Dining Out: Thanksgiving Dinner 2026 at Swiss Chalet

As per Thanksgiving tradition, I spent the day binge-watching Season 1 of Gilmore Girls and then went for dinner with my mom at Swiss Chalet. We got there just before 6:00PM so we didn't have to wait for a table, but we did notice an increase in big families there, so clearly more and more people are realizing that cooking Thanksgiving dinner at home is totally not worth it. (Which is fair. Also, chicken is honestly just so much better than turkey.)

Chalet chicken soup
Thanksgiving Feast: Quarter rotisserie chicken with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, and dinner roll
Pumpkin pie

We got the Thanksgiving Feast, of course, but this is the first year that they wouldn't let us add an extra quarter chicken to make a double-leg dinner (which is what we do every year because a quarter chicken dinner is never enough for us). Not sure if it's because the kitchen wouldn't have enough dark meat for other customers (in this area, people generally prefer dark meat to white meat, which is fair, because same) or if the management changed and they can't figure out how to charge the Thanksgiving Feast with an extra quarter chicken (which, frankly, would make them morons), so I'm hoping it's the former. I ended up getting the chicken soup to start instead, which is always tasty and comforting. It is somewhat overpriced at $5.99 per bowl but I figured out what they do with all that extra white meat they don't sell.

I obviously got the pumpkin pie for dessert because it's the only time of year that I can get it, and as per tradition, I am left wishing I got the pecan or apple pie instead. Anyway, I hope everyone had a safe and delicious Thanksgiving!

Swiss Chalet

Markville Mall

5070 Highway 7

Markham, ON L3R 4M9

(905) 305-1809

Dining Out: Mid-Autumn Festival 2026 Dinner at NKS Banquet Hall

Another Mid-Autumn Festival dinner at NKS Banquet Hall, but with just my mom and her bestie:

Stir-fried beef tenderloin with celery, snow peas, and cashews
Deep-fried stuffed Chinese sausage and mushroom tofu with broccoli
Stir-fried gai lan with garlic
Crispy skin free-range chicken with shrimp chips

Got all our favourites, of course. We were contemplating getting Peking duck again, but the restaurant actually had a curated menu just for Mid-Autumn Festival and when we saw that Peking duck was a whopping $65.99 just for today, we did a hard pass. (They do a $25.99 Peking duck special on Tuesdays. I think if it was double the price, we still would've gone for it. But more than that? No, thanks.) Not a huge loss, though, because their other dishes are delicious enough on their own; they're always cooked perfectly and we always leave satisfied, and tonight was no different. No moon cakes for me because they're too expensive (seriously, $12+ for one), too high in sugar, and frankly, I don't even like them. But I made up for it by having a scoop of Kawartha Dairy's Death by Chocolate ice cream at home while looking at the full moon from my window.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

NKS Banquet Hall

New Kennedy Square

8360 Kennedy Rd., Unit B06

Markham, ON L3R 9W5

(905) 948-8668

Dining Out: Mid-Autumn Festival 2026 Family Banquet Dinner at NKS Banquet Hall

Had a big nine-person banquet dinner/fam jam for Mid-Autumn Festival at NKS Banquet Hall:

Peking duck
Seafood egg white drop soup
Stir-fried Cantonese garlic ginger lobster
Baby bok choy with enoki mushrooms
Shredded Peking duck with lettuce cups
Deep-fried panko-crusted oysters
Steamed bass with scallions and ginger in soy sauce
Deep-fried garlic chili pork ribs
Sweet and sour pork

This is the first time that I've come here for a multi-course Chinese banquet dinner, which was quite exciting because that means we got to try so many more dishes. Everything was delicious, but the Peking duck and deep-fried oysters were definite highlights for me. (I always want to get the Peking duck here and my mom always say we'll come on a Tuesday because it's half-price, but we never end up making it.) I haven't been back here since February for Chinese New Year dinner, and I am happy to report that NKS is still just as excellent and underrated as ever before. (And also fantastic value — all this food was just under $40 a head after tax and tip. Anywhere else, it'd be at least $50 per person.) 

Happy Asian Thanksgiving!

