King’s Café

Yummy vegetarian comfort foods, especially the soy fritters and drumsticks. I found their fried dishes to be great; everything else was meh, including the service which was very inattentive.

I had the kung-​po soy fritters with steamed rice, my husband had bbq seitan and we also had veggie steam dumping. Everything was flavourful but we were not like wow. I will definitely be back because it’s good to know that there is vegetarian Chinese food eat restaurant.

Ten years ago, King’s Café would have gotten a ten star review from me, we’re that possible. Now it seems pretty mainstream among the other restaurants they own/​in the franchise. The menu is exactly the same as the menu for Zen Garden in London ON. It was nice to have something similar with a slightly different menu.
These days through, King’s Café seems to have lost its charm. While we were welcomed immediately and told to sit anywhere, it took a while to be brought water, and have our order taken. Once we did order, most of our food came out rather quickly from the kitchen and the food quality is decent. I feel like it used to be better though, all around.
The meal combinations are lovely and come in a be to box with purple rice, soy nuggets, a spring roll, a salad and your main dish, I think it’s the best value for money unless you come with a group and share a variety of dishes.

Long overdue! I came here during my school’s reading week. I had no intention of actually coming here; I was stumbling around checking out Kensington’s Market. I got super hungry and noticed this place right across the street! There was a pair sitting close to the window eating, so my vegan friend and I decided to check it out. I’m so glad we did!
We walked in and there were only two tables being occupied. We chose to sit in the front because no lights were on at the time, and I did not want to sit in the dark. No matter! I like to conserve energy when possible, and so the natural sunlight was nice. I quickly used the huge single stall washroom (very clean by the way), and went back to take my seat. I ordered the Enoki Mushroom Balls Bento. I’m not sure what my friend ordered! I was too excited for my (favourite) mushrooms!
They served us a small bowl of soup first, which wasn’t too salty. I enjoyed it. Then our Bento boxes came! My Enoki Mushroom Balls were more like small little wrapped up cylinders — wrapped by spinach and deep fried. It was lightly drizzled by some (what I believe to be plum) sauce. It had the perfect amount of crunch to it! The steamed vegetables were a nice addition, and I also got a handful of rice. Overall, very good food.
The interior is clean, and you could see what it is like to be located in Kensington Market with spraypaint on the side window of the building. Visitors were walking by and taking pictures of King’s Café without coming inside. Two men were shouting outside and asking people loudly if they had any spare change. It felt I was watching a dystopian show sitting at the front of the restaurant.
Service wise, there was only one server at the time. She was tall and had short hair. She was very attentive to everyone’s needs. I recommend giving this place a try if you are vegetarian/​vegan! I may or may not come back due to the location being inside the maze of Kensington.

The most boring place ever. Slow inattentive service and very blah food. It’s always quiet yet 3 servers will plod around doing next to nothing and never make eye contact so it’s near impossible to get their attention.
Usually vegetarian restaurants have edible food but this place relies on processed soy products, the food is bland and I feel nauseous every time I finish eating there. Despite all of the choices listed on the menu, everything tastes the same. I’ve been there 5 times and the only reason is because some friend of mine will walk by and ask if we can go in, so I go along with it to be polite. After this last time, I won’t return for anyone’s sake.
It’s a shame because it’s a nice space and looks clean. I hate to add one more negative to it all, but the tables are very uncomfortable as they don’t leave enough room to cross your legs under the table. I seldom hate a place, but I’d go anywhere but here.

A lot of wonderful and diverse options… Service was exceptionally poor. Bbq seitan is delicious and very flavourful but much more oily than the standard. Enoki mushroom combination plate left a lot to be desired. Not very flavourful, no dressing on the salad, no dressing for the flavourless spring roll and decent chicken soy nugget.
Bbq bun was okay but again lacked the succulence you would expect. I’d come here again if someone wanted to go hut definitely was not worth the drive.

These guys have really good food for a great price!
Steamed Dumplings here are the best in Toronto
Also really enjoyed the hot and sour soup, nuggets, drumsticks, assorted seitan, and a few of their bento boxes, which comes with a starter soup. it’s not called a bento box on the menu, but looks a lot like one
They even have a freezer section that features some of the products on the menu. Love this place, highly recommend!

