Fantasy Eatery

This is probably my fifth time here and gott say, the food and service get worse every single time we come. To tell the truth, if it wasn’t because it’s the only Chinese food restaurant near my area, I wouldn’t even bother coming back. After the food today, I have decided to not come back ever again.
Food: ¹⁄₅
I always, always order the King Mushroom with Sno (that’s what it said on the receipt) and the amount of king mushrooms we get each time actually varies drastically. I remember the first four times, the amiunt changes from three to seven pieces of king mushrooms. However, today, we actually received more than ten so I thought, wow finally they decided to give us a decent quantity for what’s worth $ 15+. Unfortunately, all of the mashrooms were undercook and were still cold inside. If it was only this dish, I would’ve let it go but our other dish — the spicy clam was undercook as well. But they were still edible to a certain level hence the reason we decided to not make a scene about it and just payd for our meal and left.
Service: ⁰⁄₅
The waitor completely missed two of my orders and so I had to wave down another waitress to place my order again. Halfway through our meal, my father asked for one more bowl of rice and the waitor i). Clearly confirmed the order with us ii). And yet went ahead and kept doing his own thing pretending he never hear us. So much for customer service eh.
Speed: ²⁄₅
All three of my dishes actually came within fifteen minutes and that really did surprised me. But I guess the reason why the speed was so fast is becsuse they undercook the food!
I would not come back again and would strongly recommend others to find a nicer Chinese restaurant with at least decent customer service and cooked food.

The old one at Scarborough was a lot better. food is kind of slow. Service is not bad since they only have two servants. Looks like they lack of server during Friday night.

The décor is horrible. It is absolutely unsuitable for a Chinese restaurant. They also use Comic Sans for their menus, which are also bad for the eyes.
The food is good for the price (mostly because my standards are set very low). The fish soup was somewhat bland, and the fish in it was all bone and no meat. The fish was nice, but not worth the price (it was ~30 $). The beef was good, the noodles were good, the beans were good, and the bok choy was literally just bok choy. It was satisfactory, though.
Service was fine. Nothing to complain about there.
Nice place, just don’t look around you, though. Don’t stare too hard at the menu either.
6.5÷10

Solid place! A popular dish is sweet and sour pork with ice which is just as good as the regular sweet and sour pork. I find the ice there to make the skin crispier and it is still warm. Other reviews said the portions were kind of small, but I find it just right for our family. The food tastes quite decent too.
The restaurant is located right next to the rainbow cinema theatre. There are not any other chinese/​oriental restaurants around the plaza I find and it can be just busy during dinner hours, but not too busy making you want to switch restaurants. The décor of the place is cool, maybe it’s just my style though. I liked the rustic designs and how they decorated the bar, and the fish tank of the fish people at the restaurant may order… although you cannot see the fish, that can be a good or bad thing. It’s covered with fake grass and the surface has a few decorations to make it look like a lily pond. I do find there can be a few flies in the restaurant which can be a nuisance to deal with at times.

The food was okay. The service was okay. Everything was just okay but there wasn’t anything outstanding. This place was better when it was in Scarborough. The food is decent but not something I would think or crave after I’m done with it.

The classic Fantasy Eatery from midland/​finch area is now up in Richmond Hill. Food still has that quality Wok cooked goodness. Cool location. Cozy. Recommended for dinner!

Honestly, the much popular Ice-​Quake Sweet & Sour Pork is not even worth it, especially at $ 11.99. The ice is supposed to make it more crispy and it did, but also made it much more chewy and hard which I didn’t like.
Also ordered the baby mustard veggie with garlic and Singapore fried rice. They were both alright. The portions were fairly big. This restaurant serves a complimentary beef/​veggie soup at the very beginning and red bean soup dessert. Most Chinese places don’t do this. Food is pretty expensive here though. I really can’t justify paying around $ 9 for a plate of veggies.
Overall, I guess this is an alright restaurant if you don’t mind paying a bit more. I probably won’t be coming back anytime soon.

