Just like today is going to be "review day" (shooting for 5, on the heels of the bunch I wrote last…read morenight), Saturday, Feb.22nd '20 was the unofficial "Parent nostalgia day" in Toronto, where, for lunch, we went to Very Fair - a place my wife's father used to frequent so much, they knew him by name - and for dinner we went to a place my parents favored when they were living.
Very Fair is ostensibly a "seafood restaurant", as are many of the Chinese restaurants that want to appear respectable: fresh, swimming, seafood is highly favored by snobbish Chinese foodies, especially those hailing from Hong Kong. As such, this "hole-in-the-ground" restaurant (literally, since you have to go down to the basement) boasts tanks of live fish, lobsters, crabs... right in the dining area. There are a few private dining rooms, ideal for majong players, but the dining area is small for a "regular" Chinese restaurant - I'd guess the open area seats maybe 120. They have been around for a long, long time: Agnes' dad passed away in 2005, and back then Very Fair was considered an "old establishment"! And it feels old. Not sure if they've actually refurbished the place in the recent decade or longer, but if you have to guess... Well anyway.
Our late lunch found a very empty place. We were going to go with dim sum and skedaddle, but their special of lobster with noodles caught our eye - who can resist a lobster dish for less than $15 USD? It came OK, definitely on the greasy side. While it didn't taste bad or anything, it may or may not have been swimming right up till the time it drew its last breath. But it was a whole lobster (or close to it - we did not try putting the chopped up pieces together, forensics-like), and I'd guess pound-and-a-quarter. We tried a few dim sum too. The har gau LOOKED very presentable, but upon sampling, we discovered it to be quite un-Trump-like (meaning, it was not thin-skinned). The tea was decent.