mushroom, pancake with beef (the ones wrapped in aluminum foil) and the pork pot stickers (wo-​teep), Everything was pretty good! I especially liked the baby bok choy and enoki mushrooms since they do not skimp on the mushrooms at all. This is a great place if you want some northern chinese food. It gets really busy though so expect at least a short wait if you don’t make reservations.

Such a long wait time and they have really poor service. They were very rude and they wouldn’t let me pay by visa even tho they advertised they accepts credit cards.
The steamed pork buns tasted okay but their pan fried green onion pancake was tasteless.

I came here during my search to find Salty soy milk soup (Xian dou jiang) while in Markham/​Toronto. For a place so full of incredible and authentic Chinese food, it was surprisingly hard to find a restaurant that served this.
Asian Legend had it — we ordered it, with some sweet soy milk (which came in a bowl — I thought it would be served in a cup), some dumplings, and some sesame bread (which is often eaten with the salty soy soup and fried bread sticks from what I understand). Oh, we also got fried tofu (age tofu basically) I believe.
The food was pretty good, though I won’t say it was the best I’ve had. The dumplings were quite good, about as good as you’ll get at most places, and they tasted home-​made. But don’t expect the super juicy, flavor-​saturated stuff you might find at Ding Tai Fung. But they were good, and it’s hard to go wrong with dumplings.
The sweet soy milk wasn’t as sweet as I had hoped — maybe some will prefer it that way, but when I ordered it I expected a sweeter drink that came in a cup, as you can find in some places in the Asian malls around Markham. Could just be lack of knowledge on my part. It’s something I look for often, because I swear that Chinese soy milk is different from western soy milk.
The sesame bread was pretty good, with some flaky texture, but it wasn’t great. The salty soy milk was good as well, but not as flavorful or salty as I hoped. I did add some soy sauce/​dumpling sauce in, and it tasted better. I just remember having this dish at some other restaurant, and it was thicker, with more dried shrimp, more spice, more flavor. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as good here compared to my memory of that other restaurant.
The tofu was great, though. Plenty of flavor, nice crispy texture.
The service was wonderful as well. The servers were very nice, and frequently came by to refill water and see how we were. The atmosphere is quite nice as well.
Nearby there is a small supermarket and bakery which is fun to check out too.
Overall, pretty good food, but not the greatest; wonderful service and atmosphere. Maybe a tad on the pricey side, but I don’t think it was too bad.

I was in the mood for some dumplings, actually I had a craving so I came here for the first time. Nice ambiance and a fairly large venue, plenty of parking as it is part of a plaza. We were seated right away and had hot tea within seconds. We ordered pork dumplings in soup, beef and vegetable meal, wonton soup, vsteamed vegetables and seafood basket. I found the food delicious. Not salted at all as you would find in other places. It tasted fresh and flayvorfull. Overall we both enjoyed it.

My family loves to come here. It’s our new «Ding Tai Fung» replacement. We love to order the veggie dumplings (I can have 6 alone!), siu lung bao or as I like to say «little dragon bread», green onion pancake, pan friend dumplings, fried rice, and many other things! The food is delicious though some things have too much oil imho.
The service is always excellent and fast, especially if we get the waiter called Yin Tung. Very competent and nice !
On the downside, at our last visit, we had a waiter by the name of Collin who slammed the dishes down on the table after we told him we just needed takeout boxes so we can pack up the extra food home ourselves. I don’t know what his deal is, but so rude… The nice waiter came immediately to apologize for Collin’s behaviour.

