Tucked behind a labyrinth of florists and Chinese herbal shops lies New Century Restaurant. Walking through the pre-millennium constructed mall, I’m reminded of the restaurants I’ve visited as a child. There are shops to see and smells to discover before reaching the enormous colourful restaurant.

New Century will feed a large group. Their lobster, Dungeness crab, and sea bass combo for eight ($798) would satisfy ten or twelve. The individual New Century slow boiled soup is hardest to share but secure some empty bowls and you can divide the hefty portion. In the winter, there’s a silkiness to the piping hot consommé that sooths a dry throat and has an umami essence infused with abalone, ginseng, and pork.

There’s plenty to choose from in the house signature combo platter including roasted duck, soy sauce chicken, BBQ pork, pork slices, and seaweed salad. Saving my stomach for the later dishes, I had a taste of the duck (a good start with crispy skin) and BBQ pork (satisfactory and well flavoured).

With the generous portion of chicken in the combo platter, the slow cooked chicken with abalone broth seemed like overkill. I’ve never been a huge fan of this dish that’s served cold since I prefer chicken hot. Still, I understand it’s the jelly layer between the skin and meat that people enjoy. And to be fair, the chicken was tender, and New Century certainly didn’t skimp on the ginger and scallion oil.

For those who tend to fill-up before the “main dishes”, the stars of the combo arrive mid-meal. The stir-fried Vancouver crabs with silver fish in HK style spicy sauce needs to be eaten at arrival as the crunchy coating is best straight from the fryer. And despite not looking spicy, the dish has a light heat that permeates in the background. Additionally, the crab was fresh and meaty, cooked well so it remained delicately flakey.

The amount of sweet and sticky sauce used in the stir-fried lobsters with scallion in Maggie sauce was well balanced, lightly covering the crustaceans. Both lobsters were substantial; even after eating many pieces, we still had plenty of leftovers.

Although the steamed green basses with green onion and ginger arrived dishevelled looking. Being fileted off the bone before serving helped the hot scallion soy soak into the fish and made it easy to serve. New Century knows how to cook seafood well, the fish were flakey and moist.

The restaurant’s choice of using large serving platters does makes eating difficult. Dishes were comically oversized so three can easily fill up on medium-sized table. Soon it became a game of Tetris piling things onto smaller plates to make space for a new item. Even the snow pea leaves in soup arrived in a gigantic platter that’s normally used for soup. I guess the large dishes does mean New Century has to fill them as we were treated to a huge mound of the greens.

I preferred the snow pea leaves to the stir-fried cauliflower with cured meat. It’s a strange combination that wasn’t for me. But if you like Chinese sausage, the dish did contain a lot of lap cheung and at least the cauliflower wasn’t too soft.

You won’t find much tomalley in the lobster heads as it’s reserved for the finisher - braised thick egg noodles with mushroom and lobster tomalley. The lobster paste adds a pungent aroma and texture to the noodles. While not my cup-of-tea, it was a popular dish for the table.

Despite it being Lunar New Year, I was surprised there wasn’t any special desserts. Still, we were treated to flavourful mango pudding squares and delicate almond cookies. Given both were sweet, so they made the lukewarm red bean soup seem tasteless. Oh well, by that time I was stuffed to the gills and could pass on it anyways.

What a feast! We packed up leftovers that could feed the family again the following evening. One thing’s for sure; you will not leave New Century Restaurant hungry or empty handed.

QJD or Quanjude has flew over the ocean from Beijing to Canada, and is one of the oldest Peking duck restaurants, operating since 1864. The Markham outpost is the second location outside of China (the first is in Melbourne) and is prominently set on the main floor of the Courtyard Marriott - just look for the towering duck statue. With the hotel comes a confusing parking situation: after asking the hotel’s concierge and restaurant staff we’re advised to park on the garage’s 4^th floor and didn't need to pay for a ticket from the parking machine.

After settling into the sparkling white and turquoise dining room, I couldn’t help but drool over the carts of glistening ducks that just kept coming out – even tables of three (the smallest we could see) order duck. Our waiter suggests we put in the request for the Peking duck first, as it takes 30-minutes to prepare; a time-saving recommendation that allowed dinner to be finished in little over an hour.