PARADIS DES VÉGÉTARIENS. Un peu moins pour les autres. Globalement un peu déçus. Plats qui manquaient de goût et de savoir. Les «viandes végétariennes reconstituées» nous ont pas vraiment plus mais opinion personnelle. Service agréable et grande salle ! S’il devait y avoir une prochaine fois, je pencherais plus sur un plat de noodles ou de riz !

Best bean curd ever. I ate here three years ago and still have dreams about their food. Stopped in this weekend and it’s still top notch. Their grocery supply (red bean steamed buns) is a must stop for vegans!

This place is like walking through the desert and stumbling upon an oasis! An oasis of ALL VEGETARIAN CHINESE FOOD!!! I have never in my life thought the day would come when I could pig out on everything I would see my meat eating friends eat at regular dimsum while I noshed on noodles.
Now I got to taste it all! Veggie duck with plum sauce on a bed of taro and Bok Choi!!! OUT OF THIS WORLD DELICIOUS — it’s the crispy outer texture of the «duck» with the sauce that nails it for me. Steamed veggie dumplings piled high, stir fried rice, steamed bbq buns and cabbage buns, noodles with curry and «beef» and hot and sour soup too!!! Everything is served in generous portions which is a bonus :))

just so so. Food is tasteless. Especially pan fried radish pastry! Small soup is enough for two people. If you eat alone, order the XS one. Sao mai is no favor at all. the only taste good thing is fried chicken.

Let the record state i’d like to give this place a 4.5÷5.
3 points:
1. Food — very delicious. I’d recommend getting a combo so you get to try quite a bit of variety. Some food highlights were the enoki mushroom balls, Seitan, Pan-​fried dumplings, and soy beef.
some items i could have gone without were the chicken with ginger purée and the mock fish in tomato sauce.
2. Customer service — very attentive, A+ for them
3. Atmosphere — it was clean, spacious and not too loud.
Overall i’d come back again! Truly one of the best vegetarian restaurants i’ve been to.

A nice spacious restaurant, centrally located. However, we were a bit disappointed with the food. I got the vegetarian sushi combo, and my husband got the duck. It just wasn’t very good.

Ambiance: Very quiet (I came around 5) and very spacious. The interior designing is something that is atypical of the interior designs of most restaurants in Kensington — it’s very «modern Chinese», something that is more typical in restaurants up in the suburbs.
Cleanliness: Table tops could have been cleaner — there were left over rings from previous customers’ glasses.
Service: Very friendly and accommodating.
Food: I ordered the rice noodles with soy beef. The noodles were not greasy (which is a good thing considering how lots of Chinese restaurants tend to serve greasy rice noodles) and the «beef» tasted really good! The texture and appearance was very similar to beef. Taste-​wise, the «beef» tasted like a mix between soy and actual beef — basically a less flavourful beef. I for one, liked the imitation beef and rice noodle combination. I wish they provided more beef with the rice noodles though :/​Pricing was pretty fair — for about $ 8.50, you get a generous portion of noodles with various toppings and tasty imitation beef.

I always have such epic feasts at King’s with a few friends, so the big tables are a plus. Definitely high in sodium and not the healthiest food but who cares? It tastes so good. Their hot & sour soup is so filling and satisfying, not to mention the soup bowls are enormous. The menu is just so big it can be overwhelming and some dishes are better than others but I love and appreciate the variety. 90% of the menu is vegan and is very clearly labeled (egg and dairy dishes are marked separately so if you have allergies you will be just fine). The restaurant is very spacious so its a pleasant experience even if its very busy. The service is so fast and very pleasant. I love the little shop inside as well.
Some of my favourite dishes are the soy drumsticks, the BBQ duck, hot & sour soup, wonton soup, sweet & sour bites, Kung Pao Chicken, Lappa… the list goes on. Just steer clear of the Enoki Mushroom Bites (just take the damn things off the menu… surely nobody enjoys them) and you’ll have a great meal.