I’ve come to the sudden realization that Asian Legend actually kicks ass.
This restaurant has a bit of everything but tends to focus a bit more on the Northern side of Chinese food. The décor inside is very nice, as it is in most of their locations. The service here is real friendly too, and it’s not just Asians here as it is a bit nicer. Menu consists of lots of things, but dumplings and Peking Duck are key.
I’ve gone a couple of times, but the most recent was memorable because we took the girlfriend’s parents, which meant us ordering A LOT of stuff. Dishes like the general tao’s chicken and chicken wings are pretty Western, but were still pretty good. I liked how nicely crisp the chicken is for both dishes, but general tao’s is never spicy at any of these places!
Had some other dishes too, but the one to focus on is the Peking Duck. I actually loved it. Presentation is overrated, as the more important thing is how it tastes. If I wanted presentation, I’ll go someplace nicer or Beijing. What does it taste like? Asian Legend does it very nicely as the skin is crisp and salted, while the meat was juicy. It must have been a pretty big duck as they gave us all the rest of it on a plate as well and it seemed large enough to feed a family of 4.
There are lots of restaurants in the area but this one is probably the most popular. They have lots of good food for decent prices so I’ll definitely make my way back here again.

Bitter because a waitress spilt a dish all over my new jacket and all they offered to do was pay for dry cleaning. The dry cleaning didn’t help since their sauce totally destroyed all the fur lining.
I’m sure their food is okay but I haven’t been back since :(still sad.

Asian Legend’s food is not bad; it ranges from good to mediocre.
*****My favourite part of the meal was a dessert that I forget the name of. It was like a very light fluffy fried dough bun doughnut. Inside, it was a fluffy egg white. It’s served warm and fluffy & then it shrinks a bit as it cools.
****^The scallion pancake with beef was very good, tasty and well textured.
***Jellyfish salad was okay, as were the two cold meat appetizers we tried (including drunken chicken).
**The xiao long bao were not great. There wasn’t much juice/​soup trapped inside the dumpling & the skin was too thick and chewy.
*^Fried stick was not crispy enough.
*^Fried Shanghai noodles were so-​so. The texture was fine, but they were not very tasty.
Note: I used ^ to indicate a half-​star and * for a full star. So, ***^ means 3.5 stars.

My fiancé’s mom wanted something other than buffet after a heavy dim sum brunch so we returned to the family dinner stable — Asian Legend. We called to make a reservation 15 minutes before arrival and they told us that the place was pretty empty — we should get a table with no problem. Somehow within that 15 mins, this place was filled. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long to be seated and was able to eye what other tables were having for dinner.
Initially wanting to just go with something light — somehow we ordered crab tofu, Shanghainese seafood noodle, beef pancake rolls, fried whole fish in brown sauce, garlic stir fried string beans, appetizer platter sampler (drunken chicken, jellyfish, and pork?) and two orders of crab meat soup dumplings (yep too much food for the 5 of us). I loved every dish we ordered. Tofu was light but flavorful. Beef pancake roll carried the same exact reminder of last year of why I should return to eating/​loving meat. Drunken chicken was so tender and I loved the hint of soaked white wine in each bite. The crab meat soup dumplings were better than the ones I had in joe shanghai and Tim Tai Fung In Taiwan. The fish although was first deep fried had a surprising super moist flakey meat! The noodle and string beans were a bit too greasy for my liking but still well seasoned.
We were beyond stuffed when we were given complementary red bean soup right before we asked for our check. Awesome food, friendly, on point service, and extremely reasonable price. Will definitely return for more Asian comfort food!

This Asian Legend closes at 11:30 pm on weekdays, but please don’t come here at 11:00 pm and expect to be served, The kitchen closes way earlier and all the wait staffs are anxious to go home.
Service can be amateurish and non attentive and the waiters feels too relax gossipping within themselves.
As a late night snack at 10:30ish, we decided to order something relatively light to share:
Steamed Soup Filled Dried Scallops and Luffa Dumplings ($ 6.95)
— A little overcooked but I always love how the dried scallops gave the soup a more savoury taste
Stir Fried Bitter Melon ($ 9.95)
— Bitter melon way overcooked resulted in a really mushy texture
— I do like the spiciness and it balanced out the bitterness
Chicken with 3 Cups of Sauces in Casserole ($ 10.95)
— The smell of fresh basil and other herbs made this dish a winner for the night
— Chicken is cooked just right with the meat still stay juicy and tender
I usually frequent the other Asian Legend locations but if you are in the area, this is not a bad choice.
Parking can be quite challenging during dinner hours as the plaza has a lot of other restaurants and Sunny Supermarket utilizing the same parking lot!