Hi all! Karon Liu, food writer with the Toronto Star here. I've been trying to be more active on here after my AMA a few weeks ago so I've gotten permission from the mods to start sharing more of the things I write on here.

This week I wrote about the rise of late-night coffee houses, a place where you can order a latte, have slice of cake, and break out your laptop to get some work done at 11pm (anyone else remember when Sbux used to be open that late for exam cramming sessions?).

Idea came up when noticed quite a few late night coffee houses popping up in the last years, especially those catering to populations that don't typically consume alcohol and have more of a late-night culture (eg: Edill's and Qishr have extended Ramadan hours). Also, a few weeks ago I needed to duck into a restroom somewhere around Dovercourt but couldn't find a cafe that was open past 5pm, ha.

Gift link and an excerpt in the comments!

My girlfriend and I are big fans of happy hours. We've been looking for deals this summer and the available options to find them were either out of date, flat out wrong, or just not fun/intuitive to use. So we made our own website to track happy hours! It'll be updated every month. It's at a place now where it'd be useful to other people so we wanted to share it with you: https://cheaperdrinks.now/

We also made an instagram where we'll be posting little nuggets of info like the cheapest beers and margs in the city etc: https://www.instagram.com/cheaperdrinks.now/

Let me know if you have any feedback or requests! We want this to be the best happy hour finder in Toronto!

Note: we're not affiliated with any bars or restaurants, this is just a personal project.

Cafés like Qishr are betting there’s still demand for a proper late-night coffee house, writes Karon Liu.

Not a café that turns into a bar at sundown, or a bubble tea spot, nor a dimly lit lounge where kids are implicitly unwelcome, but rather a place where anyone can hang out after the restaurants have closed.

While the pandemic shortened hours across much of the industry, a handful of cafés across Toronto are extending them again, hoping to revive the late-night coffee house as a place to study, socialize and linger.

Read Karon's latest story via this gift link.

I saw a few posts on Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu / RedNote about Wang Lang, specifically their Summerlicious menu so I decided to give it a shot. This is a Thai restaurant in Downtown Toronto and the ambiance is quite like a retro style bar with dim lighting and neon signs. I tried out the $34 lunch menu here.

Overall, I thought it was a great deal for the lunch menu and I did enjoy the food. I was able to try the Goong Pae and Nuer Yang Jeaw starters, both of which I enjoyed. The beef skewers were meaty and I enjoyed the fried baby shrimp with the red chili sauce.

I had wanted to order the Khao Soi for my main, but unfortunately, they didn’t have it so I opted for the Pad Ga Prao instead. The seasoning and spices were great, though it might be a bit too spicy if you’re not used to it. This was honestly a pretty standard dish, so I would’ve preferred the Khao Soi. The portion was quite large as well.

For the dessert, all seven of us ordered the Kanom Krok Khao Neow Ma Muang (rice cake with mango sticky rice) as the other two options were ice cream and didn’t sound too interesting. I found it funny how the sticky rice was a green colour, but when my girlfriend came here the day before the sticky rice was blue lol. Dessert was great too; I thought the coconut sticky rice cake was unique and it wasn’t overly sweet.

Summerlicious is over 2026 but I would definitely recommend this place for next year for anyone interested.

Follow up to my post about the ayce in chinatown.

Originally I thought it's dim sum but it's actually mainland breakfast which has a few dim sum items but this is not your typical dim sum.

I thought they had Xiao long bao, because the signage shows what I thought were Xiao long baos but they said it's not.

I think it's the 4th image, does that look like Xiao long baos?

There are a handful of items on display, 2 ha gows, 2 looks like siu Mai but aren't. If you ask for more they'll bring out more.

Large pan fried dumplings. Scallion pancakes, some chive pancake/dumpling. What looked like broken pastry from the scallion pancakes, steamed pork buns, pan fried pork buns.

Various types of congee but I didn't try. Tea eggs and boiled salted duck eggs.

There's soya milk on tap, fresh tofu fa (it's usually served a syrup but here they just have white sugar that you add to your desired sweetness).

Pay first and get your own cutlery.

They had steamed Malay cake and a purple steamed cake but it was very dry from being out for a long time.

We found it to be bland and some things were very oily. If you're not picky on flavor, it's decent.

The ambience was nice.

We don't like mainland breakfast so we won't be back.

