Asian Legend - Thornhill

I have always enjoyed the soup dumplings at this restaurant. They are really delicious and remain my favorite dish among all the other tasty options available. I've tried many other dishes here as well, and they have all been very satisfying. But the soup dumplings are definitely my go-to choice.

This place used to be one of my go to places before I moved out of the province. So I was eager to revisit it with my old friend. We ordered 小籠包, 醉雞 , 燻魚 鍋貼 The 鍋贴was ok but it went downhill all the way after. The 醉雞looked and tasted stale. It must had been in the fridge for a long time. As for the 燻魚, looked like someone just grabbed the pieces from the fridge and quickly covered it with a super thick and black glaze. It looked and tasted pathetiic and the only thing I could tasted was sugar. The dumpling's wrapping was thick with hardly any meat in it. I ended up eating a little but my friend hardly touched anything. It was a disaster! My friend told the waiter about the food and he just looked at us and smile. Lol!

The food and dumplings were satisfactory, but what was truly shocking was that after I paid the bill, one of the waiters approached our table in front of my friends and asked for an additional tip, which I found extremely disrespectful and unprofessional. Initially, I had rated the experience with 4 stars, but I had to revise it to just one star due to this unacceptable behavior.

Asian Legend used to be a very reliable place for food that while one may not rave about, but definitely dependably fine and satisfying. My lunch there today was devastatingly disappointing. We ordered smoked fish, drunken chicken, steam soup dumpling and pot stckers, normally safe dishes for any half-decent Norther region restaurants. I wont go into why each was bad in its own way, and while not normally prone to such harsh comments, but they have no business staying in business if that is the quality of food they serve. I made a comment to the waiting staff, who was both courtious and attentive, and the response was that he was sorry, but the reaction was like 'yes, I know '. The ambience was nice and civil too, just the food was not just bad, it was unconscionable.

Been to this location multiple times throughout the years, but unfortunately our last visit on a Saturday night missed the mark. Seating was maybe 1/3 full so we got a table easily. While looking through the seasonal offerings on their own menu cards (beef potstickers and something else, I forget), we were mildly interested but a bit annoyed that pricing was not indicated. This was a turn off and ultimately deterred us from ordering them.The green onion beef pancake roll had little sauce and few green onions. The pork potstickers dish only bad 4 which were thrown onto the plate with the skin already pierced expensive given it was $10.99 therefore almost $3 per dumpling.The chunked beef and wonton noodle soups were both tasty and we appreciated how large the noodle servings were. Beef and wontons were cooked well and broths were seasoned just right. The soy bean soup was also quite tasty, though it would have been nice to have other items inside of it besides mainly fried dough stick.Overall, all dishes were lacking green onion and more expensive than other competing Shanghainese restaurants. The waiters were also refilling condiments and sorting through dishes in the middle of the restaurant while we ate. While I am familiar with the island in the middle of the restaurant where the staff do these tasks, perhaps they could have waited until later or done the tasks at another corner of the restaurant because they blocked our way when going to the restrooms and were quite loud.Overall, might revisit again in the future but for now I will hold off.Vegetarian options: Vegetarian options provided in the noodle soup and dumpling options.Parking: Can be difficult to find parking during weekends/weeknights.