NKS Banquet Hall

New Kennedy Square

8360 Kennedy Rd., Unit B06

Markham, ON L3R 9W5

(905) 948-8668

Dining Out: Chinese New Year 2026 Dinner at NKS Banquet Hall

A Chinese holiday wouldn't be complete without dinner at NKS Banquet Hall with my mom and her bestie:

Thick-cut char siu (BBQ pork)

Stir-fried sirloin beef with broccoli and candied walnuts

Stir-fried gai lan (Chinese broccoli) with garlic

Steamed tilapia with soy sauce, ginger, and scallions

Crispy skin free-range chicken with shrimp chips

Longevity buns

A complete meal of land, sea, and sky! (Okay, chickens don't really fly but it's still a bird, and IT'S SYMBOLIC, OKAY?) Got all of our favourites — including, yes, the best char siu I've ever had in my life — along with the traditional steamed fish in soy sauce and scallions (for prosperity, of course). Finished off with some piping hot longevity buns that the staff gifted us since my mom was born on Chinese New Year in the lunisolar calendar (yes, she is the only person I know that gets to celebrate two birthdays just because of this). Anyway, if you're wondering how the hell the three of us could eat all of this food — we didn't. There was enough food for two more dinners. And, obviously, since I am way too lazy to cook and they take pity on me, I got to take home of all the glorious leftovers!

Happy Year of the Horse!

NKS Banquet Hall

New Kennedy Square

8360 Kennedy Rd., Unit B06

Markham, ON L3R 9W5

(905) 948-8668

Dining Out: Chinese New Year 2026 Dim Sum at Purple Orchid

I took the day off and went for Chinese New Year dim sum with my parents at Purple Orchid:

Egg custard tarts (daan tat)

Steamed pork and shrimp dumplings (siu mai)

Fried glutinous rice dumplings (ham sui gok)

Steamed shrimp dumplings (har gow)

Steamed BBQ pork buns (char siu bao)

Steamed bean curd rolls

Lion dance!

The dim sum was good — classic options, standard portions, no frills but tasty (though the char siu bao were a little too soft; the bottom was almost mushy), and decently priced (about $60 in total after tax and tip for six dishes plus tea service for three people). A solid choice for dim sum in the Richmond Hill area. Bonus: we got there just in time for the lion dance show. A great start to the new year!

紫蘭軒 Purple Orchid

Jubilee Square

270 West Beaver Creek Rd.

Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3Z1

Dining Out: Christmas Day 2025 Dinner at Xiang Zi Hot Pot

My mom and I decided to go for Christmas dinner at Xiang Zi Hot Pot after last year's rousing success. We invited her bestie and got a 5:30PM reservation. It seems like they decided to do two seating times this Christmas instead of having reservations at any time like they usually do, because when we got there, it was a full house.

Tofu puffs, fish balls, quail eggs, beef tendon balls, luncheon meat, lotus root, daikon, and winter melon
Chrysanthemum greens and tender beef slices
Bean curd rolls, lettuce, napa cabbage, king oyster mushrooms, and spring rolls
White fish, squid, beef tripe, and tender beef slices
Premium abalone
Fresh-cut beef slices
Mushroom and pork bone soup

So, last year, we were blown away by the assortment and set up they had at Christmas. They had a huge buffet-style spread of various prepared dishes and snacks as well as extra raw items to pick up ON TOP of their full tablet menu. But they decided to do things a little different this year. They cut down about half the menu and put almost everything out buffet-style. A bunch of our favourite things — various slices of meat, prepared cold dishes like lettuce stem salad or spicy cucumber salad — weren't available. A lot of the ready-to-eat foods weren't being refilled fast enough. There were only about 10 items we could order from the tablet to the table. Disappointing, since the sheer variety of food is what we love about coming here over other hot pot places.

An issue this evening, though, is that we were seated upstairs. I don't really mind myself (hey, extra steps means I can eat more, right?), but my mom and her best friend are in their 70s and have bad knees and arthritis. And the buffet? Where all the food is? It's downstairs. There's no elevator. So I ended up walking up and down the stairs about 8 times to get enough food for everyone. And that's fine because that's as much exercise as I'm getting this holiday week. No biggie. The real problem? They FORGOT OUR HOT POTS. You know, the actual pots with the broth that we can cook all of our raw food in? Yeah. All three of us ordered the same type of broth — mushroom and pork bone. Not a particularly complicated order. They usually get our pots to us within minutes. But tonight, it took them 45 MINUTES for them to bring our broth pots to our table. This was after asking three different servers to check on them for us. And, mind you, every table gets a 2-hour seating limit here. The server sheepishly had to assure us that they wouldn't have a time limit for us tonight — frankly, the least they could do. If we weren't hungry when we arrived, we were starving by the time we could actually eat our food. 

So, yeah. Xiang Zi's Christmas dinner service this year was a disappointing, disorganized mess. Judging by how long they took to get our hot pots to us, how many empty chafing dishes there were at the buffet, how long it took them to refill all the different ingredients, and just the lack of variety that they usually have, I'd say they were way too understaffed for the sheer amount of customers there tonight and had to cut way back on food costs. I've never had a less-than-excellent time at Xiang Zi, so this dinner was particularly disappointing. (I also just discovered that they don't even have an official website anymore. Are they going out of business?)

