[Richmond Hill] Chili Secrets

Location Review:
9021 Leslie Street
Richmond Hill, Ontario
(Major Intersection: Leslie St. and Hwy 7)





The other day I came here to have dim sum with the family and some family friends. Located just by Time Square, Chili secrets gets lots of traffic for both lunch and dinner service. It serves up a fusion of Cantonese, Szechuan and Shanghai cuisines. The great thing about this place is that they have lots of vegetarian options. Because we had a vegetarian with us that day, we had less meat dishes than usual.

Joe Yee Vegetarian Cuisine

Review Location:
9688 Leslie St
Unit 17-18
Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4C4

So for my Mommy's birthday we decided to go eat vegetarian food since she's not big on eating meat.

The restaurant was small in size, but luckily we made reservations and got a nice big table right when we got there. Good thing we went early, because after a while it was packed (and very "happening" as nelson described it)! The food in general was not bad, and I actually found the simulated meat dishes to be much better than those that had actual vegetarian ingredients in it!

"Deluxe Five Blessing Platter" (Simulated Meat):

 bbq pork (叉燒), sausage, popcorn chicken,crispy roast pork (燒肉), and seaweed salad

The meat plater was very well made both in appearance and in texture, with so much attention to detail that they even simulated the fat between the skin and the meat! Even being someone who does eat meat on a regular basis, the popcorn chicken could've fooled me!

"Party Tray A" : Simulated Sushi + Sashimi

The fish in the sushi was made from (I believe) gelatin, and was impressively simulated. You could definitely tell that it wasn't real fish when you tasted it, but I think it was as well done as it could be, considering what it actually was. It just looks soooo real!! I really liked the simulated shrimp, they were somehow able to recreate that bouncy crisp shrimp texture and the fishy/shrimpy flavour too. yums!

Vegetable dishes: left: stir fry veggies with oyster mushroom; Right: Veggies on Tofu

The veggie dishes I actually did not enjoy as much. The tofu was not very smooth, and the stir fried vegetables were slightly tasteless and cold. On top of that, there wasn't the novelty factor of the meat simulated dishes. I guess even in the vegetarian world, meat tastes better! 

Deep Fried Taro Fish

I don't think this dish was supposed to taste like real fish, because it was just literally deep fried battered taro. It tastes exactly as it sounds, but none the less I enjoyed it....possibly because I like taro, batter, and deep fry. The scuplted and drawn on fish characterstics (like fins and gills) were a nice touch too.

You'd think that not eating meat for dinner would make you very hungry at the end of it, but surprisingly we were all very full at the end. It was an interesting experience, and I think I would come back here again to try some other meat dishes  that we saw other people ordering...like sizzling plates!