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Magic Wok Cantonese Cuisine
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good For:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
- Has TV:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
13 reviews for Magic Wok Cantonese Cuisine
13 reviews in English
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Review from Josephine C.
Markham, ON
2/3/2012
I've been coming here to Magic Wok since I was a kid. I remember their old Scarborough location which was always crowded and the waiter who spilled sauce on my dad's expensive new shoes.
Fast forward to a few decades later, and the core wait staff is still the same! The brother and sisters all look the same. My parents know one of the waiters, Happy, from another chinese restaurant location down the street. I thought they were pretty good. Like a typical chinese restaurant, the service is usually very quick and efficient. Just don't expect them to come to your table and ask how the food is every few minutes.
The food here has always been excellent for the price. Whether it's seafood, veggies, meat, really can't go wrong. I would say they are best known for their lobster. $14/lb during the summer can't be beat. Oh, and it's fresh and cooked well too (stirfry ginger with green onion, curry, etc).
They always have dessert, usually red bean, sweet almond paste, or "tofu fa". If they run out, they'll give you a sliced orange.
Just a note though, Magic Wok is still only open for dinner. They make enough money during dinner that they don't need to open for breakfast or lunch. It's always busy during weekends, so patience is required (reservations don't really help). -
Review from Cheryl C.
Scarborough, ON
10/17/2011
3.5 stars.
Maybe we came on an off day (Tuesday after Thanksgiving, everyone must have been still working on their turkey), but the restaurant was only half full, so we didn't have to fight for a table like the other reviewers. The food was variable but generally ok:
- crab: good flavour but very greasy
- chicken: good taste, but slightly dry; the person who chopped it didn't do a very good job, it was kind of in a pile in the middle of the plate, and there was a more than usual number of stray bone slivers
- taro duck: very good, it was finished off even though it was one of the last plates to arrive
- steamed fish: ok, not fantastic, but not subpar
- ying yang rice: good taste, the sauce was a bit more starchy than I like
Overall, the flavours were pretty good, I just prefer the lower grease levels that other Canadian-Canto restaurants have moved towards since the last decade or so.
Service was pretty good, no complaints here. -
Review from Avitania B.
Toronto, ON
8/26/2011 1 Check-in Here
Magic Wok, indeed! It's crowded and the service was not that great, but the Cantonese food was stupendous. First, your meal at Magic Wok starts off with a bowl of complimentary pork soup, which is nice and unctuously delicious. Our family style entrees included spicy lobster (absolutely amazing), beef tenderloin (so succulent and delicious), the most tender chicken... my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Complimentary dessert, too -- during my visit, it was a red bean soup. So yum.
It can get very crowded here, so your best bet is to come early.Listed in: Toronto Favorites
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Review from Corrupted M.
Scarborough, ON
10/22/2011
Had a 8 dish set meal, was enough for 10 people for $126.
-Seafood Soup
-Sweet and Sour pork
-Scallop with greens
-Steamed fish
-Lobster - ehh...oooh kay
-Some rotisserie chicken with some sauce - Tastes pretty good
-Duck covered with taro and deep fried - nothing to write home about, more taro than duck
Complimentary dessert - red bean and small tapioca (EXCELLENT)
Everything was pretty fresh and most importantly hot (temperature) when it came out.
Taste wise, it's pretty much taste like any other cantonese cuisine.
Service was pretty fast and efficient, and both of the waiters we dealt spoke english.
Will go again. -
Review from Kat K.
7/6/2011 1 Check-in Here
Throwback to the divey Chinese restaurant era of the 90s, and surprisingly not much has changed. Except maybe the portions which seem smaller these days. However that could be, because the last time I was here I was considered to be a small fry.
This place is famous for their Cantonese style food. My favorite dish was always their salt/pepper deep fried squid and on my last visit I tried their taro stuff duck, which was so good that you know it's bad for you.
