SuburbanEats: Pacific Mall and Restauran Malaysia

It's no secret we've never been impressed with the suburbs. Sure, they might be well-suited as places to raise children, but otherwise suburbs have frighteningly little to offer. You'll never see a respectable band outside of downtown, nor will you find much in the way of culture. Community theatre is NOT doing great things.

But when it comes to food, it turns out there are exceptions to the rule.

Being as big as it is pretty much guarantees that Toronto has its share of hidden gems on the outskirts. This past weekend we were in Toronto and spent a surprising amount of time outside the city limits.

We made a pilgrimage to Pacific Mall in Markham (or is it Unionville?). And yes, more than one person looked at us quizzically asking, "Why would you come to Toronto just to spend time in Markham?"

Pacific Mall is an Asian mall. True, it’s famous for the myriad small stores there selling truckloads of bootleg DVDs, but it also features a wonderful food court that’s chock-a-block with stalls featuring all styles of Asian food at CheapEats prices. We grabbed a snack at Sun's Kitchen, where they make their own fresh noodles right before your eyes, but you could easily spend several weeks at Pacific Mall and never have the same dish twice.

But the weekend’s real prize was in Richmond Hill - even further out of the core.

It's been no small feat finding good Malaysian food outside Malaysia. In Ottawa we only have one or two Malaysian restaurants and, while they present a reasonable facsimile of Malaysian cuisine, it just doesn't live up to the expectations of someone who grew up in Malaysia.

We've tried a few Malaysian restaurants in and around Toronto as well - one in Chinatown and one out in Mississauga - but they haven't been any better than the Ottawa restaurants. Then we found Restoran Malaysia in Richmond Hill, and the clouds parted and the light shone down.

It doesn't look like much from outside - it's in a strip mall - but inside, it's a beautifully decorated restaurant that serves probably the best Malaysian food in Canada. Their Beef Rendang is soooo tender and flavourful.

Fried Kway Teow – A fried noodle dish, and one of our favourite Malaysian foods – has proven to be just about the most difficult dish to find outside of Asia. It’s a major comfort food for us, and the other restaurants we’ve tried haven’t done it justice. And given that it’s seemingly impossible to make it well at home, we’re happy to report that Restoran Malaysia serves up as good a Kway Teow as we’ve ever had.

They even serve iced Milo here – a popular (in Malaysia, anyway) Ovaltine-like drink!

Restoran Malaysia is not a CheapEat, but it is reasonably priced for a higher-end restaurant. Our party of six left feeling well satisfied – we even had dessert (too bad we were not able to get Ice Kacang – a popular shaved iced dessert) – and the bill came to just $20 per person.

It's definitely a commitment to go for dinner at a place like this. You've got to be willing to wait for a table once you've driven the 30 or 40 minutes to get to the restaurant, but thankfully, Restoran Malaysia is well worth the wait (30 minutes in our case).

For the most part, SuburbanEats still tend to focus too much on copy after copy of restaurant chains - Denny's, Kelsey's, Montana's, Claimjumpers - but places like Restoran Malaysia help make the suburbs just a little less soul-crushing. No, we won't be moving out of the core any time soon, but this does give us another good reason not to get rid of the car!

 

Technorati Tags: Restoran Malaysia, richmond hill, not a cheapeat, malaysian, restaurant, beef rendang, char kway teow, pacific mall, sun's noodle

Comments

[Vince]

I'm sorry.. but Matahari has a far superior Beef Rendang... and Gourmet Garden has far superior Laksa, Mee Goreng, Char Kway Teow, Nasi Goreng and pretty much fried everything... even Popiah! Not that Restoran Malaysia isn't good... but there are quite a few spots in the suburbs that would be more deserving of the recognition for SE Asian cuisine.

When it comes to suburban food eats, I don't expect city snobs to know much about them... probably most city snobs still think downtown China town is predominantly Chinese. That culture however has already moved north of Steeles for a long time...

[Vince]

Sounds like the blogger of this article is Malaysian.. do yourself a favor and check out Gourmet Garden's Prawn Mee (available only on weekends) before you crown Restoran Malaysia the best in Canada.. unless this is a shill post? It's not hard verify in well-known food boards like Chow.com that Gourmet Garden is a well loved restaurant for Malaysian fare among many foodies. And it'd much better qualify to be on CheapEats for the difference in price.

[JJJudeGifts]

Is Pacific Mall in Markham or is it in Unionville? that's a great question, we did some researching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unionville%2C_Ontario) , (http://www.guidingstar.ca/Pacific_Mall_&_Market_Village_in_Markham.htm), and (http://www.torontotourism.com/Inspiration/InspirationBeyondDowntown/YorkRegion.htm) ... Here is what we found out. That Pacific Mall is in Markham not Unionville, but it is really really close!

If you are ever in Unionville, drop in and say hi, We are located at 151 Main Street Unionville, Unionville, Ontario, L3R2G8, Canada. JJJudeGifts.com

[BoD]

There are so many great restaurants in and around Pacific mall. I have my favourites but I love exploring too.

[Lex]

Vince - this post was written by a pair of CheapEats Ottawa writers who were in town visiting, and yes one of them is in fact Malaysian. Next time they are in town we will definitely check out Gourmet Garden.

From a CheapEats perspective, we're trying very hard to get more recommendations for spots outside the core for the next edition to break that "city snobs" issue. The challenge is that while we know there is lots of great food North of Steeles, West of Roncesvalles and East of Vic. Park, we need people to recommend them to us before we can consider them for CheapEats. (http://www.cheapeatstoronto.com/faq.htm#3) The rules about them having to be recommended to us, are there to keep things honest.

I'd love, LOVE, to hear more about some of your favourites since we are starting to collect recos and recruit some new writers for the new edition.

[Lex]

JJJudeGifts - thanks for looking that up. Pacific Mall = Markham. Appreciated.

BoD - no fair! Are you going to share your favourites or just tease us?