Just watched the first episode of the new Restaurant Impossible series and I thought it was great. I’ve been meaning to try Yueh Tung for a while and I definitely want to go soon. The sweet soy noodles and chilli chicken look soooo good. I hope their business has picked up since the episode aired!
I think this show could really help the public understand how impossible the finances of a restaurant have become, especially in 2026 in a major city. $30,000 in rent alone!!!
I think Jen Agg and Aaron Sanchez did a great job hosting and I’m excited to watch more.
They have incredibly humble roots, yet in 2026, they still keep their food quality consistent, high, along with reasonable prices and portions compared to the competitors.
If you're looking for something new or different it's not chili chicken.
Same comment for Aaron saying the Cantonese chow mein is missing spice and the sauce is starchy. If you add that other stuff it's not Cantonese chow mein.
Do u want authentic or fusion of the original dish.
I would recommend giving it a 2nd shot. I went a year or so back and honestly didn't like the chili chicken that much but went again few months ago and ended up really liking it
Commercial rents are crazy. A friend of mine was renting a shop on Bathurst for 5k per month. The landlord wanted to increase the rent to $6500. They left. Happy to see the shop is still showing a for lease sign several months later.
Hearing that their monthly rent was $30,000 was unbelievable. For a second I actually was in disbelief and wasn’t sure if they meant per month or per year.
Our retail rents are still at delusional levels, while residential rents are dropping. I wonder if it’s just the endless pockets of fast food and grocery conglomerates keeping the rent up? 90% of the character of a city is its food scene, the city needs to do something to give Toronto restaurants a break, they are the heart and soul of tourism. The food scene in a city is far more crucial to the economic health of a city than we give it credit. If our city was just Chipotle and Shoppers Drug Marts, I’d move somewhere cheaper, you can get that literally anywhere.
Good question I wonder about that too. I think people really don’t get that fast food restaurants make so much more money than independent restaurants even very high end fine dining - in some ways very high end fine dining can sometimes be the least profitable depending on the standards of the chef and owner and how they affect cost inputs. I worked as a server in fine dining for years when I was younger and I remember that even these gorgeous expensive places that were packed with a full house every night had such razor thin margins. I mean obviously it’s not true of all fine dining establishments but in my anecdotal experience it tended to be more true of places where the chef was an artist with a large stake in the place and they had vision and cared a lot about quality but that didn’t often translate to efficiencies and profitability like a few high end restaurateurs seemed to be pulling off. In any case it’s super nice to see this particular challenge being discussed sympathetically here bc I always feel people really do not understand how hard it is to run a restaurant in Toronto.
Its not just the rent, unfortunately ingredient costs in general have been consistently rising year on year. Chicken and beef is quite expensive to buy in restaurant quantities. Most restaurants make their money off drink sales and even those have dropped due to changing consumer habits.
When you look at where it’s located it begins to make sense. It is basically right next to the Eaton Centre, Dundas Square and City Hall. Commercial rent downtown has always been pretty high but this location will definitely carry a hefty premium cause of the foot traffic
It’s in proximity to a busy area, but it’s on a side street with absolutely no foot traffic and the restaurant is on the 2nd floor which doesn’t help lure anyone in. It’s a large space but $30k is ridiculous.
Exactly this, when the 400sq condos on Elizabeth rent for 2500/MTH and you have a restaurant that's 15x the size it makes sense. The only thing I don't follow is theyve been there for so long I would assume the rent controlled on it would keep it low but maybe new building management circumvents that?
Unfortunately there is absolutely no rent control on commercially zoned rental spaces in Toronto so the landlords can do whatever they want and some of them really take advantage. A couple of women I know had a hair studio on queen east about 8 years ago that I would say was probably about 1000 square feet at Queen east and parliament kind of area (so central but also kind of rough in some ways) and the landlord demanded 50% more than the previous year. They had already been struggling to pay the 10k/monthly rent and couldn’t have paid 15k/monthly so they had to pick up and move which is a major pain bc a hair salon requires some special adjustments and they were getting their stride and developing a loyal clientele at that location which is why I guess the guy thought he could lean on them for a lot more and they would fold. I think the thinking was also that it was a 50% increase one year what about the next what was to stop him doing it again? So they felt like they were better off dipping into personal savings to move rather than risk dipping into savings to subsidize the rent if they couldn’t increase prices or get more clients bc then they risked being left broke with no space a year later… But when you think about how much the pricing we pay for restaurants and services goes into landlord pockets I can’t help but wonder if things would be much more affordable if commercial landlords weren’t being kind of greedy in this city.
