Spring China House

For take-​out/​delivery, this is exactly the type of Chinese that I am looking for: nothing fancy and a little on the greasy side!

I ordered food through the Just Eat app, where this restaurant overwhelmingly scored ⁵⁄₆ stars. I wish I had read more reviews before I ordered. This was the worst Chinese food we have ever had. Every dish was bland and soggy. We moved to Toronto from Halifax– the whitest place in Canada– and had better Chinese food there. Completely disappointing.

Just ordered online from this restaurant and my boyfriend and i had the chicken chop suey. He took a bite of it and he found a long metal string mixed into it. Disgusting.

Have to say that when they opened and I was told they were the staff from China House, I walked a wide path around them. I hated China House and next to Sea Hi was one of two places that made me ill just thinking about them. It was a place you dragged people to do Jewish Christmas or New Years or Easter or Thanksgiving or or or… But I had a discount with TasteAway and decided to try them out. I LOVE the Tom Yam Goong soup and the hot and sour and have found little to complain about. Perhaps the earlier review of this place where during growing pain phase. I have ordered from them several times and have found nothing to be disappointing.

Bland, slick, goey and wrong.
Ordered $ 27 of food and threw out most of it.
The mixed vegetables with cashews were crisp but came in what can only be described as «grease-​water.» Very bland and very slick to the touch. Had to rinse them off to make them edible.
The Chicken and Mushroom (Moo Koo Gai Pan) was also very bland and the chicken had lots of gooey bits hanging off it. It left me feel a bit quesy from the texture and the grease.
The Tom Yam Gai soup was a total fail. Tasted like fishy hot sauce and salt in water — and this is a dish I frequently order. The one at Spring Rolls is so much better — they cannot even compare.
VERY disappointed. Delivery took 1 hour, as well — way too long!

About a year and a half ago, I wrote an update lamenting the death of China House, one of my favourite old-​school Chinese haunts. It was a grand room, populated by wizened servers and a menu as secret as the ending to «Titanic». (Spoiler Alert: The ship sinks, and Leonardo DiCaprio goes on to play Jay Gatsby in a similar sinking ship).
I received a mysterious tip that much of the China House crew had gone on to open SCH a few doors down. At the time, I was newly-​married and living in the suburbs, so quality Chinese food was the last thing on my mind.
Fast forward, I’m back in the big city, and craving some serious Sinophile satisfaction.
I visit SCH on a weekday for their buffet (I know, I know, but some times a guy’s gotta do it). It’s a little after one pm. The place is deserted, and the steam tables are either empty or congealed. The staff offers to make more of whatever’s on the steam trays but I politely decline. Once they’re actually cooking, why wouldn’t I just want to hit the menu?
I return a few days later, earlier in the day. A few tables are taken, and these turn over during the duration of my visit.
Sadly, the food isn’t much better.
Hot and sour soup is thick and crammed with veggies and tofu; a promising start even if the heat is a little too in my face. It’s even better when I sneak a few won tons from their nearby bath into the mix.
Egg rolls are pleasantly filled with bean sprouts and assorted veggies as well. Interior and exterior are both sufficiently crispy.
Samosas are fine, but dude; this is a Chinese place (and not a Hakka one at that). I’d pass on these, along with the anemic scraps of fried fish (I fondly remember the days before tilapia and bass invaded our menus), and vile-​looking sweet and sour pork; a dinner companion chews a few rubbery morsels and gives up to get himself more noodles-they’re a neither crispy nor warm, and stingy on the veg. Better to go with veggie fried rice, if you can time your visit to catch it while it’s hot.
Temperature is a recurring theme here. For all of the steam trays, methinks the unit is not turned on. Items get plunked in their pans, then turn cold almost instantly.
There’s also chicken in what I think is black bean sauce, beef in what I think is black bean sauce, and stir-​fried veggies in… black bean sauce?
I’m sure the full menu is better, but the experience isn’t worth chancing another meal here, especially when I pass the «Conditional Pass» public health sign on the way out.