Where I Take Business Guests in Toronto — East Asian Food That Always Delivers
Singapore Slaw at Lee Restaurant
As a Chinese Canadian who has lived in the Greater Toronto Area for over 30 years, I can say with confidence — Toronto has some of the best Chinese food you'll find anywhere outside of Greater China.
Markham, which has one of the highest concentrations of Chinese residents in Canada, is the epicentre of this. Every type of Chinese cuisine is represented there — Cantonese at Congee Queen, Northern Chinese at Din Tai Fung, and honestly most regional styles you can think of. But it goes well beyond Chinese food. Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Singaporean, Asian fusion — all of it is available and done well in Toronto.
And if you go beyond restaurants into bakeries and dessert spots — Lucullus Bakery for the best pineapple bun in the city, Sugar Marmalade for desserts — thank god I don't live too close to most of these places. I'd gain 20 pounds for sure 😂
Business Guests Are Coming — Time to Plan
I have business colleagues visiting Toronto soon, and it got me thinking about where to take them for meals. I typically do at least one lunch out and one nicer dinner downtown.
It's not always East Asian food — some of my favourite restaurants in the city include Byblos for Mediterranean, Jacob's Steakhouse for a Caesar salad so garlicky it should be illegal, and Nirvana for Indian food with a biryani done properly — cooked with a breaded top covering the way it should be.
But when I want to make sure visitors get a real taste of what Toronto does best, I have two East Asian go-to restaurants that never let me down.
Lunch — Restoran Malaysia
I've been going to Restoran Malaysia for years. The chefs came from a restaurant at Pacific Mall that I can't quite remember the name of anymore, but they brought the real thing with them. This is one of the very few places in Toronto where you can get proper Malaysian-style curry with roti — and getting roti right is genuinely harder than most people realize. The texture, the layers, the way it pulls apart — most places get it wrong. This one doesn't.
Roti with curry at Restoran Malaysia
Beyond the curry and roti, three dishes stand out for me every time:
The Singapore Laksa — a noodle dish with one of the best soup bases I've had anywhere. Not too spicy, rich without being heavy. It hits exactly right.
Laksa at Restoran Malaysia
The Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南雞飯) — a dish originally from Hainan province in China but made famous in Singapore. What most people don't realize is that the star isn't the steamed chicken — it's the rice, which is cooked in chicken stock and somehow absorbs the full flavour of the bird. The accompanying sauce ties it all together.
The Nasi Goreng — technically a dish made across many cultures, including Hakka restaurants I've been to, but there's something about eating it here with the fried shrimp chips alongside it that just works.
For a lunch that gives visitors a genuinely different experience, Restoran Malaysia is my first call every time.
Dinner — Lee Restaurant by Susur Lee
For a downtown dinner with atmosphere and something a little more elevated, I take people to Lee Restaurant. It's owned by Susur Lee, one of Canada's most celebrated chefs — you can read more about him here.
I like bringing people here because they get to experience Asian fusion that has been refined over years of doing it properly. Nothing on the menu feels like an experiment.
The dish I always order and always recommend first is the Singaporean Style Slaw — a 26-ingredient salad that somehow achieves exactly the right balance of texture and taste every single time.
Singapore Slaw at Lee Restaurant
The rest of the menu holds up equally well — if you're not sure what to order, the set menu at $125–135 CAD is the move. It removes the decision fatigue and delivers a complete experience. If you have dietary restrictions, they'll accommodate substitutions as long as you mention them in advance.
Set menu at Lee Restaurant
And save room for the signature dessert — their Tong Yuan (湯圓). Traditionally, Tong Yuan are soft glutinous rice balls filled with sweet molten pastes like black sesame or peanut. Lee's version takes that foundation and builds a fusion interpretation around it that genuinely elevates the original. It's one of those dishes that makes you think about it afterward.
Tong Yuan (湯圓) at Lee Restaurant
Final Thought
Above are just two East Asian restaurants I'll be bringing my colleagues to — along with Nirvana for Indian food, which deserves its own post entirely.
Toronto is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. The food here is one of the best expressions of that diversity. As someone who has lived here for over three decades, I still find new things to try and old favourites I keep coming back to.
If you're visiting Toronto — or if you live here and haven't tried either of these places — go. You won't regret it.
And if you have your own Toronto East Asian food recommendations — drop them in the comments. Always looking for the next discovery.
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