Chalau - Dim Sum

I have to admit, I have been somewhat remise in blogging this past month. With my heavy travel schedule and everything happening in my life, I have not had much time to sit down and write about what is going on so I must back track a bit and start at the beginning of May.

At the end of April, beginning of May, my wife and I went to Alexandria, Virginia to visit with our oldest daughter and her husband. Our vacation actually began by staying in Toronto at the Chelsea Inn Hotel on Friday night which was convenient because we were going to fly to Washington D.C. Dulles airport on the following Saturday. The most memorable thing about Friday was that we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant called Chalau. My wife saw a tiny article about Chalau in the Metro newspaper that is distributed on the GO trains going to and from Toronto. It sounded good so we decided to give it a try.

Chalau is located at 476 Yonge St. which was only a few blocks north of the Delta Chelsea hotel where we were staying. The restaurant is relatively small but the decor is very nice, very stylish and trendy. We ordered six items; bean Curd Sheet and Shanghai vegetable dumplings(3 pcs), Pork Siu Mau (4 pcs.), Soup dumpling with Shrimp Scallop and sea cucumber (1 pc.), Crispy fried eggplant and lotus root (4 pcs), Fried chicken taro dumpling - Wu Kook (4 pcs.), and Baked egg tart (2 pcs.).

The food was beautifully and imaginatively presented and interesting dishes. Taken altogether it was a great dining experience. The cost is about twice as much as the usual dim sum restaurant but the quality of the experience is well worth the expense. I would highly recommend a visit to Chalau when you are in Toronto.

Wu Kook

XiaoLeung Bao (soup dumpling)