Konner Chinese Restaurant

I been coming back to Konner Chinese Restaurant for dinners a couple of time, and both times I have good experiences and of course great yelper dinner mates!

Now I realized that make Konner's spiciness uniquely different is their spiciness is garlicky spicy... yes they are still hot and have a great kick but it is more than pure spicy.. sometimes just being hot makes some dishes lost their character..and every thing just kind of taste the same!!

Other dishes I tried:

Spicy winkles ($6.99)
- winkles kind of looks like little snails. Stirred fired in a black bean garlic chili sauce
- I was trying to suck them out.. but really you do need to pick them out with toothpicks

Steamed Fish Head with Pepper ($15.99)
- If you like fish heads... there are a lot of gooey goodness inside the head.. and be cool when your friends making sucking noises when they eating the fish eyes.....
- Just look spicy with all the red chili.. but quite savoury

Steamed Taro with Pepper ($8.99)
- A healthy option... maybe just too healthy...
- steaming the Taro does changed the texture, my fellow yelpers were not too impressed.. but I have to give credit for the huge portion...

Dong Ting Duck Noodle ($6.99)
- Great savoury duck broth, surprising good tasting..
- Big portion good value!!

Chicken in Hot Pot ($11.99)
- interesting presentation with the burner heating the hot pot
- chicken a little rubbery and dry and tasteless

Services here always surprising good. Waitresses speak limited English... Mandarin preferred.. but with all the photos in the menu, you would not have problem ordering..

Good place for Northern Chinese food.

Food: We ordered
beef dumplings, fish dumplings and lamb dumplings: beef dumplings are steamed dumplings, it's a little bit different from the boiled. The fish dumplings not have too much fishy smell.
fiqifeipian is very good, same taste like I tried in China. The lungs are very fresh and tasty.
Then sour soup fish soup was also good. The spicy taste was from the Zanthoxylum oil, which is my favourite taste. It has spicy and ma taste at the same time. If you like this taste, don't wait to have a try. I strongly recommend this soup.
Finally, the vegis we ordered was because of its special pot. They are only spicy taste.

Sercvice: The service is efficient. We got a seat as soon as we arrived at the restaurant. And they served tea as soon as we sat there. They finished the food and served to our table just after 10 minutes we ordered. The special dish they recommended was very useful as well.

Environment: The whole place was just like the normal Chinese restaurant. It's big and bright. The restaurant is very easy to find, it just located by the street. It's a great location. The more important thing, this place is clean unlike other Chinese restaurant gave us the dirty impression.

Price: The total we ordered was about 50-70 not so expensive because we have ordered a variety of dishes. We were very hungry that time. Normally you just need to spend less than 50 for 2 people.

I love spicy food and so does my father in law and we were excited to try out Konner for some Hunan cuisine that he's been talking about recently.

Since we had 3 non-spicy food lovers in our group (including my 3 yr old), we ordered various items carefully avoiding any dishes with 3 chillies. We ordered general tso's chicken (not at all spicy, my toddler ate these no problem), some pork rib soup in a bamboo container (meh), beef fried rice (ok), sliced fish (basa) in spicy broth laden with dried chilies (way too salty and not spicy even when I ate so many of the dried chilies), cold steamed chicken in chili oil (the best dish of the night), lamb skewers (too tough and not enough cumin), stir fried baby pea shoots (bleh), some pork belly dish with dried long beans (tasteless and the dried long beans were too chewy) and steamed rice.

Overall, the quality of the food was underwhelming at best without much consistency. The service on the other hand was just atrocious. There were maybe 3-4 other tables and the 2 servers in the hall were running around like a couple of chickens with their heads cut off. We had to repeated ask for rice and water and they brought out our food and just stood there, waiting for us to make room on our table for them to put down the dish.

To add insult to injury, we were seated next to a huge group with some 4-5 pre-teens who couldn't sit still at the table during their meal. They were running circles around their table, constantly bumping into the back of my seat and my daughter's seat. The adults at the table didn't seem to think that was a problem at all and even after a few dirty looks from me, they just let the kids be. Unbelievable.