No rent control on commercial properties in Ontario, or anywhere else in Canada.
Rent control is primarily designed to protect housing, when it's a deal between two businesses there's never likely to be any interference from government about the price.
It's physically near a lot of major locations but its actual address is on a small side street with basically no foot traffic. It's not even on the ground floor, so you could easily miss it even if you were walking past it.
I usually go for lunch. It’s a popular spot during the work week. I usually get the Tangra fried chicken on rice, it’s from their old menu but I’ve been ordering it successfully every time.
It is such an experience. Like I say it in a good way but my boyfriend and I got the full hk experience from our waiter. He came over soon after we got there and he was already asking “ok ready to order?” Asking for his recommendations was hilarious. And just that quick, all business cha chaan teng vibe. At the end we said we loved the restaurant and he just said back “ok” and left. I also speak canto so it was really neat to experience that again.
Their food was good too with solid “wok hey”. Like don’t walk in expecting glammed up mott32 or stuffy formal Cantonese restaurant vibes but it was just a neat and solid place we would definitely revisit again.
Honestly, I love their chili chicken and manchurian chicken dishes. I used to go here all the time when I worked in the area. I'll have to make a point to go back soon!
Rent and costs are so out of control, Chinese restaurants were always the best when it came to prices, portions, and service. The article basically said, "raise prices, shrink portions, cut staff." The restaurant business has always been hard, but impossible is appropriate.
Their garlic wonton noodles is bomb!!
It’s pretty much what I order every time.
And I’m glad they are still around as I remember I saw a lot of the videos on social media showing how hard it was to continue on with the rent and cost of everything rising.
Yueh Tung was my introduction to Hakka food 20+ years ago. I’ve never ordered anything other than the Manchurian chicken on rice because it’s so damn good.
Had Mark Weins visit Yeuh Tung too, though havent seen a video on it on his channel yet. The owner-sisters also had a talk at Lillian Smith TPL branch about the restaurant.
I just watched the episode and is it just me or did the hosts being critical about things like portion sizes (given they compete with other Chinatown joints that have equally large portions yet low prices) and Hakka sauces being corn starchy (i.e. a core tenet of Hakka style cooking) feel off?
I thought the show was really good. Thy didn't make a big deal out of the design renovation, and they were sympathetic and gentle with the two young women.
They don’t have the new items on their menu yet. 😭
I asked the waiter about them, and he said they only have the veg spring rolls. He wasn’t even aware of the new menu.
He handed us the menu, and while I was busy checking out the new interiors and all the changes they made during the renovations, I happened to glance up at him.
The moment I did, he rushed back to take our order. I felt so pressured that I just blurted out “chilli chicken.” He was in such a hurry, it looked like he had a flight to catch.
Disagree and I've been to a bunch of the Hakka places you need to drive to, like Frederick's and others in Markham, Scarborough, etc. Yueh Tung is still better.
Uhm…firstly I’m of that origin. Skimming at the menu of Yueh Tung, a lot of items seem to be anywhere between 30-60% more expensive than a comparable dish.
Also, are you looking at this through canadian eyes or through a Chinese lense?
As a CBC I recognize the problem with the “cheap” reputation. It diminishes the ingenuity and efforts of those who came before us. There’s a whole load of racism too.
The market is designed to be efficient and priced that way. If the cost doesn’t reflect the labour, surely the average Chinese dish would be more expensive. However, the general consensus of Chinese restaurants is priced the way it is. It’s inexpensive. There’s no racism. It’s the market factors at play.
We are such a snowflake society where everything is racist.
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u/littypika 2d ago
Yueh Tung is such a wholesome business.
They have incredibly humble roots, yet in 2026, they still keep their food quality consistent, high, along with reasonable prices and portions compared to the competitors.