The decor of this place hasn't changed, so it does look really run down, and you shouldn't look for an upscale, attentive experience from the servers; mainly because you won't get it. It's typical Chinese style service, as to what you would get back in the mid-90s. Hurried, inattentive, etc. But usually coming to this place, my expectations on service isn't high to begin with. Even if you have a reservations, don't expect them to hold the table for you, since they do get pretty busy... My visit before my most recent one, was a two hour wait with reservations, just to give you an idea. They do brisk business, but whether or not get seated at a table if you have made a reservation ahead of time during peak hours is another matter altogether.
The parking lot here could use a resurfacing, becaus it's pitted with potholes and there isn't enough parking for the capacity that they do have to begin with; but once again the food is usually good enough to override any qualms on the details. -
Review from Jane J.
9/12/2011
Although Magic Wok's location is tucked away in quietness from the busy Kennedy, I still managed to find you after all this time! I remember coming here with my parents more than 10 yrs ago and then again 6 yrs ago when I returned with a friend and just recently 2 weeks ago. The food is still amazing for family style and I'm glad it hasn't changed. Still as busy as ever! Magic Wok, I've made you and Congee Wong both part of my Must Stops anytime I'm in Toronto.
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Review from Terry F.
12/26/2009
This is one of the best Cantonese food places in Toronto. It is consistent in quality and taste. It has been this way for the last twenty years. There are so many good dishes and I am not sure where to start?
The Bird's nest is excellent. Also they have a Smokey chicken that is also delicious. They also have great steamed oysters. One of the key things about this place is they have extremely hot woks (using gas) that allows the food to come out nice and hot. Many restaurants lack this sort of heat.
This place is the kind of authentic place were you find 95% Asians in the restaurant. There is usually a lineup during prime dinner times.
Check it out. You wont be dissapointed. -
Review from Jennifer K.
Markham, ON
11/18/2009 1 Check-in Here
Magic Wok has been around for years.. I mean 25 years + or more.
They have 2 locations, one in Chinatown Spadina and Dundas and one uptown (used to be in Scarborough and they built their own restaurant up at Kennedy and 14th)
The Magic Wok uptown is famous for 2 things: their nasty waitstaffs and their good Cantonese food!
Some of waitstaffs that worked 25+ years ago still working there!! I guess having nasty service can be a trademark in itself. To be fair, they are all a lot mellower than when they were young...
Magic Wok is not opened for lunch, just for early dinner till late at night..so no lunch special...
When you walked in the restaurants you will see tanks of fresh seafood: crabs, fishes, lobsters that you can order live and make it anyway you want...They even bring the live fish to your table to show you.." I am so sorry, I did not mean to kill you fish...but I am hungry..."
All the dishes are well prepared and pipping hot when served... And there is free soup and free dessert (my favourite is tofu pudding that made in house)
They settle the bill by counting how many bowels of rice you order by the empty bowels on the table.. so there maybe dispenency if you by accident using one of the rice bowel as your space bowel....(that happened to us often!)
Service is fast if the kitchen is not busy... (so go when it is NOT busy...)
They has their own parking lot which is small and it can be quite full during busy time..and you has to park across the street on the side of the road..
All the dishes are great .. I love everything I ordered from here.
They take Visa and Mastercard. -
Review from Archimedes T.
Toronto, ON
6/23/2010
Just came here for a party. I haven't been here for a while.
Started with deep fried oyster. But it didn't come with any sauce and was a bit bleh. Too much berating too.
Next came seafood birds nest. It was quite good. The nest was not too oily and the broccoli was very smooth to taste. The scallops were good too. Will order it next time.
The next thing we got was improperly served bean curd with seafood soup. I say improperly because the way the waitress poured it the soup spoon handle had soup on it as well. This also happened to the person beside me. I think because unlike a proper server who takes out the spoons before pouring the soup, she did not.
The soup was good though. Not too salty. Rocky road texture which I like with a bit of parsley to add a bit of fragrance.
Since they don't wear name tags the best thing I can do to describe the rude server is this. Middle age, chubby, female, glasses with short hair and streaks.
The next dish was sweet and sour pork. The meat would have been good but the sauce was a bit too tangy so I was not able to enjoy it as much.