Pretty good! I was happy with my Kung Po chicken and especially enjoyed the purple rice. The salad with my meal seemed to be a bit of an afterthought, but was sufficient. Service was quick but a little bit sour.

I’m by no means a vegetarian, but let’s just say that, if I was ever being told that I would have vegetarian food for a meal, I’d be ecstatic.
I didn’t even get recommended to this place, I was just walking in Kensington with a friend and I just saw the vegetable (pretty empty), my friend said we shouldn’t go because there weren’t many people, so the food must not be good. I refuted, and told her that I will judge the food, when I actually taste it. So we went.
And a good decision was made after all. :)
Let me just say this, the décor in the restaurant is gorgeous. It’s contemporary and perhaps while not by any means a unique décor, the inside, with the open patio is just inviting. The owner was on the outside and lamented to me that their outside menu display was sadly vandalized… so he handed us a menu when we were hanging on the outside of the restaurant.
So we go in, order the following: soy chicken drumsticks, chow mein with soy sauce and stir-​fried mix vegetables. The food was just so yummy, especially the soy chicken drumsticks and the chow mein with soy sauce. They’re essentially little veggie lollipops and not overly salted. I also realized that they sell these in the frozen section, where you can buy and bring home.
The chow mein also really good, nicely fried, didn’t feel heavy and tasty without it going overboard. Stir fry vegetables are just stir fry vegetables, so while they’re good, it’s nothing to shout home about.
Service is pretty good too, they’re pretty quick and attentive. Plus the owner who was standing at the outside the menu, handed us a menu, since their display menu is… a bit on the vandalized.
All in all, great place in Kensington, check it out :)

Went back yesterday and was equally delicious. This time we had the fried bean curd with veggies (my all time favourite!), soy ham fried rice, crystal rolls and wonton soup. Staff were equally friendly and attentive. It is quickly becoming one of my favourite places again!

This is one of my favourite restaurants in the city. I often come here for take out. The Kung pao «chicken» it completely delicious and comes with a great selection of crunchy, well cooked veg. You can tell they really care about what they do. The restaurant is spotlessly clean and well taken care of.
Highly recommended for veggies and carnivores!
And to Jason S — the people that own Kings are Taoist and don’t believe in cooking with excitable flavours like garlic or onions.

I SO wish we had the vegetarian options that Toronto has in the Denver area! Don’t get me wrong, we have places, but a completely vegan/​vegetarian Chinese restaurant with a huge menu? We do NOT have these. That explains why me and my boyfriend ordered so much food for just the two of us. We thought, when are we going to get this chance again?
We ate:
«Chicken» drumsticks — about $ 7 for six drumsticks — comes with a sweet dipping sauce; good texture (I don’t know how they get the skin that way) and no funky taste to the (soy? wheat gluten?) meat
Extra small hot and sour soup — extra small is basically a cup of soup; very tasty! Lots of various ingredients and great flavor — I would order this again in a heartbeat; $ 3.50
BBQ pork bun — this is basically char sui bao (sp?) — very tender bun with the classic sweet taste you expect; this was better than some regular ones I’ve had! $ 1.50
Shrimp dumplings — from the dim sum menu… these were just okay; very fresh, but they don’t taste like shrimp $ 3
Teriyaki seitan — tasty, but don’t believe the menu, this dish is not at all spicy; it ran about $ 13
Spicy eggplant — this is a tasty dish; the strips of seitan and bits of shiitake mushrooms are my favorite parts; but, the eggplant is tender and delicious; about $ 11
Tea: we drank a small pot of the Osmanthus Fragance Dancong, an oolong tea. It was very lovely, floral and smooth. I highly recommend this! $ 5 for the small pot
Neither of the two mains came with rice, which we thought was odd… but since we were stuffing ourselves, we didn’t feel it necessary to order yet more food. The servers were extremely nice, and the overall experience was great.

