Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant

This place is now closed for good apparently. Last day was July 29.

We recently went to Sam Woo a couple of nights ago (Saturday) and had a blast. Food was a little slow coming out, and per my first review of the place, it seems like slow service has not changed. However, the food was good and one of the head waiter (forgot his name) gave us excellent service. The price point, for what we ordered, was great and my parents and I thought that this restaurant should be added to our roster of regular go-to’s.
So, yesterday we went to Sam Woo again and we had such a horrible time. First of all, the head waiter we knew was not there. Instead, we got the Miserable looking Lady who we had despised before. She never smiled at us and she actually messed up our order that Saturday night. But the difference was we had our lovely head waiter to back us up. Tonight, he was not in.
We ordered fish soup which was laden with salt. We complained to Miserable Lady and she grunted something and promptly returned with our same soup, just watered down with water. She plopped the soup bowl and didn’t do anything else. No new bowls were provided and our old bowls with the salty soup were left untouched. The soup was undrinkable and we left it.
We also ordered a large steamed fish that was so ‘fishy’ that the dish was also left untouched.
The only thing my parents and I ate were rice and tofu. At the price of $ 115, we thought that was the most expensive rice and tofu we ever had.
Service was atrocious. No one checked on us. We get it that we are not regulars (other tables were treated very well). With so many other restaurants, we won’t be coming back.

Went here for Christmas ’12 with a group of 18 people. I mad reservations like a week before. The only complaint is they tried to fit us into 1 table which is cool and all… But thinking I mad a reservation they would give us a better table. It was close to the entrance and people passing by I kept having to get up for people with strollers and wheelchairs.
So got there around 10:30am (our reservation was at 10am). I’m glad they still kept the table for us considering its Christmas and its really busy. Ordered a lot of dim sum before 11am. They have an early bird special where the S, M, L are all $ 2.50 each. The food was delicious and steaming hot. I liked ordering with the sheet Cuz I don’t have to flag ppl down and I can just chill and chat with the ppl I’m with. And food with just come. There wasn’t one dish I have a complaint about. Catch for the early bird specialis you must pay cash. Im glad I brought enough cash that day for a group of 18. It was my treat lol. Btw, the décor inside looks beautiful. not like the avg dim sum place where it kinda looks… Um trashy?

We took advantage of their Early Bird Special Dimsum. Food was delicious & service was good. There’s ample parking space, restaurant is spacious & clean. Will definitely return.

Good chinese food. Congee, fried rice, noodles

Very average. Decent but nothing special. Service is decent. Not my favourite place to eat for Chinese food.

Been coming here for years, I like the food a lot, quality food at a good price. Service can be hit and miss on busier days but thats fine. Good place.

Blame it on Mother’s Day! Blame it on coming here late on Sunday when the whole kitchen probably all burnt out from a busy weekend.
I am really disappointed to Sam Woo!
Not only the «Special» Mother’s Day menu has just limited choices… and even then the Kitchen just could not deliver!
Chives with Fish Fillet ($ 18)
— Grouper has good texture… but a little cold by the time it was served
Baby Green with Crab Meat ($ 18)
— It was a disaster… when the kitchen put too much starch in the crab meat… and it became a jello like texture… and so gluey and thick.
— The manager suggested to send it back and order something else
Something Else — Ong Choy (Hollow Vegetables) with fermented bean curd ($ 15)
— Not much better but at least is edible… but just bland tasting!
— By then I just don’t feel like eating any more…
I have «high» expectation with the price I am paying… All the dishes we ordered were border on average and meh…
I don’t think I will be coming back soon… unless someone is dragging me here for their early bird dim sum $ 2.50