I live in Scarborough so I was familiar with the old location of Fantasy Eatery. In fact, I was so familiar with it because my father had an obsession with the place and we’d find ourselves dining there biweekly. I was never a fan of the food there. To me, it was lackluster and bland, it had the problem every Chinese food restaurants seems to have (you know… when the majority of the food tastes the same and drenched in some brown sauce). Leftovers often became indistinguible come the following day. Fantasy Eatery to me didn’t stand out at all; it was a cheap joint that had mediocre food.
Upon learning that the Scarborough location was closed, my father was heartbroken. After some researching online (thanks Unilocal!), I was informed that there was a Richmond Hill location. For Father’s day (we were a few days late), my brother and I decided to surprise my dad with a one hour car ride to try out this familiar unfamiliar joint.
We walked into a bright, colourful but small room which hosted about 20 – 30 tables. We were quickly seated and given menus. Talking to our waitress, she later informed us that they were in fact the same company as previously nested in Scarborough. The menus seemed different yet held lots of the same dishes as the Scarborough location. We glanced through and found quite a few dishes we wanted to sink our teeth into. In the Chef’s Recommendations category, the Ice-​Quake Sweet and Sour Pork drew our attention. Flipping through we order a noodle dish, a fried rice, Beef Rib with Teriyaki sauce, Tofu & Fish, Green Onion & Ginger Oyster and Deep Fried Pumpkin. We had 7 dishes (+soup & dessert) for 5 people and it way more than enough.
The first dish that appeared at the table was the Beef Rib with Teriyaki sauce. I’m generally not a fan of beef ribs because they tend to be really chewy and hard to eat. However, the meat was super tender and didn’t have the tough pull that you usually struggle with eating beef ribs. The sauce wasn’t overdone and the amount of teriyaki on the plate was a nice glaze rather than a heavy thick sauce. I got really excited after this first dish, I didn’t have much expectation for Fantasy Eatery in the beginning but this place was starting to look up.
The Tofu & Fish came at the same time as the Shrimp Fried Rice, I had a small bite of fish and it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t a dish I particularly enjoyed. The fried rice was nothing special so moving on.
Next we got the famous Ice-​Quake Sweet and Sour pork. I was real excited for this one since I had never had it served this way. Ice cubes were placed onto of the cooked pork so that the temperature brings out the crispiness of the pork. It worked. The pork was nice and crispy while the inside stayed juicy. My only complaint was that the temperature differences between the pork that didn’t touch ice compared to the pork directly touching the ice confused my mouth a bit. My brain wasn’t sure if I was having a cold dish or a warm dish which threw me off a little. However, the dish was brilliantly done, and very delicious.
The Fried pumpkin was a new dish that I wasn’t familiar with at all, I actually wasn’t aware it was ordered until it came to our table. But when it landed, I was eager to try it. It was lightly battered, well-​seasoned and pleasant to taste. The texture of the seasoning felt strange on my palette as it had grittiness to the bite. It was a new sensation but it wasn’t bad. I did enjoy this dish and I would like to have it again. Oysters are usually a staple that my family orders when we’re out celebrating. So the Green Onion & Ginger Oysters was definitely not a new dish to try. Fantasy Eatery’s version was delicious. A little more battered than I like but overall the taste and texture was fairly delicious.
All throughout our meal we had absolutely fantastic service, good food, and an enjoyable meal. The price had definitely gone up since the previous restaurant but so has the quality of the food. I do wish that when Fantasy Eatery was in Scarborough, it tasted like this. Even though it’s a really far trek up North for this place, I’m sure I’ll be back… one day.

Pictures look a lot better than it tastes… beef brisket noodle had tough brisket, tomato and cream sauce rice had under cooked rice, ice quake sweet & sour pork was just ok — I didn’t really get the ice part but it looked cool. Some item on the menu they ran out of — no tofu at all and no vegetable spring rolls at all. Tung Cho vegetable was good.

