(Menu at the end of review)
New City Restaurant (新城市餐廳), located at 8392 Kennedy Road, is a Hong Kong style diner (Cha chaan teng) that I go to quite often. It is a busy restaurant especially during lunch and afternoon tea hours, but the good food and great service makes any wait well worth it.
Here, I would like to highlight the two items that I consider New City to be the best in the Greater Toronto Area, Hainanese Chicken Rice and Ham and Egg Sandwich. To get better versions of these two dishes require a plane ride to Asia!
New City serves Hainanese Chicken Rice as part of a set meal including soup and hot drink for $7.25 (add 75 cents for cold drink):
What I like most about the chicken is the excellent taste and texture, but at the same time it is always properly cooked. In some inferior places, the lower quality is compensated by undercooking the chicken and serving it cold, hoping the customer would not notice the deficiency. Since New City serves the highest quality chicken, there is no need to choose between food safety and taste: you are getting the best in all aspects.
The rice is also perfect, with the essence of the chicken’s flavour fully infused within. Since no corners were cut during preparation, there is no clumping of the rice that one may experience in some other places.
Soup choices are the usual Hong Kong style diner options of Russian vegetable soup or the daily cream soup. New City’s Hong Kong style milk tea is smooth and full of flavour, although some may find it to be a bit on the strong side. They may find the iced version to be their preferred choice.
The Hong Kong diner style Ham and Egg Sandwich is one of the best dishes in the world. However, not all diners make their sandwiches with the perfection of flavour and texture as New City does, and it is rare to find another place that puts in the excellent quality and quantity of ingredients. A Ham and Egg Sandwich by New City ($3.20) is clearly the best in the Greater Toronto Area, and even better than the majority of diners actually located in Hong Kong.
New City is a restaurant I return to over and over again, with good reason.
Please see below the take out menu for New City, correct as of 9 June 2011. More options are available while dining-in.