Pretty decent for takeout sushi. Worth the price in my opinion although Kibo is pretty location specific in terms of quality

I am going with my mother to Toronto from Montreal and I would love to know what restaurant to surprise her. We are African so any African food place would really be awesome as that is what she prefers although she is pretty open. Anything but Italian food lmao. We don’t have a car so anything outside of the centre would be difficult. Thank you in advance.

Tried the bulgogi sandwich recently and it was delicious. Going to try more of their Sandwiches!

The Super Deluxe has jerk chicken, a spicy patty, cocoa bread, lettuce, tomato, jerk sauce and melted cheese.

You eat it for lunch and dinner is optional.

This is a long shot but are there any places within the GTA that are still offering buck a shuck oysters? I remember it used to be very popular with restaurants in the downtown core but I haven’t seen any since covid. I’m willing to travel if it’s still a thing

Roasted Chicken Masala ( my friend’s favourite), Molasses Braised beef cheeks curry ( my favourite).
Cheese curds samosas turnover & yellowfin tuna tartare pani puri
Definitely would recommend, the beef cheeks were so tender, moist and just falling apart and melt in your mouth, everything was flavourful, loved the ambiance and music. Not loud at all and service was really nice
For all this and the paneers 150$ in total, on the pricer side but it’s a unique experience

Discovered this place a while ago and it always hits the spot. Simon Sushi in Etobicoke is not your fancy, high end sushi restaurant, but it is a great option when you are on a budget and want something filling.

They are VERY generous with their portions. Their rolls are massive and loaded with fish. My go to order is the All Day Special, which comes with 8 dynamite rolls and 8 spicy salmon rolls. My runner-up favourite is Combo 3, which comes with 6 pieces each of spicy salmon, spicy tuna and spicy butterfish (as seen in first image).

Each set is under $20 and comes with miso soup, which is honestly hard to beat with how expensive takeout is now. The presentation is nothing fancy, but for the price, portion size and amount of fish you get, it is definitely worth checking out.

I usually do takeout but I decided to dine in so the pics above are when I dined in.

Someone in my foodie discord asked for recommendations for restaurants eligible for AMEX's $200 dining credit, so instead of working I made a tier list for them (of the ones I've been to at least):

https://tiermaker.com/list/food-and-drink/amex-canada-dining-credit-restaurants-toronto-19691989/6440718

Thoughts?

Viet Chay is a vegan Vietnamese restaurant by Dufferin & Wilson. I'm a meat-eater but really like their food so I've been a number of times.

I went today and the owner told me her lease is up, so she has to close in August and find a new location. She's still looking at different spots around the city.

I highly recommend visiting before she closes.

Someone told me theres a new restaurant on dundas st near the knick knack store Tai Tai is. So basically across the street from tim hortons on dundas st. You gotta climb a flight of stairs.

A quick Google search brought me to bao house but that's on dundas st near Elizabeth st.

Anyone know of a new ayce dim sun place that recently opened on dundas near spadina?

*it's good brothers dim sum

does anyone know some dine-in halal filipino places?

My family and are are from out of Toronto and want to get some good Greek food downtown!
We are looking for good tasting, good portion fun atmosphere Greek taverns or restaurants! Please let us know! (:

Can someone please share some opinions on good seafood restaurants? We will be in the Harbourfront/CN tower area for dinner. Specifically crab, lobster and shrimp. Edited to add that we can Uber 10-20 mins if its worth it!

I went to HEYTEA planning to get the Coconut Mango Boom, but the person ahead of me ordered this pink slush and it looked interesting enough that I changed my mind.

It turned out to be a fruit slush with crunchy green grape pieces at the bottom, which added a nice texture once everything was mixed together. I asked for less sugar and it was still sweet enough.

I wasn’t expecting to switch my order, but it ended up being a pleasant surprise.

For those who’ve been to HEYTEA, what’s your usual order? I’m looking for something different to try next time.

I am staying in Mississauga, but open to going downtown or out to Markham for a really solid solo dining experience. I appreciate a hole in the wall bahn mi, or a very higher end steak frites. I frequent the city and would love to experience what you think is best for a solo diner. Thx!

I think I've seen some people mention a steak frites deal for $25 but I can't find it anymore.

My friend looked at the menu and didn't see anything they liked at dorset. But steak is something they like.

We don't have a huge budget, maybe $40 per person before tax and tip.