I don’t want to totally knock the place but I ordered the Enoki Mushroom Balls and when a plate of fried to a crisp «somethings» showed up at the table I was a little surprised. I really think fried should be mentioned on the menu because outside of that I thought I was ordering a healthy and wheat-​free dish!
My friend asked if the batter for frying was wheat based and the server said they can’t give away their secrets! Trust me, I don’t want to make it!!! I ate it anyway and spent days… umm…not well!
maybe I need to try something else but it won’t be me suggesting to go!

Found them showcasing their food at Vegetarian Food Festival a few years back. Their food is always delicious and very authentic. Dumplings are the best vegetarian kind I have ever tried and are a «must try» on the menu as well as vegetarian «shrimp».

The earthiness and general grime of Kensington seep into the relatively sterile and plain-​looking King’s Café via complex metaphysical processes and ceiling to floor front windows, appropriately seasoning what could otherwise be considered a bland atmosphere.
The music lightly pouring from the unobtrusive speaker system is reminiscent of other Asian restaurants, and stages from more obscure 2D fighting games where you’re in a bamboo forest and some kind of pink or white petals are falling from the sky.
When you sit down and open the menu, look no further than ‘Main Entrees-​Kung Po Soy Fritters’.
I live for this sh*t. Do you understand what I’m saying? I f***ing live for this sh*t. I want you to read that sentence again: I. f***ing. live. for this. sh*t. *slaps you in the face* I need you to comprehend this, ‘Yelp’. Read it! — I LIVE FOR THIS SH*T. *slaps even harder* AGAIN! — - I. LIVE. FOR THIS F***ING– *kicks you in the nuts* I want you to right-​click on this page– scroll down– select ‘Print…’- take the necessary steps to make a high definition glossy print– cut out the sentence– and eat it so you can fully absorb the meaning… I. LIVE. FOR. THIS. MOTHER. F***ING. SH*T. Kung Po Soy Fritters.
It’s a great selection of vegetables, and some amazing fake a** meat served up on a big a** plate with some bada** sauce and it’s so good. So good. So good. So good. I’ve ordered that dish like 20 times, but honestly, everything on the menu is great. I’ve had probably 60% of it, and as far as I can tell you really can’t go wrong, just different degrees of right. The ONLY thing that can be said about the palpable contrast between me and those remarking that the food here is just ‘okay’ or ‘good’ is that we have COMPLETELY different taste in food. The food here is great.
It’s healthy. It’s vegetarian. It tastes BETTER than non-​vegetarian restaurants. Pat my a** with a paddle covered in tattoo guns if that doesn’t bring King’s Café immediately to the higher ranks of the ‘best food in TO’ list.
«…not bad…» «…no complaints…» «…generally good…» — what on earth are you people thinking?
Yeah, and Jesus Christ was a somewhat decent guy I guess, Adolf Hitler was marginally bad, and I won a 4.5 million dollar jackpot yesterday– it was mildly interesting. SMH. SMH at all of you. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Most of the servers here seem to speak very little english, but they have that bashful politeness I believe is a cultural thing, so it’s all good.
I guess you could say the King’s speech here is ESL. Know what I’m saying?
The place is great.
*slam dunks a basketball into a chain net to M.O.P’s ‘Ante Up,’ spits on hand, turns around to look you up and down one last time, and diddy-​bops off into the night*
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Okay I’ve thought about it some more and you might want to be aware of these things:
–I like my veggies crunchy, they serve them crunchy.
–I don’t really like onions, and they don’t seem to serve onions with anything (it is in the realm of possibility that they do and I actually have always asked for no onions by force of habit)
–When I am aware a food is relatively good for me, it tends to amplify good tastes a little.
–But the place is still objectively quite good.

It’s not that I don’t like King’s Café; if you’re looking for vegetarian and vegan food Canadian Chinese/​Asian food, the food is okay. It’s just, the food isn’t GREAT and I don’t think the prices are either. I’ve been to King’s a few times, usually at a friend’s request. I’ll always abide, but am never impressed.
I think King’s Café is a great place to bring meat eaters who are sceptical about vegetarian or vegan food. But I’m not. I like meat substitutes, vegetables, tofu, seitan and other yummy foods.
I am okay with fake meat, when done right such as at Chu Chai in Montréal. The fake meat at King’s doesn’t compare. It tastes like the fake meat I buy in Chinatown for $ 2 a can. I want to eat something I can’t necessarily make myself. Most of the food at King’s Café I can make. Which is totally great, but not for me.