Really strange décor setup. At first glance, the menu is boring and you wonder why your relatives or friend made you drive 35 minutes for the usual. Then the ice bath sweet and sour pork arrives and so does the deep fried brisket and curry. Perfect. Worth the drive.

2.5
I’ve always heard good things about Fantasy when it was in it’s old location in Scarborough. Finally decided to give this place a try. Needless to say, it didn’t quite live up to the hype.
Pros:
Meals come with free soup and dessert
Staff are friendly
Cons:
Food is very salty
Service can be slow if place is busy
Came here on a Saturday night for dinner. We came around 6 which was a good idea because the place filled up rather fast not to much later. When it fllls up, the place gets rather loud and hectic. You’re not coming here if you want a quiet dinner for 2.
We ordered the Deep friend spicy pork chops, the beef tenderloin on metal plate, and the braised tofu. We get the complementary soup not too long after we order. I notice it’s a little too salty, but as its complementary I don’t say anything, not even to my GF. We then wait for about 20 min before anything else comes. You notice that when it’s busy, it can take a while for things to come out. The staff are pretty friendly though and answers our questions with smiles.
The first dish that comes is the braised tofu. It comes with the some broccoli and about 4 or 5 mushrooms. I bite into the tofu and the first thing i note is that it’s super salty. I note this to my GF and she agrees immediately as well. The beef comes out next and it comes smoking. It has a nice look to it and smells great. One bite in and. it’s super salty as well. GF agrees immediately too. We do disagree on which one is more saltier, lol. Finally the pork comes out and yes, it’s salty too. We’ve never experienced something like this before. We gave some of the tofu to our little one and afterwards she needed water badly. She guzzled the water out of her sippy cup faster than I’ve ever seen. That’s how salty it was for her.
My GF went to Fantasy when it was in Scarborough and she says it was a lot better when it was there. Based on my one experience, I would have no choice but to agree. The amount of salt in the food made it harder to enjoy the meal. The conspiracy theorist in me believes this is done because they want us to buy more rice and drinks, lol. If you like your food saltier, then this is your place.

A few family and friends recommend this place to me for their signature dish Ice-​Quake sweet and sour pork. I think it’s quite good and it certainly is different from how other Chinese restaurant prepared it. For the added bonus, I got to try a fresh steam crab for free. I sat beside the owner of the restaurant and they kindly offered us to sample their famous stream crab. Another bonus, the service of both staff and owners are excellent, attentive. However, I think they forgot to serve us their free dessert after the meal. Anyways, I am happy with this restaurant and our family have had such a good meal and time in this Victoria long weekend.

DEEP FRIED CURRY BEEF BRISKET
This was the restaurant’s second signature dish. The curry was served separately on the side instead of being poured on to the beef to prevent the fried briskets turning soggy. I personally prefered eating the fried brisket on its own since I’m not a fan of curry, but even the the brisket was seasoned and not tasteless. The texture for each piece was inconsistent — my first piece was tough and chewy whereas my second piece was tender. The beef brisket however was fried nicely with a good crisp.
SWEET AND SOUR PORK
Out of the oridinary, this sweet and sour pork is served in a pot with ice. The idea is that the ice is to keep the fried pork crispy preventing the sauce from making it soggy — quite an interesting idea. People commented saying that when you get to the bottom pieces it tastes too cold but I thought it was a refreshing chilled crispy meat taste.
At this restaurant I was pretty much just interested in trying these 2 top signature dishes — in my opinion, they were mediocre and nothing too special but it’s just the new concept in the way the dishes were served that made it interesting. As for the other dishes at this restaurant they were mediocre as well. Overall I found this restaurant overpriced for their dishes.

