Halleluia (Uzbek and Middle Eastern)

There's a diner in Montreal that describes its hashbrowns as 'God-like potatoes.' Well, there's another contender for that title in Halleluia. Their home-style potatoes seemed last night like the pinnacle of garlicky-buttery heaven. Perhaps the dill was the secret ingredient that kept us saying, "OK, just one more," until the plate had only one golden, starchy chunk left on it to feebly testify that we weren't complete gluttons.

It seems wrong to rave about a side dish when there were many other delights to this modest resto tucked into the side of a strip mall. The menu is a mix of Middle Eastern with a Greekish influence and several 'Uzbekian' specialties. Lots of Levantine spreads, salads and fish on offer.

We started with a flavourful eggplant salad, and Uzbek samsa, a meat-and-onion-filled pastry with a mildish hot sauce on the side. Mains included another Uzbek dish, manti. These hearty lamb dumplings are wrapped, as our charming waitress described it, like a diaper. That is to say, these dumplings are bigger and bit more loosely wrapped than their Far Eastern counterparts. Our other plate was a whole batter-encrusted trout laced with garlic. It was crisp and not terribly greasy considering it had likely taken a quick bath in a deep fryer.

There was also entertainment - quirky, but obviously meant to fit the mixed-ethnicity menu and clientele. A woman with a synthesizer crooned soft-rock classics in English and folk songs in Russian, then threw a smattering of Hebrew into her between-song banter.

Dinner for two $40 plus tip

Halleluia Restaurant
2150 Steeles Ave. W. (1 set of lights E. of Keele St.)
Concord, Ont. L4K 2Y7
905-738-4492

Second location at 870 Eglington Ave. W at Bathurst

Richmond Court (Chinese)

Courting Disappointment

You can tell a good Chinese restaurant, James Clavell once wrote, by its simple decor.

And so, when we arrived at Richmond Court, and were greeted instead by festooned walls, neon-clad staff, and a man inexplicably dressed in an elaborate Genghis Khan outfit, it should have been dead giveaway.

But after a long search for parking, we were too famished to scour the windows of Times Square’s other Chinese restaurants for some place else. Also, a sign in this particular window told us that Richmond Court was now serving dim sum.

We should have heeded heeded James Clavell’s advice. Almost without exception, Richmond Court’s dim sum offerings were disappointing. The translucent wrapping on the har gao disintegrated the moment you tried to pick it up. Siu mai (steamed pork dumplings) and char siu bao (sticky pork bun) looked and tasted like the kind you can buy frozen at the grocery store. And savoury triangles were neither savoury, nor triangles. Indeed, the lone bright spot on the dim sum menu was the Singapore-style turnip cake (like the pan-fried cake regular dim sum revelers are used to, but chopped into smaller pieces, and prepared with curry, scrambled eggs and vegetables.)

In fairness, Richmond Court is not principally a dim sum destination. Instead, you’re more likely to find customers dipping into its soups, noodle dishes, or browsing in the accompanying bakery. Thus, we also gave the non-dim sum menu a try. Here, Richmond Court fared somewhat better. Our soup had little taste, but fried noodles in "XO" sauce were delicious, and complemented nicely by diced peppers, garlic, and crunchy little prawns. In the bakery meanwhile, pastries and other sweet snacks are plentiful. And unlike the dim sum, the bakery’s banana-red bean paste rolls are well worth the price – 80 cents a piece.

Price: $12 per person

Richmond Court Restaurant
550 Highway 7 East (Times Square Plaza)
Richmond Hill
905-709-1628

Alternate location:
328 Highway 7 East (Golden Plaza)