Chinatown, Toronto

Toronto's chinatown is the third largest in the world. Actually six distinct Chinatowns exist in Toronto, but this review is about the Downtown Chinatown between College and Queen streets along Spadina Avenue.
Many fine chinese restaurants can be found and the perfect day for exploration is Saturday when Dim Sum is served after 12:00pm.
A bonus are the many Vietnamese restaurants also found around College and Spadina. My two favourites are Quan Anh Dao (on Spadina, near College) and Pho Hoa (393 Dundas Street West).

I had read that Canada had the third largest Chinese community in the world and if you visit Chinatown you can believe that.

What I found most appealing were all the different colours and lights, not only the street signs but also the food that was on display everywhere.
If you are lucky you might find yourself in Chinatown at night after the rain and it will look even more spectacular.

Any shop will offer you a million things you probably have never seen before, there was a huge amount of strange-looking (and smelling) food. How can you not love the caramelized ducks/chicken hanging at the restaurant windows?

It was fun to see that this is a community where you don't have to speak English to get around. The staff at many places (restaurants included) could not speak English and even the police station has (what I guess are) Chinese writings on the wall.

In any case it makes it a very special place and I am sure you will not be dissapointed.

This Chinatown is the 3rd biggest in the world. Only the ones in San Fransisco and New York rank higher.

You could easily spend a whole afternoon just walking around Chinatown and tasting the atmosphere. Go shopping for spices and clothing in one of the many shops. Or have dim sum for lunch in one of the many restaurants. And you may also want to visit a Buddhist Temple.

This ever-expanding area is home to ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
A wealth of oriental shops and fruit markets spills out onto the street, and a vast selection of authentic Chinese restaurants feature such delicacies as dim sum.
Toronto's second Chinatown is located in the Broadview/Gerrard area, and three other distinctive Chinatowns are located in the suburbs.

Multi-Cultural Festivals: Chinatown Festival
An Asian festival featuring Asian traditional dances, Chinese Opera, Asian foods, martial arts demonstrations and more. Held in August. Visit website for exact date this year.

Proximity and size make it one of the most well-known of Toronto’s neighbourhoods. Restaurants and grocery stores abound. For locals/self-caterers, Chinatown is probably the cheapest place to buy food in the developed world. They give food away pretty much. Meat is ridiculously cheap. I bought a green pepper for thirty cents last weekend.

Among all the Chinese restaurants, I admit a little bit of heresy because my favourite place to eat here is Pho Hung, a Vietnamese beef soup specialist. Still, the main highlight of Chinatown is just to walk the streets. The bustle, swarms of people and indecipherable signage may not be authentic China, but it’s a reasonable enough facsimile and you’d be forgiven for wondering if you were still in Canada.

I especially enjoy crowd-walking here. This is the art of getting through crowds as quickly as possible with a minimum of commotion. In other words, you don’t just blast your way through, shoving people to the ground. No, dexterity is key and you’re not supposed to bump into anybody. Form is important to – you shouldn’t be forever jumping out of the way, slamming on the brakes, etc. Rather, you should glide smoothly and easily through the crowds by choosing the best paths through the ever-shifting human maze, and use subtle shifts in momentum and body movements to maximize your progress while avoiding the disturbance of others. I might be the only person in the world who gets a kick out of this, but it’s one of the reasons I go to Chinatown so I figured I’d mention it. It’s not like you don’t have silly-sounding reasons to go places sometimes.

Toronto's downtown Chinatown is one of the Eastern seaboard's biggest, comparable to New York & Washington DC. Its heart is located at Spadina Ave. & Dundas Street, and the community spreads out from there. Toronto CBD also has a Eastern Chinatown located just east of the DVP, south of Bloor.

Other Chinese shopping & entertainment areas in the Greater Toronto Area include Scarborough (Cultural Centre, restaurants), Markham (Pacific Mall, Market Village, First Markham Place & more), & Richmond Hill (concentrated at a part of Hwy. 7, 16th Ave). The new areas of Markham & Richmond Hill are highly populated with Hong Kong residents that just came to Canada right before 1997, so the restaurants there are more H.K. and international style & less Chinese.

Like Vancouver, Toronto has Chinese listed as its third most spoken language in the city. Also interesting to note is the Chinese attraction to money, for Chinese people have flocked to "Richmond" in Vancouver & "Richmond Hill" in Toronto. Coincidence?

Though Chinatown has a lot of Chinese people, there are also many other minorities including Vietnamnese and even South Asians. The Chinese @ Chinatown have also changed from mainly Cantonese & Fuken people to Mandarian people from throughout the Mainland. Now it is easier to get around knowing a couple of phrases of Mandarin like "Zhe shi shum mall ?" (translated: What is this?)

There is a huge selection of cuisine for you to pick from, & though many places are very dirty, many times it is worth it! From Thai to Shanghainese...you could never leave with an empty stomach. There are also a lot of hawkers and mini-vendors throughout Chinatown that offer bargain offers. From Chinese calligraphy to pyjamas, there is a lot for eagar shoppers to sift through!

On the newly reconstructed Spadina Ave, you could see a sculpture two red dragons wrapping around poles. The whole structure forms the Chinese word door, pronounced "moon" in Cantonese.

I walked to and through Chinatown from the Sheraton Centre in downtown and the experience was incredible. I truly felt like I could have been walking the streets of Beijing or Shanghai. Signs printed in Chinese script hang everywhere you look. We even saw a scene from a movie or television show being filmed along one of the streets.