Kevin K.
Yelp
Someone once asked me - "say, what is your favorite Canadian city?". My answer would be Montreal. "But what about Toronto?" I'll narrow my gaze and ask "have you actually been to the actual city of Toronto, or simply within its legal limits?" If it doesn't have mercury vapor pedestrian crossing lightboxes and exists more than 1km north of a streetcar line (St. Clair streetcar / Bloor-Danforth #2 Subway line is the northern limit), it's not really Toronto. If you are unfortunate enough to live north of that area, you live beyond 6 km from Lake Ontario's waterfront. When Drake is talking about the Six, they are not talking about your area. You live and exist in a Transit desert, but that's usually where you find cheaper housing in Toronto metro. Your life either revolves around the TTC bus (somewhat unreliable), or you drive (not out of pleasure but rather out of necessity). Maybe when the Eglinton Crosstown line finally finishes would the situation improve somewhat for you. I somehow doubt it.
In the case of the suburban new towns like Markham, Richmond Hills and Unionville, the influx of professional immigrants from Hong Kong (white collar trades with commonwealth accredited skills like engineering, law, medicine, etc along with a decent command of English) meant there are self-sustaining Chinese oriented residences, shopping areas, restaurants, employers and businesses there to serve all those who moved out of the downtown core to escape their more fobbish cousins. Investment immigration allowed their north-of-the-border Mainlander cousins in the old country to arrive in droves as well, so when you move out of fobland, the fobs follow you in anyways. At least you might not need to work downtown anymore.
If the old two solitudes in Canada were English & French Canadian apathy, the new one is the Professional Chinese versus their fobbish cousins and everyone else, and Toronto within the 6 km limit (416) versus the underserved boonies (north-of-sixers, mostly 905) trapped on the bus or cursing up a storm stuck in traffic on the 403/404/401 Express, those who wants mass transit but doesn't want to pony up property taxes to pay for it.
Why do I mention this? To understand the mall you have to know that your normal sixers don't visit here - the GO station in Milliken is a 10 minute walk on the other side of Steeles, and its a 16 CAD, 40 minute ride from Union Station, and there's no benefit for them to visit here as they have access to the same stuff in local stores. People who patronize tend to be the north-of-sixers with cars, and people from Markham looking for a deal (since most of the Highway 7 malls are half-empty and features mostly the same crap but with even more herbal shops). Pacific Mall existed for a long time - I used to hit that place back in the early 2000s during my undergrad days in Buffalo.
Even back then it was known for being an odd conglomeration of stalls selling bootleg CDs/DVDs, counterfeit anime merchandise, asian snacks (how many Aji Ichiban knockoffs do we really need?), cellphone accessories and bubble tea joints. Chinese Tours love to dump rubes onto the mall because "it's uniquely Chinese". Well, nice to know that the same crap is still true. Stupid Hong Kong cliches exists here, like naming the major axis corridors after streets in Hong Kong, and all the minor axis "side streets" in increments of 10 starting with 8, so it's 8, 18, etc. You know, because 8 is a lucky number in Chinese. It's tacky. Me and the missus drove here because I know that Markham has some of the best Cantonese foods on the east coast, and with the 13% Chinese population in the GTA (about 40% in Markham), well, you can see more interesting stuff than NYC's relatively dinky Chinatowns.
It's worth a visit if you are Chinese from out of town and have access to a car (driving up from Niagara Falls it was a stopover destination). Parking is a royal pain here, and frankly, after seeing the same bubble tea store/cellphone crappery/snack retailer/"Korean" clothing stores on every corridor, you start to question your sanity. But given the fact that most asian malls in the area are like that, eeeeh, at least you save on gas and all the competition keep the prices honest. Oh yeah, there's a place upstairs that sells and services Airsoft guns. The guy's a dick but he also sell Japanese F-Toys models and TinyHK diecast collectibles. That stuff always makes the honker in me happy. Otherwise, spend 2 hours max here, look for a place elsewhere to eat, and please don't let it be some crappy red goo hot pot place. That's just gross.