This location has had a lot of Chinese restaurants come and go but this one has to be the best one yet! It is pretty small so the place fills up quickly. The quality of the food is great and the portions for the price are reasonable.
What surprised me was the amazing service that they had! The waitress asked us if everything was good and we mentioned that the friend rice was very dry and overly salted compared to the last time. She immediately offered to make us a new one with no questions asked. We told her she didn’t have to and felt really bad but she did anyways and was still extremely friendly and pleasant.
The ice bath sweet and sour pork is a must try.
We will definitely be back!

Pretty disappointed with the results here. Small little place and gets busy fast.
Meal began with some soup which was a nice start. We then get our first dish which was the beef tenderloin and after that, everything just went down hill for us. The beef dish tasted good and the meat was soft and tender but we found the dish a bit small for $ 12.99
Then we get the sweet and sour pork $ 11.99 — served with ice cubes which are suppose to make the outer layer more crispy. The ice did its job but I don’t like eating cold meat. This is one of their chefs special here and probably a signature dish here but I have had way better sweet and sour pork at places that don’t even specialize in it.
Next came the deep fried oysters in honey garlic sauce $ 14.50 for eight oysters — the oysters looked big at first glance but they were actually very small since the batter made them appear large. Tasted more batter then I did oysters.
We then got the Fantasy chow mein $ 14.99 — DO NOT RECOMMEND — Presentation looked nice with the crispy chow mein stacked like a tower but looks can be deceiving. The sauce on the bottom was really salty. There were shrimps, squid, scallops and sliced pork with the sauce. The chow mein that was in the sauce was super soggy and salty. We even saw another table order it after seeing how cool the presentation was and we wanted to stop them from making the same mistake we did but everybody has different tastes so maybe they liked it? I doubt it.
The final dish we ordered came which was the snow pea $ 14.99 — I love eating snow pea but these were a bit old as the leaves were tough and what really disappointed me was that it was sitting in so much liquid. It was like scooping leaves out of a pool of water.
Meal comes with dessert and I’m not too sure what it was but it simply tasted like sugar and water to me heated up.
Service suffered a bit due to how busy they were but acceptable.

I give 5 stars cause, they really have good improvement, good service, better than old location (midland) .reasonable price and large portion of food. Remember make reservation, last time I wait more than 30 mins.

Lunch special 2.5 stars
Dinner 4 stars
Overall 3 stars
I dined at Fantasy Eatery once for lunch and once for dinner. My lunch experience was average, yet the dinner experience was enjoyable.
For lunch, we ordered a Beef Rice Noodle Stir Fry ($ 8) and a Singapore Noodle Stir Fry ($ 8) from the lunch special menu. Both came with a hot coffee or milk tea. The Beef Rich Noodle Stir Fry had a beautiful light soy sauce color which I appreciated. The noodle was salty. The Singapore Noodle Stir Fry had a rich yellow colour. The noodle was potent spicy. There was a lot of curry power. Fantasy’s chef was not shy from using condiment. Both dishes didn’t have much meat. The noodle portion was barely acceptable.
For dinner, we ordered an Ice-​Quake Sweet and Sour Pork ($ 12) and a Scallops Stir Fried with Prince Mushroom ($ 18). The Ice-​Quake Sweet and Sour Pork was exceptionally well made. The surface was fried to a slight hardness but the batter coating was thin. The meat was tender yet not fatty. The flavour between sweet and sour was balance. The meat was well marinated. The ice added a flair to presentation. As well, for some pieces, I felt a coldness when the meat entered my mouth, yet the meat was hot when I bite into it. This was an interesting sensation. The portion was sufficient.
The Scallops Stir Fried with Prince Mushroom tasted delicious and fresh, but the overall portion was a little small. The scallops were thick. The quantity was barely acceptable. There was insufficient quantity of prince mushroom. The amount of celery far exceeded prince mushroom, so Fantasty might as well include celery in the entrée name. For $ 18, I expected more.
You would think that I would recommend ordering the Ice-​Quake Sweet and Sour Pork but not the Scallop Stir Fried with Prince Mushroom. Well, the star of the Ice-​Quake Sweet and Sour Pork, meaning the truly well made part of the dish, is the sweet and sour pork. The ice adds a lot to the presentation but only a little bit to the experience. I didn’t read the menu thoroughly, but if you can find a simple sweet and sour pork entrée, minus the ice-​quake, on the menu for a much lower price, I recommend ordering it instead. You don’t need to pay $$ for the ice.

