mmm! I think I love Lin Chinese Cuisine. Growing up in a Chinese household, all I ate for most of my life was Chinese food. My parents would sometimes have "western nights" where we would eat slices of ham with cream of mushroom soup. haha. I don't really like Chinese food and I definitely do not like rice anymore. I went to Lin yesterday for my usual family lunch and it was a good experience :)We sat down near the window.. the service was nice.. although a little confusing because some spoke mandarin and others spoked cantonese. I tried to use my weak ass mandarin but I don't think she understood me! haha.. I'll just stick with canto..
We ordered south asian pancakes with curry sauce, pan fried pork buns, xiao long bao, tan tan noodles, and rice. By the kitchen, there's an area where they knead the dough to make the noodles and buns and stuff I think. That made me happy because it meant everything was freshly made :)
The tan tan mien came first.. I couldn't eat it because it was too spicy for me.. but my parents really enjoyed it.. saying it's even better than the ones they had in some popular restaurant in HK (or it was popular but went downhill..). I really liked the xiao long bao.. I used to hate them because I thought the soup inside was undeliberate and actaully fat.. so I always avoided them. but the dumpling was very soft and tender. Very good.
The pan fried pork buns, for me, was too salty. but don't listen to me.. apparently they were good too. the pan cakes things were crispy and good with the curry- although I prefer roti more
Finally we had the red bean pancakes (dou sa wo bang) for dessert.. mm.. I've had better unforunately.
One of the women that worked there was so nice to us. Too bad i didn't understand anything she said (fucking mandarin.. I actually learned for 5 years but it was really early or Sat Mornings and we read Christian comics in Mandarin..) The sun was blinding our eyes and so she told us to move the table forward whenever the sun was in our eyes, and then when the sun moved, to move our table backwards again. haha! I think that was the only downside to Lins. so if you ever go, stay away from the window.
Apparently there's free underground parking in the back, so that's always good for busy broadway. We didn't know and had to pay stupid parking meter outside.
If you ever need good sichuan food, go to lin! :) It's cheap too- 4.99-5.99/dish ish. and at lunch, they have a special for 5.99 I think.. but the food sounds very western-asian .. like sweet and sour pork and lemon chicken.. so maybe stay away from that unless you want a quick lunch..
(pardon my navy blue nail polish.. it's my current obsession)Oh we also went to Ba Le french Sandwich shop.. it's so small in the smallest little strip mall ever. If you didn't even know about it nor are you ever on Kingsway, you would never find it! Inside, theres one table but most people go there to get a quick banh mi. I got the bbq pork banh mi... but it was kind of cold inside.. hum.. I need to try au petit cafe.
