Linchakin: Chinatown

Overall - 8.5/10
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Food - 9/10
Service - 9/10
Ambiance - 7/10

I have some serious reservations about posting a review on this place. The reason being that Lucky Place is truly a hidden gem. The food is great, the servers friendly and the prices reasonable. As much as I'd like to keep this place a secret for my own selfish reasons, they really do deserve some credit.

Lucky Place is tucked away inside the Five Harvest Plaza in Chinatown and opened just a few months ago. They serve traditional Cantonese cooking in addition to dim sum in the morning. We came for dinner and even though the inside of the restaurant was literally at capacity the servers could sense our desperation and were kind enough to set up a special table outside the restaurant just so we could eat there. It was a little strange eating out in the hallway (almost felt like the 'patio' of a French restaurant), but the staff paid extra attention to our table and made sure our every need was met.

Our dishes included this stir fried shrimp with gai lan or chinese broccoli. The veggies were cooked just right while the shrimp tasted fresh and aromatic from the garlic and ginger it was fried with.

Next up was a dish of stir fried egg whites and fish. The egg was smooth and silky and perfectly suspended the tender pieces of fish.

No chinese feast is complete without a lobster dish and this is one of our favourites. The lobster is stir fried in a garlic and scallion sauce then served over a generous heaping of egg noodles. Believe it or not, the best part of the dish are noodles which soak up every ounce of lobster flavour!

Another fairly traditional cantonese dinner item is the hot pot. We ordered two kinds this evening including a braised beef flank and daikon radish, and an 'eight treasures hot pot' which as you might guess includes eight treasures (Tofu, mushrooms, chicken, shrimp, scallops, squid, Char Sui and water chestnuts). You can find both of these dishes at pretty much any chinese restaurant but the ones here were a step above the rest. You can tell from the thick and flavourful sauces that accompany each dish.

Finally, perhaps our families favourite dish was the pineapple sweet and sour pork. Over the years my brother and I have sampled so many dishes of sweet and sour pork that you could say we're experts in the field. The problem that most restaurants run into with this dish is the use of substandard pork, the kind that is full of fatty gristle (or as we call it 'chub'). Here the pork was tender and moist while the batter was still crispy and light even after being coated with the sweet and sour sauce. To top it all off, it was served inside a hollowed out pineapple with fresh pineapple chunks. It really doesn't get better than this!

Overall - 8/10
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Food - 8/10
Service - 9/10
Ambiance - 8/10

For the longest while, it seemed there was a drought of good Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, what with Harbour City Restaurant closing down and several others still closed from the flood. Thankfully, it seems like Chinatown is turning the corner with some great new restaurants opening up that are offering some unique takes on traditional Chinese dishes. One of our favourites so far is Dragon Chinese Restaurant located directly across the street from the new Bow building on 5th Avenue. A nice plus is the plentiful street parking right across the street which is free after 6pm!

If you've dined at an authentic Chinese restaurant before, you'll know that the service sometimes is not a priority. Here though, the owners and servers are all enthusiastic and welcoming. They get you started with tea, Chinese carrot and daikon pickles and roasted peanuts as soon as you are seated.

We started with the house special soup of the night which was a broth made from snow fungus. Sometimes traditional Chinese soups can be bitter and medicinal however this one was really satisfying and tasty.

Overall, the main dishes we tried were all really well prepared and full of flavour without having any of that MSG aftertaste that can sometimes plague some lesser Chinese restaurants. The highlight was probably the stir fried lotus root which was garnished with roasted pork, snap peas, and crispy deep fried white fish. The veggies were still crisp and showed that the chef really has some skills with the wok.

The 'paper-skin' fried chicken gets it name from the fact that when perfectly fried, the skin of the chicken is crispy and as thin as a sheet of paper. The meat was well seasoned and really moist.

Our second vegetable dish included steamed pea shoots, fried garlic, gingko nuts and bean curd. Normally steamed vegetables can be kind of boring but the broth and fried garlic added so much flavour that you forget how healthy this dish is.