The next two dishes we got were crispy chicken and steamed fish.
Though the chicken was very soft and juicy in texture the taste was just dominated by salt. Sort of a waste.
Fish was good. Nothing really special.
Lobster which arrived soon after also nothing special, but it is still good.
Spicy sizzling beef on a hot plate. Since it is spicy I cannot eat much of it. From what I tasted though, it wasn't really an excellent spice choice for me as I did not enjoy eating it. However I liked it crispy noodles it came with.
The next dish I ate was the deep fried shrimp. The nice part of the dish was you can eat the shrimp whole with the skin. You can taste the shrimp. Unfortunately they did put a bit too much salt on it so it masked some of it's flavor.
The next dish was a braised duck and veggie dish. It looked very healthy. Different kinds of mushrooms and other veggies. However, after taking a bite it was so laden with MSG I did not bother eating it anymore after one bite.
Wow talk about lousy service ordering water we just got a tray of water dumped beside me and we just distributed it ourselves.
I tried their king oyster mushroom and snow pea sprouts. Maybe I am just in aftershock from the msg from the other dish, but I could not eat this too well.
Their filler noodle was not too good either. Couldn't eat more than a couple of bites and it felt a bit myech in my mouth at this time.
The myech feeling went away with the desert. Some tapioca soup which actually neutralized most of the MSG feeling in my mouth and it wasn't too sweet so bonus points for that.
And there is no free wifi.
So because of LOUSY service, and some bad food in the mix, this only gets 3 stars. If I had to pay and tip them it will be definitely be less than 10%. -
Review from Kavi G.
Toronto, ON
6/15/2010
We were in the mood for Chinese food on Saturday night, and figured we might as well trek out to Markham. Markham is chalk full of great Chinese restaurants, and parking is so much easier up there than it is in China Town.
Magic Wok is your typical Markham Chinese restaurant. Large round tables, white table cloths that get dirty easily and large plate sizes. Elena and I ordered way too much food, but each dish was great.
Based on Google's suggestion, we tried the deep fried duck in lemon sauce. It was really lemony, and almost candy like when chewing. We also had deep friend prawn in spicy salt, chow mein, baby bok choy in garlic and a super huge plate of chicken fried rice. I was really impressed with the plate sizes when matching it against the cost. Would definitely recommend the place if you feel like trekking up to 14th Avenue and Kennedy.
Heads up, and everyone says this online, but the parking lot at this place is T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. -
Review from Willow W.
Richmond Hill, ON
3/30/2011
The last time we came here, we came with a large group of friends. We were glad they were able to accommodate us without making reservations in advance.
I've been here a few times before, since they've been around since forever, and the food is good. It's a really authentic Chinese restaurant and they have lots of different types of seafood (my fave). Some stuff aren't on the menu, but they have this really good fried boneless eel that's definitely worth trying.
Definitely a good place to come occasionally with family or friends. -
Review from Mike C.
Brampton, ON
2/11/2010 1 Check-in Here
Not entirely sure how such a busy restaurant can punch out dishes so fast. Good authentic Chinese restaurant that I would come back to.
A good dish is the mango chicken in bird's nest (don't worry my bird loving friends, it's not a real bird's nest). -
Review from Francisca W.
1/24/2010 8 photos
the essence of cantonese stir-fry is to have a high heat wok, enough amount of oil, quick stir till food's cooked, served steaming hot. we call it "wok hei" in cantonese.
yeap, this place has very good food. naturally, the line is very long too. and it seems like it's a toronto-chinese culture to make reservations for everyday dinner. that said, no "reservation" would guarantee seating at the appointed time--you're just telling them you MAY be arriving and they will TRY to get you a table as soon as possible. can't blame the restaurants, as many patrons don't take their reservations seriously and often abuse the system (ex. reserve in multiple places, don't call to cancel in case of skipping out, etc.). yeah, chinese courtesy in a nutshell.
that aside, food is great and totally worth returning. the hardest part really is getting a spot for your car outside AND for yourself inside.
:)Listed in: Canada: Hidden (or not so…
