If you have a serious food allergy, eating out may feel stressful and require research and planning. Enter Riz: after moving north on Yonge, they morphed their menu into an entirely gluten free offering so there’s no risk of cross contamination. Celiacs, you have found the place to go to for Chinese food.

Their hot and sour soup ($6) contains traditional ingredients such as tofu, black fungus, and green onions, but could also something crunchier to round out the textures - in lieu of julienned bamboo shoots, Riz uses a softer vegetable. Overall, the soup didn’t satisfy my craving, especially since it had a sweet finish that I found strange.

The rice noodles (ho fun) used in the veggies and tofu pad see ewe ($19.75) is much thicker than what you’d find elsewhere. Perhaps, this is also why we found the dish blander and lacking the aromatic wok hay that’s synonymous with the noodles. A bit more soy would have helped and perhaps we should have taken them up on having some chili oil with the dish.

Luckily, the black bean tiger shrimp ($22.50) was flavourful and went nicely with the pad see ewe. The normally pungent black bean was mellowed into a sweet sauce studded with garlic and onions. Incorporating a variety of vegetables, the broccoli really soaks up the sauce so some people may find this too salty… for me it was perfect. Make sure to get an order of steamed rice to pair with the dish.

If you read the description of the purple Saigon eggplant ($17.75), you’d think the hoisin, garlic chili, and soy sauce would create a sweet, spicy, and savoury dish. Instead, there’s a tanginess that while not off-putting is also not expected. The eggplant was cooked perfectly, flash fried to retain its vibrant purple hue and quickly tossed with the rest of the vegetables. Given the chili logo on the menu, I would have liked this spicier.

I love that Riz incorporates so many fresh vegetables in their dishes. If what’s used in the stir fries and noodles aren’t enough, the snow pea and broccoli ($17.75) offer even more greens. During our visit, the recipe also included snap peas, likely used to augment the off-season snow peas that were a bit tough.

What Riz Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen lacks in finish, they make up for with their service. Attentive and friendly, it’s a restaurant where you feel taken care of. Stress be gone. 

My husband’s officially another year older, and the occasion also marks our annual dinner from Choice of the Orient (COTO).

Sadly, his favourite dish, the Peking chicken ($13.95), was the worst of the meal. It’s an item  that doesn’t travel well, not because it becomes soggy – typically, it’s not crispy anyways, since it’s slathered in a thick sweet sauce – but rather because it’s made from lean chicken breast that’s cut into thick chunks, which after being sealed in a hot container for half an hour becomes SO overdone. My suggestion to COTO is consider cutting these thinner so that even overcooked they’re not quite as tough.

Not being a fan of things like lemon chicken, the orange beef ($13.50) had the same repulsive citrusy meat taste I detest. Nonetheless, I tried a piece and once the fruity flavour subsided, the spicy savoury sauce that was left behind was actually quite tasty.

Give me the beef with Chinese broccoli ($13.50) any day! Wok tossed with some oyster sauce, the dish doesn’t taste like it’s mixed with dish soap and there’s so much of the tender gai lan crammed into the container.

Unlike chow mein, the noodles in the mixed vegetables lo mein ($11.95) are left soft, which you would think is better for delivery. Except, it gets so soft that the dish has no texture at all. Thankfully, we had gotten an order of moo shu pork and the leftover filling went perfectly with the noodles, adding crunch and extra flavours that the lo mein was lacking.

COTO provides four large pancakes with their moo shu pork ($11.95) - you can really stuff these to the brim. Nonetheless, there was plenty of the wok hay laced filling leftover, a delicious addition to other dishes like the lo mein and fried rice.

Despite the chicken fried rice ($8.50) being such a rich hue, the soy taste was rather weak. On its own the dish is too bland, but considering it’s generally eaten in lieu of steamed rice, I can see why it’s left neutral so that it doesn’t become too salty once you add saucy dishes on top.

Choice of the Orient has been a mainstay in Richmond Hill since the late 1980s and the go-to place for my better half’s friends and family when they wanted Chinese food. While it’s not my top choice, I’ve got to give COTO credit, there’s not that many places that have garnered customer loyalty like them. And given the amount of business they had on a weeknight, they’re still going strong.

Coming from a Cantonese Chinese background, my brunches were less about eggs benny and pancakes and more about steamed dumplings and pan-fried delights. Being able to have dim sum was something I took for granted, just a lunch we’d have as a family every other weekend. It wasn’t until the quarantine hit that I realized how much I would miss these small bites. So much so, that one Saturday, I placed a huge order at Dim Sum Queen and delivered care packages to family members.

A groan of delight must have escaped when I bit into my favourite dish, the siu mai (pork dumplings). They were a little wet from sitting in a steamy closed container, but once the condensation evaporated, they’re not that far off from what you’d get at a restaurant. Both the pork ($5.30 for 4 pieces) and chicken shitake ($5.30 for 4 pieces) versions are delicious, a nice meaty consistency but not overly dense.

The shrimp and snow pea leaves dumpling ($5.30 for 3 pieces) doesn’t travel as well since the wrappers get soft and sticky. Order the pan-fried shrimp and chive cakes ($5.30 for 3 pieces) instead, the thin wonton wrappers don’t mind a steam and the filling is just as good – plump pieces of shrimp studded with bits of leafy vegetables.

Of all the dishes, I would have thought the steamed sticky rice with meat in lotus leaf ($5.30 for 2 pieces) would be best for takeout - the wrapper helps keep in the heat and they are steamed for so long anyways that another 15 minutes wouldn’t make a huge difference. Alas, Dim Sum Queen’s has so much rice and so little filling that it’s a bland forgettable dish.

Their steamed BBQ pork rice rolls ($5.30 for 3 pieces) are thicker than what I’ve had at the restaurant, nonetheless, they’re a still decent and the restaurant smartly sends the soy sauce separately so it doesn’t get too soggy.

One of my favourite items from Dim Sum Queen is their sesame seed and lotus paste balls ($4.50 for 3 pieces) – when they are freshly fried these sweet spheres are A-MAZING! Understandably, takeout doesn’t do it justice (maybe if they were shipped in paper bags instead of Styrofoam it’d allow it to breath better), but still fairly decent and the just-sweet-enough lotus paste was as tasty as ever.

Despite the restaurant’s name, their non-dim sum items are good as well. While the sweet and sour pork ($14) and General Tao chicken ($14) look identical, the sauces do differ: the pork using the typical sweet and sour combination but ends with a gingery finish while the chicken savoury and sweet. They’d be even better if the batter weren’t quite as thick and the General Tao given a spicier finish.

Nonetheless, both went quite nicely with the yang chow fried rice ($12), a sizeable portion incorporating shrimp, large cubes of BBQ pork and enough scallions to add a freshness to the rice.

The mixed vegetable chow mein ($10) is also a great choice, they serve the sauce on the side so the noodles remain very crispy and crunchy. They also don’t skimp on the vegetables, the container held big chunks of broccoli, snow peas, cabbage, and carrots, amongst other greens.

Honestly, dim sum tastes SO much better when it’s fresh; not all dishes lend itself to delivery. So, since the restaurant offers dim sum all the time, if you want to miss their busy lunch rush, a dinner of noodles, rice, vegetables, and select dim sum may be the smarter choice.