After a cold night wandering the streets of Kensington market for their Winter Solstice Festival, this was one of the few places open later in the night. We just wanted something hot and quick and were ready to chow down
We had no idea it was a vegetarian restaurant until we sat down… and then the confusion came in when we saw meat dishes on the menu. Huh?! Ohhh… mock meat dishes. We ordered the shrimp dumplings (not particularly impressed… had a gummy like texture) the spring rolls which weren’t bad, the vegetable fried rice (this was pretty interesting and unlike any other veggie fried rice I have had — more emphasis on the veggies and less on the fried!) and the crispy «duck» with the plum sauce. I tried a few pieces and well… it’s not duck. I am not sure why a vegetarian place makes fake meat. If people want vegetarian food, why make something that tastes like meat???
The service was pretty fast and the servers were all nice. I wish I had read the reviews of this place before ordering so as it seems the crispy so fritters are a hit. So maybe next time I am up this way I will come in here for that just to see what the fuss is about.

I’m a pretty steady meat eater, but Bernie was throwing a UYE here, and it was only 15 minutes away from where I live, so I had no excuse not to come. Now don’t get me wrong, I loves me some vegetarian/​vegan food, but I don’t eat a lot of soy based proteins/​mock-​meats or that kinda shit. As I was here with a group, we were lucky to all get to taste quite a few things. The hands-​down favourite amongst everyone were definitely the crispy soy fritters. The spices they used were perfect. I would recommend them for meat-​eaters, as they didn’t taste blatantly like soy and had that authentic asian taste. The enoki mushrooms were good, but could have done without the seaweed wraps on them, just my opinion. I ordered the sweet and sour bites which started off good, but they gradually got less appetizing as I ate them. A little too on the sour side. I didn’t get rice with it so maybe that’s why. I was trying to stay away from the typical deep-​fried things I would usually order like spring rolls and tempura, but sadly, I feel like I would have enjoyed those items more.
I also ordered a hot black tea with milk, which was so good that I ordered another one. Nice and sweet too. One of my favourite things of the meal.
We went on a Friday for dinner and it wasn’t too packed but the service was a little slow. One poor member of our group didn’t receive his entrée until 45 minutes (!!!) after the first one was served. Another gripe I had was the poor quality of the take-​out packaging, which I think another Unilocaler mentioned. It’s just a flimsy paper box with no flap to keep the lid down, just an elastic band wrapped around. The sauce from our food leaked everywhere by the time we got home so we just chucked it in the garbage.

Even though part of the Zen Garden chain, I found this location wasn’t as good as the Mississauga location.
While the majority of the food was tasty, especially the enoki mushrooms, crispy soy fritters and mock shrimp dumpling, I found the service to be a bit lacking.
The waitresses were very nice and very accommodating in splitting bills, which sometimes doesn’t happen at Chinese restaurants, so that was greatly appreciated.
So for food/​wait staff — I’d give it a ⁴⁄₅.
However, I need to take it down by 0.5 star because the entrees came out very sporadically. Out of 7 entrees we ordered, I think it took 45 minutes from the first to last dish, which is way too long. I also have to take it down by another 0.5 star because it is 4.99 for a pot of tea and they don’t refill it. For that price, it should be refilled.
Verdict: not bad, but doesn’t compare to Mississauga location as that one is more serene and has better service.

I have been to this place a few times with my family. We come here whenever we feel like having Chinese and mock meat dishes. My friends have said that their mock beef and pork dishes tastes like real pork and beef. Since I’m a vegetarian I can’t validate that.
I have been to this place and their second location in Mississauga, Zen Garden, more than 10 times. Our meal here would always consist of Soy Drumsticks (similar to Chicken drumsticks), Tom Yang Vermicelli (I love it), Kung Po Soy-​Fritters (gravy dish), and Crispy & spicy Soy Fritters (sort of crispy chicken with spices — dry dish).