The bathroom was just disgusting with tissues everywhere on the floor and smelling worse than some port-a-potties I've had to use. My daughter gagged as soon as we walked into the bathroom corridor even before entering the washroom.

All points combined, I will not be re-visiting Konner again any time soon. I hope there are better Hunan restaurants to discover in the GTA.

I had higher expectations based on reviews and unfortunately they weren't met.

Perhaps, it's how we ordered but I would call this more Sichuan than Hunan. We had:

Griddled Cabbage with Pork: This was delicious, served over an open flame. The cabbage still held its crunch, however, there was very little pork. The photo showed large strips and we found ourselves digging through the cabbage with our chopsticks to find a small piece.

Spicy Fish: This turned out to be the Sichuanese Shui Zhu or water boiled fish. It was good, they used very few Sichuan peppercorns taming the ma la flavour.

Kung Pao Chicken: We asked for SPICY, but it arrived with very little heat, the vinegar was good.

I don't think we'll be giving Konner a return visit, perhaps it's how we ordered. Note that afterwards both me and dining companion had uncomfortable stomachs-- another reason we won't return.

We always go back every year for Chinese New Year.. last year there was a bug issue in our food which we forgave and so this year we tried again. Some of the food we ordered parts of it was cold and they left the wood piece to steam the fish in our food. Ridiculous. When we asked about it they said "Oh yeah it's for steaming purposes to make it less time" Yeah but is it suppose to be in our food?! "No no not suppose to be in the food, one of our new guys, our bad" Okay... gets the bill, no discount. We complained we should have gotten 10% off because it was their fault for not removing it, not our fault for spotting it. We got our 10% off and needless to say, they have officially lost our business.

TD;LR : Last year there was a bug in our food..this year they left a piece of wood in our food. And didn't bother to take it off our bill. (I

I rarely write reviews online. However, the dish they served today was just beyond acceptable. The dish's name was spicy incense pot.

First, instead of using chilli, the dish used chilli seeds to create spicy flavor. The dish was covered with hundreds or thousands of chilli seeds. This choice was just surprising. I lived in China for more than twenty years and had been to many Sichuan and Hunan restaurants. None of them use chilli seeds only in their dishes. This definitely cut their cost but it created a very bad feeling when chewing the dish.

Second, the majority of the dish is green pepper, potato, and oinion. Are you kidding? Potato is the only valid material for spicy incense pot. The rest two can never taste good in spicy incense pot. Again, they probably just want to cut the cost.

Third, I found two or three shrimps and a few squid rolls, which constituted all the meat in the dish. However, the shrimps were not fresh at all. I can't tell the quality of those squid rolls.

All in all, I ordered a dish that has become very popular in Chinese restaurants in the last few years, expecting some spicy food of average quality. However, the dish I ate today was really disappointing. In fact, I could not even finish the dish because of tons of chilli seeds all over every piece of potato, green pepper, and onion. I walked out very hungry.

I love Hunan food, and have been looking for a good place in Toronto. This place is really good. The dishes were really flavourful (especially the lamb dishes). Great Hunan food. It's definitely spicy but not overwhelming.

The portions are pretty decent. Two dishes (plus rice) would be enough for 2 with leftovers to spare.

They have a membership where you pay $20 to join and you can get cheaper prices on most dishes... Il be signing up for that. Also looks like they have good deals on the lunch specials.

Will definitely return (again and again)

It is to my displeasure, I have to report, konner has closed its doors forever. I will always remember this place fondly. Staff were great, food was great. Oh well, must move right along and find another restaurant that can serve the spicy Chinese dishes like them.

RIP Konner Chinese Restaurant. It was great while it lasted. You have my respect!

Snap Judgement: Good vibes and lively. Great place to share a meal with friends and family. Decent food.

The décor is modern with dark espresso finishes. A large sparkly crystal chandelier is the main focal point of the dinning area. At its maximum capacity, it is a tight squeeze especially when trying to get to the back of the restaurant, where the new and clean bathrooms are located.

