Chinese Traditional Buns

Visiting again and continuously impressed. Delicious food with such a range of flavours and textures. I got the spicy mung bean jelly which continues to be my all-time favourite dish. Spicy and deep flavouring with the soft jelly texture is a treat. Also steamed noodles and a tofu green onion pancake. The noodles are a wonderful staple, and while the pancake was a mistake on my part is was a delicious mistake I'm certain to make again!

Decent place for authentic Chinese food. Ordered lamb skewers, pork and chive buns and their traditional dumplings (forgot the flavour but first one on the menu) in hot and sour soup. Lamb skewers were a bit tiny and fatty. Overcooked as it was chewy. Not recommended. Dumplings were the best part of the meal. Juicy, filing was made perfectly. The soup wasn't spicy at all so you can skip the $1.50 upgrade. The bun was soggy at the bottom so I didn't like it that much. We came at an odd time so the buns weren't fresh. But it does remind me of the taste of China when I visited a few years ago. Recommend for nostalgia feeling but not for first-timers. The entrance door is kind of busted, they should fix it.

The buns and Dan Dan noodles are the only good items. Don't be fooled by the menu high grade lamb noodle soup means offal and no meat and was super greasy. I would recommend not going here. After a disappointing first time we gave them another chance and was not surprised when the quality was even worse this time. This time we had got it via uber eats so it excuse the bowls.. the foam container is the Dan Dan noodles and the lamb noodles is the pic with and then without soup (even our dog would not eat any of it and he loves kidney and liver), That is actually how much filling there were in the lamb soup agin no meat. The beef noodles had a only a few small shredded pieces of beef which was also very disappointing considering how much noodles there are. Ho lan sec.. . Go to Asian legend instead at least there the food is always decent and you don't get disapponted

I love the fresh, authentic food here. It's super cool to see the dumplings being made just after you order them. The menu is also very vegetarian friendly!

Ordered their lamb soup with soaked bread. A classic if not the most famous dish from Xi’an. Had a hard time finding this dish I other restaurants in Chinatown. If you want northern authentic Chinese dishes you should definitely go here or any traditional food that isn’t mainly Cantonese which a lot of other restaurants around the neighborhood seems to be. The food itself was really good and be sure to first taste it but then don’t be afraid to add some hot oil and/or vinegar to your liking.

*I am a Xiao Long Bao (XLB) enthusiast. I only tried their XLB (Crab & Pork), thus my review is quite limited. The area (Spadina X Dundas) is a mecca for XLB. Chinese Traditional Buns used to have a good reputation among many XIB fans. Yes, about 4 years ago, I visited here and was very impressed by their XLBs. However, about 2 years ago - in the midst of the COVID pandemic, (the time I missed XLB most!) I did take-out order for XLB - I was disappointed. The XLBs were thrown upside-down in the container, all of the XLBs were torn and all the soup ran out of the wrappers. So, I complained. The staff (who is the owner/cook) agreed to replace the order with a better one. The replaced one was good. But then, recently, I ordered XLB take-out again. When I called, the owner/cook recognized me. Again, I asked him to be very careful when transferring XLBs to a container. "Yes yes yes," he said. I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before the XLBs were done. This place has an open kitchen so I was observing how XLBs are handled. I again asked him to be very careful. He said, "Yes yes yes". But I observed him putting the bamboo steamer upside-down to inconsiderately throw the XLBs into a container and SHOOK it (WHY?!). I do not understand! I wanted to scream! As I expected - all the XLBs were torn and the soup was running out and pooled in the container. AGAIN. So sad. Also, the XLBs lost crab flavor significantly. And the soup pooled in there was mysteriously oily. The wrappers were rubbery. They were not like this bad before. I respect XLB's delicacy. I do not think the person who makes it understands it. I do not know about the other items in the restaurant. But I do not recommend XLBs here at all anymore. Very very disappointing, and sad losing one of the better XLBs in Toronto.

Other some bickering amongst staff, food and service were great. Good vegetarian selection, non pork dumpling options (chicken and mushroom was yummy, chives and egg is a classic). Lamb soup with bread was generous in portion, meat and bread chunks which remained chewy after soaking. Sesame glutinous rice balls is my favourite.

We enjoyed the pork and cabbage dumplings in sour soup, vegetable and tofu steamed buns, and red bean paste steamed buns, all for a good price (and too much food for two). The owner was very generous and so were the portions, said he's been in business for 22 years. It's definitely a hole-in-the-wall local restaurant worth checking out for Chinese food.