Moldova Restaurant

Came here on a trip to toronto from Buffalo with one of my Moldovan friends.
I had a nice time. Staff was very friendly and service was quick. Food was pretty good and authentic, all of the staff seemed to be eastern european when I went, which is nice, and also spoke english. Yeah no complaints. Cool place.

The service was amazing and felt very welcome. Being a Moldovan living in New York, it is nice to see real authentic food that tastes delicious. Definitely recommend trying and will be back for sure!

3.5 stars

used to come here about 10 yrs ago, on regular basis, was my fav russian resto. I think ownership has changed since then. Service still good, prices up at least 50%, probably expected. The food, was a little better with previous ownership, but still pretty good now

During this pandemic, I gravitate towards making and eating foods that are comforting to me. Although I am not Eastern European, I do love the cuisine. It's a combination of my living in Winnipeg, where I had amazing Ukrainian food, and having khinkali (Georgian dumplings) and more over a year ago.

I miss going to Bravo Bistro, which is an eatery steps away from the office where I work. It offers cabbage rolls, perogies, and more that I love. It seems like eons ago when I was last was at the office.

Anyway, I was running errands like I typically do on a Saturday. I needed to grab some lunch, did a search on my Ritual app, and found Moldova Restaurant. It has khinkali. Yay!

I originally ordered the khachapuri (it's essentially a cheese pizza with an egg on top). A few minutes later, I was notified that it was out of stock. I was sad. Perhaps pouty. Who could tell behind a mask?

Ritual is good in that it gave me 15% off my next order. Well, I took full advantage of that deal by changing my order up in less than five minutes.

I got these items instead:
- Khinkali with buckwheat as a side
- Cabbage rolls
- Honey cake

My order would be ready in fifteen minutes, according to the app. I took my time leisurely driving over to the restaurant from shopping at Giant Tiger in Etobicoke.

Moldova Restaurant is on Dufferin Avenue, a few streets south of Steeles Avenue West, on the southwest side. This restaurant is in an area with tons of parking. It was quiet on a Saturday afternoon.

I backed into a parking spot and went in. There is patio dining. No one was dining.

I headed over to the bar. Although it said that my order was ready on the app, it wasn't. The nice gentleman said that one more item needed a few more minutes. He offered to come to my car and deliver my food. I was game. I headed back to my car and waited.

The wait wasn't long. It was roughly five minutes. He came over to the passenger side. I rolled down my window. He placed two plastic bags containing my food on the floor and was wearing a mask. One had my dessert, including ice cream. What?! I didn't realize that it came with ice cream. Yay!

I thanked the nice man and made sure my food was protected before I drove off like a crazy woman to avoid having melted ice cream. Nah, the crazy driving part didn't happen. I simply dreaded the thought of having melted ice cream by the time I got home.

I was ready to eat lunch at 5 pm. Yeah, my lunch time is becoming an early dinner on Saturdays as the months go by.

Everything was nicely packed. I was pleased.

I had the cabbage rolls first. There were four of them with tomato sauce over them. They were so good. Each one had ground beef and rice in them. The cabbage leaves were tender, but not mushy. The filling was flavourful and not overly salty. The tomato sauce was bright. Yum!

I then opened the box of khinkali. There were four of them. They looked Georgian to me. I was so happy. I carved into one. The filling seemed to be a mix of pork and beef. It was generous. The khinkali were delicious. The dough was perfect. The filling was spiced well. They were juicy and done right.

I was curious about buckwheat as a side. I've had buckwheat in pancakes and soba noodles. I didn't know what to expect. Well, the buckwheat was seasoned with parsley and salt. I enjoyed it a lot. I had so much left over that I ate it with a side of corn the next day and loved the combination. Buckwheat is yummy in my books, and a nice alternative to potatoes or rice.

I love honey cake. I automatically said yes to it when I saw the menu on Ritual. The layers were impressive. It was yummy. It could have been more moist cake-wise, though. Still, the wasn't overly sweet, which I appreciated. It came with three scoops of vanilla ice cream, which did not become ice cream soup in this heatwave. The caramel drizzle make me think that two of the scoops were faces looking at me... haha! The ice cream definitely balanced out the slightly drier cake.

I would have given this place five stars if it hadn't run out of khachapuri. It just means that I need to return to this eatery and order it again. Hopefully, my luck is better on that front.

I loved my food here. It's a hidden gem that I wasn't aware of. Thank goodness I found it on Ritual.

(212)

I was visiting Toronto this summer and was invited to Moldova restaurant. Since I have Russian background, I Ordered borsh, vegetable stew and Kiev kutlet, that was exactly like my grandma's. I highly recommend this restaurant to people who love Russion/ Ukrainian cuisine .
I really liked this place and will visit it again.

Eating at Moldova Restaurant, I couldn't help but wonder if the food was lacking or if it's just Moldovian cuisine that's subpar. Though I didn't especially enjoy anything I ate, it's entirely possible that everything was a superior example of the dishes they were based on.

But bad food is bad food, ultimately.

We arrived around lunchtime on a weekday and the place was sparsely populated. I ate:

Harcho ("Spicy soup w/ meat and rice"): This dish was easily the best of the bunch. It's a fairly bland, tomato soup-like concoction that kind of grew on me as I ate it. There aren't too many flavors going on here and the spice is almost non-existent, but it's no worse than something I'd eat out of a can.

Chebureki ("Fried meat pie"): This bizarre dish is essentially a very thin, underseasoned piece of meat in a pastry. It's edible, I guess. The lack of flavor is bizarre, to say the least, and I feel like the pie would've been helped by a dipping sauce of some kind.

Mamaliga ("Corn meal w/ sour cream and feta cheese or fried meat"): This thing left my dining companion and I scratching our heads in confusion. It's essentially a very bland, tasteless corn meal cake that's accompanied by sour cream and feta cheese (we were not given the option to choose fried meat). We both ate a few bites of this tasteless mess and gave up.

(I should also mention that the Chebureki was supposed to come with a side dish but that didn't happen. Our smile-free waitress wasn't exactly approachable, so we didn't bother asking.)

Went in there about two years ago and food was tasteless however decided to give this place a chance and asked my bf to grab a takeout from there ..... no change

The only Slavic food place that has AMAZING food, great prices, great service and a convenient, clean and updated location !!!

It's very hard to find all of the above - and I recommend this place to everyone. EVERYONE...

I had a great time and food was great. I ordered xarcho, a spicy beef rice soup and Kiev Cutlet. Soup wasn't too spicy and tasty. And chicken Kiev Cutlet was really good. It comes with side of rice or French fries or mash potatoes. Rice was very tasty. Highly recommend for trying Eastern European food in Toronto.

Amazing! Great food and the service was impecable. I will recommend this to my friends for sure