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Northern Light said:
Does 'The Goof' serve decent food now?

When I was a kid is that the typical and bad 'Canadian Chinese' food.

Bad egg rolls, terrible plum sauce, flavourless fried rice, and the most evil among such foods, Chop Suey! As a child I detested the dish that was clearly created to subsidized bean sprout farmers!
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Good question. From my understanding, ownership changed hands in the 90's and again in the recent decade or so. At the end of the day, it's still Chinese Canadian fare to appeal to the local regulars, so items like Onion rings and Egg Foo Young type stuff is still on the menu. But the current ownership group is of recent immigration and should bring a more bridged Cantonese cuisine palate.
 
Towered said:
One of my favourite go-to spots since I work a 5 minute walk from there. I really do miss their masala chicken dish however (vanished during covid when they reduced their menu due to staffing complications...)
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Not that my current company is that far away, but back at my previous job at Bay & Dundas, Yueh Tung was a lunch takeout favourite for the office. People would order from it together once a week, in a rotation along with other nearby joints like Salad King, etc.
 
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AlbertC said:
Not that my current companyce is that far away, but back at my previous job at Bay & Dundas, Yueh Tung was a lunch takeout favourite for the office. People would order from it together once a week, in a rotation along with other nearby joints like Salad King, etc.
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Wow. Glad to see they are still going. My first job in Toronto was in an office tower at Bay and Queen in 2005, and back then Yueh Tung was the go-to place for many to get takeout on Fridays, though it was shared only in a whisper to help avoid even more people showing up to the already long lines at lunch hour. Great to see they are still going 19 years later!

There was another Hakka restaurant with a potent chili chicken on Dundas Street west of Bay, I think called Spadina Garden, but they sold out and shut down before the pandemic. Good timing on their part, I guess.
 
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Towered said:
One of my favourite go-to spots since I work a 5 minute walk from there. I really do miss their masala chicken dish however (vanished during covid when they reduced their menu due to staffing complications...)
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Maybe you should tell them that. They might bring it back.
 
Mihairokov said:
foodchainmagazine.com

Chinese coffee giant Luckin Coffee opens first US stores in New York

Chinese coffee giant Luckin Coffee opens first US stores in New York, taking on Starbucks.
foodchainmagazine.com foodchainmagazine.com

Luckin has two new locations in New York as of this week, the first in the US. Only a matter of time until we have a smattering of them throughout the GTA.
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I don't know how much of a market some of these Chinese chains will have, other than serving the ex-pat/student population. You can see a number of them here in Toronto but I don't get the impression that they are super well patronized.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I don't know how much of a market some of these Chinese chains will have, other than serving the ex-pat/student population. You can see a number of them here in Toronto but I don't get the impression that they are super well patronized.
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This is true for a lot of smaller-run places but for larger chains like HeyTea and Luckin they're coming in with substantial backing and name recognition, particularly amongst the student population and expats as you say. The big difference is that these larger companies like Luckin have their production chains in a way that they're able to undercut larger retailers substantially. I think the article mentions that Luckin's latte is 40% less expensive than Starbucks' in NYC, and it's likely it'll stay that way. If younger gens are looking for deals (they are) and are tech savvy enough to use apps (they are) these chains will have no issue.

When HeyTea opened on Yonge it was lined up down the street for the first few weeks and it's not even a super popular Chinese brand in China. These days it's still steadily busy. For every one of these in Canada there's twenty in China that haven't expanded yet. When we talk about leaving an American century and entering a Chinese century there's things like soft power (labubu) and then there's slightly harder retail power in the form of large chains moving in. It'll keep happening regardless.
 
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