I have been eating at Fantasy for over 15 years at the Scarb location and was sad when it closed.
A friend told me it is now in Richmond Hill, which was a bit of a drive, but deffinently worth it.
The food is as tasty as B4 and larger portions! Very nice decore and the usual wonderful service, although I did miss the original servers.
So happy they are open again

This review is based on my lunch experience at Fantasy Eatery. Lunch Special from $ 6.99 serves till 3 pm.
Try to arrive early for lunch because some items might not be available if you come right at 3 pm: Soup of the Day or even Milk Tea.
Beef Fried Noodle ($ 7.99) is small in portion definitely a lunch size as I could finished the whole order by myself and more. I was expecting a really good wok hay dish but it lacks that high temperature caramelization.
Both quality and quantity of the food were not up to the same standard as the old location.
Milk Tea though creamy and smooth but served warm.
The crystal balls and chandlers looks a little out of place since they are the leftover deco from the previous business. But since it is a «Fantasy» Eatery, everything goes? Includes the Swan decoration at the front door.
I will definitely come back and try other items. Hopefully they would be better.
It is sad how Fantasy Eatery is no longer it’s Scarborough hole in the wall neighbourhood eatery. Maybe Richmond Hill neighbourhood has less compettion and people here are willingly to pay more for less?!

We heard Fantasy was moved recently from Scarborough to Richmond Hill and decided to give it a try for the «wok hay» dishes. The food was very good and cheap. We arrived at 6ish and the place was already packed with a lot of people lining up waiting for a table. Make reservation to avoid the wait.
Ambiance:
The place looks a lot newer and than their old place. I haven’t been to the Scarborough location for ages but remember it was pretty run down. There are rooms at the back that fit more people.
Service:
We staggered our order because our table was pretty small and we didn’t want the food to come all at once. It took a while for the last two items to arrive.
Food:
The quality of the food was very high and everything tasted really good. We ordered:
— Honey glazed chicken wings
I went to Wacky Wings last night and I wish all wings place made their wings crispy like our Chinese places. :P
— Crispy Beef Brisket in Curry Sauce
The curry sauce was water down and the beef brisket kind of rough. Not my favourite of the night.
— Braised Beef Brisket Noodle Soup
Different than the white noodles used in northern China’s braised beef noodle dish, they used the Cantonese wonton (yellow-​alkaline) noodles. It was very chewy and tasted very good!
— Ice Bath Sweet and Sour Pork
A very interesting dish. We digged in expecting the sweet and sour pork be crispy because of the ice cubes but no — they tasted the same as your regular sweet and sour pork. Only when we had the pieces that had been sitting in the ice for a while, the skin crisped up. Listen to the other reviewer to let it sit for a bit. However I didn’t enjoy the icy cold red and green peppers and that’s my personal preference.
— Veggies and Beef Fried Noodles
— Bird-​nest Lychee Beef Tenderloin Cubes
Unfortunately they didn’t have the bird nest but the tenderloin were very peppery and tender. Goes really well with the lychee and not too sweet.
— Stir Fried Romaine Lettuce with Fermented Bean Curd
— Sweet Almond Paste (complimentary dessert)
With the 10% promotion, it was a very cheap meal. We paid less than $ 15 for all these food. For sure will come back again!

This place is took over another chinese in the corner beside TD bank… décor inside is fancy with chandlers and crystal balls hanging from the ceiling, kind of like a old fancy western style place with serves cheap chinese food
$ 6-​$ 8 lunch specials that will for sure full ur tummy, a lot of aunties and uncles at this place but hey I don’t mind
Service is good, has ur typical food selection as all other HK cafes