Unless you are a regular customer at sam woo seafood restaurant, don’t bother with this establishment, your business will not be appreciated.
Our family of four was seated at 7:00pm and immediately ordered a Cplus and four dishes: braised tofu/​fish, sizzling oyster pot, vegetarian dish and steam egg/​tofu. While we waited for our food to arrive four separate tables of regulars arrived who were greeted by surnames’ and seated around our peripheral vision.
Seeing that the restaurant was at 75% capacity, we expected to wait for our dishes to arrive, but to our surprise, the four separate tables that arrived and ordered after us were chowing down on their meal while we still waited for our Cplus and food to arrive. We inquired with the «captain» to check on the status of our Cplus and dishes, she replied that the fish would take longer to cook and the kitchen was preparing to serve all our dishes at once.
approx. 7:45pm our freshly brewed Cplus arrived and shortly afterwards the fish was served. The oyster dish was served 10 – 15 minutes after the initial fish dish. Feeling that the «captain» prioritized the regular customers’ orders and being served a bunch of bs, we inquired to why the balance of our dishes were not being served at once as claimed?!
Again we were served another dish of bs from the captain, telling us that the balance of the dishes were difficult to prepare and would take more time.
Frustrated with the lies, we immediately asked for the bill and took our business elsewhere.
Sam Woo if you were planning to outright lie to your customers’, atleast bring the fish last, everyone knows the fish dish usually takes the longest to prepare. Just be straight and tell us you dropped the ball and forgot our order or just don’t care for new business.

Sam Woo Seafood gets high marks for consistency. Their dim sum and regular dishes are usually solid and their prices make you happy to return. Comfortable surroundings and good service makes this place a winner. Early bird special pricing on dim sum orders before 11:30 am on weekdays, and before 11:00 am on week-​ends and holidays.

Waited for seats during dinner time. Waiting is good — shows that there is a busy clientele and when it’s busy, means that people are there for a reason! Meanwhile, not sure why but I’m beginning to find that the excessive oil in the dishes in Toronto does not seem to bother anyone. Ah wells! In any case, the dishes were all cantonese style wok dishes that uses a lot of oil. My friends and i ordered soup, lobster, tilapia fish, bokchoy with garlic, beef and a few other common stuff. Most had oil that i found was a bit too much. Not a complainer but this place still attracts a lot of people, so it’s excellent.
4 stars because it’s popular, with good service and the food was good.

Cheap dim sum and good. 9 items for i think around 23 cad. It is a busy place and we waited for a half an hour for a seat. Did not have dim sum elsewhere in toronto, so i can’t compare, but it is definitely among the top few dim sum places i’ve been to in my life. That might not be saying much for an ABC growing up in Iowa. Note this is an intimidating place if you do not know chinese. i had to pull out the little cantonese i knew in order to communicate with some of the staff. Also, they call the table numbers out in chinese, so i recommend learning cantonese numbers at the minimum, or you could be waiting forever. The dishes do seem a little more updated than american standards of dim sum. Maybe because canada has all the new hk immigrants?

Really great dinner of Cantonese banquet dishes. The Beijing duck is absolutely delicious. We had a course of some 20 odd dishes for our large group — too many dishes to recall. Nearly all of them were excellent.
Highly recommended!

My uncle and aunt treated my dad out for his birthday at Sam Woo.
The décor is not overly austentatious, and overall, the ambiance is one of comfort and tidiness.
I am kind of stuck as to what to think of their cleanliness however, as they do have chopstick covers, and give you a wet towel upon sitting down. But there was gunk stuck to my soup spoon. Talk about inconsistencies?
We ordered a set dinner menu which consisted of:
Peking Duck w/​Crepes
Duck Lettuce Wraps (add additional money to have duck lettuce wraps, otherwise, you just get the whole duck chopped into bulk pieces with some plum sauce)
Seafood Soup (Egg whites, scallops, shrimp, and spinach)
Tilapia Fillets w/​Greens
Chicken & Shiitake Mushrooms in Lotus Leaf
Chinese Broccoli Stir-​Fry
Complimentary desserts consisted of:
Sweet Green Bean Soup
Lychee & Goji Berry Jello
Almond Cookies
Overall, the food was quite tasty, although heavy on the salt/​MSG as I was extremely thirsty upon returning home. I did find their Peking duck to be a bit on the oilier side compared to other restaurants. However, they did have interesting «crepes» as an accompaniment for the Peking duck. They were about half the size, but had more flavour than the usual bland ones. That and who really wants to get full off the crêpe part of the dish? I want that crispy duck skin!
The tilapia fillets were not tender and moist, and for me, was a bit on the «rougher» side in terms of texture and consistency. It was flavourful though. The Chicken & Shiitake Mushrooms dish made me wonder how they can make chicken breast so darn tender and juicy? Lots of tenderizer perhaps? *shrugs*
All in all, a pretty pricey place. Our dinner bill rang in at $ 118.50 for 6 people, which for a Chinese restaurant, and consider the number of, and types of dishes we got, would be considered pricier.
Would I come back to Sam Woo again? Yes, as their food is actually delicious.