- We decided to try Deep Fried Fermented Tofu. Because of the strong fetid aroma, this delicacy, especially for someone like me, was an acquired taste. [http://www.yelp.ca/biz_photos/u3wWKIIdTZuAYqa2jHJoxA?select=ZfU_yazNOaI0Ge50ZnMqng]

- The steamed Fish Head with Chili Pepper was listed under Konner's specialty. The large fish head arrived steaming hot, covered with bright fresh red chili and scallion. The mighty chili will make you think, "man, this is going to hurt." But nope. It looked like some of the chili seeds had been omitted (?). Which, in my opinion, would have intensified the tasty broth even more. [http://www.yelp.ca/biz_photos/u3wWKIIdTZuAYqa2jHJoxA?select=PcQ_4ufUTHTTDZzTFcafZg]

+ Chicken in the Pot had been prepared and simmered in spices. This pungent dish was presented in a mini cast iron pot, and hung over a small burner. Love the spicy sauce! The best part of this dish was the dark meat pieces, they were scrumptious. The white meat, on the other hand, was less than impressive. [http://www.yelp.ca/biz_photos/u3wWKIIdTZuAYqa2jHJoxA?select=6Z5FZTcxKfPel3QbeZ96YA]

+ Dongting Duck Noodle Soup was delicious. The tiny pieces of duck meat was juicy and wasn't gamy. The broth was flavorful with a hint of spices. I would love to see larger pieces of the succulent duck in this dish. [http://www.yelp.ca/biz_photos/u3wWKIIdTZuAYqa2jHJoxA?select=9Mb8OVf4s4fl9q4sNls4Og]

I'm totally digging Northern Chinese cuisine. I love the hearty and robust style of cooking, as well as the use of zesty spices. Is Konner Chinese Restaurant THE place for Northern Chinese cuisine? I'll have to go back, try other dishes and compare them to other Northern Chinese cuisine establishments. In the mean time, my search continues.

Konner specializes in Hunan cuisine, one of the eight great Chinese cuisines. Excellent, I thought as I had no clue what Hunan food was about but at time all I knew was that it wasn't Szechuan. Little did I know that the distinction behind Hunan dishes is of it's purely Hot Spicy rather than Szechuan's complex Spicy. Hunan should also be fresher, oilier, and simpler.

There's not much lobby space while we lined up in queue and synchronized with looking at the Menu and writing up our order until our table was ready for this Hot n' Spicy crawl. Menu has lots of introduction for this cuisine along with great photos. I guess it's inline with their motto of introducing Hunan cuisine to the Canadian community.

Fish Head w/Pepper($15.99/small) is a Fish Head steamed and topped with Chili Sauce and side dish of Noodles. It was A-OK in general as Fish Heads go, however I felt that it was just slightly underdone as I sucked on the Head cavities. The Chili Sauce probably had some salt to give that savouriness and went GREAT with the Noodle(think Soba - Slurp!).

Hunan Fermented Stinky Tofu($4.99/small) looks to be five-spice variety Tofu as it was dark in appearance. It stank if you ZOOM close-by and the texture was crispy exterior and light airy interior. Alright snack but not my favourite Stinky Tofu of the bunch.

Chicken in Pot($11.99) was Snail and White Meat Chicken with Spicy Sauce/Bell Peppers/Onions. Imagine a small scale Cowboy style Chuckwagon Chili over the open fire, which is the style of presentation here. I didn't like the bland White Chicken Meat as it was neither marinated or juicy. (-0.5 *Star)

Dong Ting Duck Noodle Soup($6.99) was enough to feed a couple and it probably is an imagery of Dong Ting Lake in color. I didn't like the boney Duck pieces as much but it was only a small aspect of this dish. The Rice Vermicelli was a good selection as it doesn't get soggy while the Duck Broth was almost an equivalent of a Tonkotsu in depth which is probably why we thought over it. Obviously I won the battle!!! :P