On that note, I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and a better dinner experience than we did!

Xiang Zi Hot Pot

Uptown Market Shopping Centre

3989 Highway 7

Markham, ON L3R 5M6

(905) 305-9888

Dining Out: Christmas Eve 2025 Dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House

We originally wanted to have our annual family Christmas Eve dinner at The Keg, but obviously, they were fully booked unless we wanted to eat at 4:00PM or 9:00PM. (We didn't.) We were scrambling to find somewhere decent to eat for the holiday that had a reservation time from 5:00PM to 7:00PM, and then my brilliant mind thought of Ruth's Chris Steak House — definitely pricier than we were seeking, but then my brother insisted that Christmas dinner was on him because he and his family weren't coming up this year. And lo and behold, they had one 6:45PM reservation slot left. It was meant to be!

Arugula salad with goat cheese, cranberries, and grapes tossed in cranberry pomegranate vinaigrette
6 oz. centre-cut filet with shrimp
Garlic mashed potatoes
Maple-glazed butternut squash with maple candied pecans
Creamed spinach
Roasted Brussels sprouts with applewood-smoked bacon and honey butter
Mini white chocolate cheesecake

All four of us went for the Ruth's Classics prix fixe menu, which includes a starter, an entrée, a personal side, and dessert for $97. I got the cranberry arugula salad (the perfect combination of sweet, bitter, and tangy — I could honestly eat this everyday), the 6-ounce centre-cut filet and shrimp (okay, The Keg does great steak, but Ruth's Chris does IMPECCABLE steak — the beef is so melt-in-your-mouth tender, I almost didn't need a steak knife), and my mom shared the garlic mashed potatoes and the maple-glazed butternut squash. We also got the creamed spinach (the ultimate steakhouse side dish and the unanimous favourite) and roasted Brussels sprouts (sweet, salty, smoky, crunchy — addictively delicious) for the table to share. For dessert, a perfect mini white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry coulis and two pieces of dark chocolate bark — rich, sweet, and decadent, but small enough to keep us from feeling too guilty (and bursting out of our pants because they know how full we'd be by the time dessert rolled around).

This was the best Christmas dinner I've had in years. I think this might be a new Christmas tradition in the making. (At least, I will make it so. My family will have no say in the matter because I make the reservations and therefore hold all the power.)

Ruth's Chris Steak House

170 Enterprise Blvd., Unit J101

Markham, ON L6G 0G5

(647) 794-0170

Dining Out: Christmas Eve 2025 Dim Sum at NKS Banquet Hall

I had a half-day of work today and it would've been churlish not to go out for lunch since it's Christmas Eve and all, so I made plans for dim sum with my mom and her bestie at their regular spot:

Dough fritter rice noodle rolls with yuk sung
Steamed BBQ pork buns (char siu bao)
Steamed shrimp dumplings (har gao)
Steamed pork and shrimp dumplings (siu mai)
Pan-fried turnip and preserved pork patties (lo bak go)
Deep-fried shrimp and chive dumplings
Deep-fried pork and egg yolk glutinous rice (zong)
Baked egg custard tarts (daan tat)

I know I've talked endlessly about how great and totally underrated NKS Banquet Hall is, but honestly, if we're talking quality vs. value, their dim sum is absolutely the most worth it. Their decor isn't as fancy as Casa Victoria or trendy as Luna, and they keep it simple and traditional with their dishes (no truffle oil or gold foil here), but NKS is cheaper than both and the quality of their food is consistently excellent (similar to Casa Victoria; significantly better than Luna). The tea fee, at $2 per person ($1.80 if you're a regular, apparently), is on par with most dim sum places, but if you spend $20, you get your choice of siu mai or beef meatballs FOR FREE. IN THIS ECONOMY!

Also, if the room filled almost exclusively with Cantonese-speaking senior citizens isn't indication enough (and most of them are regulars since no less than five people came to greet my mom), NKS is — at least in Markham (which, honestly, is more Chinese than Toronto's Chinatown) — the best place to come for dim sum. And there's never a line-up because all the Millennials are going to the trendy, Instagram-able dim sum places. (I admit I have been guilty of this a time or two.) But y'all, when it comes to dim sum? Always trust the Hong Kong immigrant boomers! They don't give a shit about Google reviews or ratings — they just want good, authentic Cantonese food.

NKS Banquet Hall

New Kennedy Square

8360 Kennedy Rd., Unit B06

Markham, ON L3R 9W5

(905) 948-8668