Tasty, tasty food here. The service is really great, especially for a chinese restaurant. You feel like a regular here, even if you aren’t one. There are tablecloths and somewhat subdued tasteful décor here — no neon or garish furniture or decorations here. The food was great, we had crispy chicken which was plump and juicy with a crackling crisp skin, ginger scallion stir fried crab which had an abundance of meat and tasty saucy fried exterior, and some garlic stir fried chinese greens. To end, the gratis dessert was a trio of red bean soup, a fried red bean puff and a mango jelly. All in all, everything was expertly cooked and delicious. The great service and food come at a price point a step above some of the other restaurants in the area, but it’s worth it for a nice meal out!

We were wandering around Scarborough amidst snow flittering down last Friday, when we decided to turn in to this place for din-​din. Turned out to be a good choice. Don’t know if the Sam Woo name is some kind of empire, but they seem to be in a few places in the Toronto area, either as a BBQ (Chinese BBQ) manifestation, or this «seafood» variant. Indeed, there’s a Sam Woo BBQ restaurant right in the same mall!
SWSR is somewhat pricey in the sea of Chinese bargain eats in Toronto, but that comes with a classier set-​up: table cloths (no cheesy plastic cover, thank you very much), cloth napkins, and — usually a pet peeve of mine — GOOD quality tea!!! I mean, come on Chinese restauranteurs everywhere — don’t you know it’s a national insult to serve tasteless low quality colored water and pass it off as ‘tea’?
Service was attentive, or at least DESIGNED to be attentive. We binged on 1) baby bok choy in seafood soup (quite a bit too salty, probably on account of salted fish bones being a major ingredient) — still the veggies were fresh 2) Sauteed grouper (yummy and perfectly seasoned, and not overly greasy), and 3) scallops «da liang» style, which meant covered in egg white. This last dish was a mistake — too few scallops, and they’re the bay variety rather than the monster-​size one would expect for $ 16 — we should have ordered sauteed ones instead, as there would be no hiding! My only complaint is that they have NO white wine selection — only a Kressman riesling-​like offering by the glass, which is a little sweet to my buds.
Dessert (complimentary) consisted of a bowl of tsa-​tsa, a little agar-​agar «cake» with a couple of fresh goji berries (all the rage these days supposedly due to goji’s health benefits) and a little glutinous rice dumpling covered in sesame, with lotus seed filling — hence, no excuse to go to that special dessert place on Hwy 7!

Dim sum is only $ 2.30/ dish before 11AM!!! The dim sum is pretty tasty too. Favourites include the veggie/​tofu rice roll, fried taro dumpling, and shrimp rice roll.
Service was absolutely excellent. The managers were extremely friendly and personable. I think this is the friendliest chinese restaurant serving dim sum I have ever visited!
There is an abundance of parking.
Love this place and we will be back. Hope you check it out too :)
Oh, if you want to take advantage of the early bird dim sum special, cash is the only accepted form of payment.

If you want to eat yourself into a food coma and you want to achieve said coma while eating dim sum, there’s no better place than Sam Woo. Well, I’m sure there are… But I’ve been here twice and I really like it.
The staff is very attentive and the service is pretty quick. My only real gripe about these kinds of restaurants is that the staff believes that if you’re not Chinese-​looking, that you can’t possibly use chopsticks (the girl from a few days ago was shocked when I shooed her away).
Beyond that, you’ll find all the greats here, including the BBQ pork buns and fried taro (my favorites). Lots of beef, pork, shrimp, and veggie (well, not all veggie) options on the menu. And the tea is loose leaf jasmine (so good).
Enjoy it!

I love chinese food in Toronto! Much better than in O.C. I’ve been here many times and have enjoyed it each time. The dim sum is good, especially in larger groups. Their fish congee is better than most places and everything else is tasty.
Any chinese restaurant with lots of chinese people is always a good sign. Of course Toronto has so many chinese people anyways :-p

Unfortunately, I can’t give you the exact names our table ordered. Aim for the crabs, scallops, tofu and veges. Very fresh veges!