Due to the long preparation time, all the other dishes come out first. QJD offers an extensive menu with a lot of offal items. We shied away from these but did try some atypical offering. One of these dishes was the Xi’an rice noodle dressed with spicy sauce ($11.99), which although described as cold, the knife cut noodles were thankfully warm. Overall, it’s a simple but enjoyable dish: the spicy sauce (bean paste mixed with chili oil) went nicely with the chewy noodles, crunchy julienned cucumbers, and spongy slivers of gluten.

Another little seen dish is the traditional Beijing style smoked chicken and tofu sheet roll ($15.99). While it looks pretty, the dish’s texture and flavour reminded everyone of cold mild Spam; for those who like the canned meat this could be fine, but for someone who doesn’t I was disappointed.

While the fried squid in pepper and salt ($18.99) was tender and had a great crunchy crust, it could stand to be drained longer and tasted like the chef forgot to add salt (although there was enough pepper). Luckily, we saved the chili oil from the chilled noodles, a good universal condiment, which helped to flavour the dish.

Finally, to balance out all the meat and carbs an order of sautéed snow pea shoots ($21.99) seemed ideal. It arrives in as a sizeable mound and was cooked nicely retaining the bright green colour and slight crunch.

After all the other dishes were finished, the main event … the DUCK ($118) … was served. The first teaser consists of bite-sized pieces of the oiliest skin – indulgent tastes you can augment with sugar.

Then the beautiful peony dish arrives - the reason you’d pay a $30 premium over their regular set. Since I’ve never had the "non-premium" version, I can’t comment whether you actually receive more of the fowl, however six hollow sesame seed buns are extra items with this combo. 

Presumably, since the buns arrive with the dish, these are meant to be eaten together. Sadly, the buns are cold and its dough is in dire need of seasoning; without adequate hoisin sauce, it’s rather plain – yet you don’t want to waste too much of the sauce as despite the hefty price the duck, each additional dish is another $1.39.

All the sudden, a manager arrives with a gong (how theatrical!) to announce the presentation of the rest of the duck. After the beautiful peony, everything else comes in a hacked up pile, seemingly to resemble the duck’s body. On the side, another dish holds slices of the duck’s neck and head – the neck is pretty tasteless but an interesting cut that’s not normally served.

QJD does provide plenty of steamed pancakes (24 to an order) all large enough to allow adequate folding around the ingredients. They’re unbelievably thin and elastic, one of the most impressive parts of the meal! Meanwhile, although the duck has glossy slightly crispy skin, it isn’t seasoned enough (especially the duck’s meat) so all the flavour comes from the condiments.

Surprisingly, despite the $118 price, there is no “second course”– typically lettuce wraps or the even a chopped-up carcass. Hence, even with all the dishes, it left our table of five comfortably satisfied but not overly full.

We opted for the cute duckling shaped crispy puff stuffed with date paste ($21.99) for dessert, which caused everyone to squeal like school girls when presented. In actuality, the overly thick pastry dough isn’t crispy and the dessert reminds me of a drier fig newton - picture worthy, but not an overly delicious dish. Luckily, we each received half a bowl of sweet almond soup, which although lukewarm helped to balance the crumbly dessert.

Without a doubt, QJD is nicely decorated and is a restaurant for celebrating an occasion or impressing guests. Unlike some Chinese restaurants, the service is also attentive and friendly: our waiter spoke three languages (so could answer everyone) and joked around with us.

Oddly, with all the branding elsewhere - from the gigantic duck out front to the duck chop stick holders) - their menu (the first thing a customer reads) looks like someone whipped it up on Excel and pressed print … not a drop of colour or even a logo in sight. I can understand they’re likely testing out the menu during their opening period, seeing what sells and adjusting accordingly, but at least pretty up the temporary document so it doesn’t paint such a stark contrast against everything else.

Duck statue, duck flowers, duckling desserts … all cute and flashy. Yet, I expected more from a restaurant that’s been operating for over 150 years. Who knows, maybe the recipe hasn’t changed since the Qing Dynasty and back then salt and spices were rare and used sparingly. Nowadays, it makes for a bland duck - pretty, but tasteless.

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

• Peking Duck Kitchen
• Dayali Beijing Roast Duck