Pizzazz Pocket

I headed to East Chinatown on Wednesday for two reasons: stock up on groceries at Galaxy Fresh Foods and eat pho at Mimi (a recommendation from a laundromat chat). Mimi didn't happen because oddly, it was closed. Restaurants usually have Monday and Tuesday off.

I stepped inside Lee's Dumpling House. This was supposedly a family-run business though with 3 locations, was it an extra large family or just the owners were related? Someone who looked like a teen home from school did take over for an older lady while I was there. It was less dingy than 4 years ago with new banquettes, painted walls, and the workers dressed in uniform. They should have only 1 row of tables because it was cramped in this small space. Also, with the sauce bottles sticky from residue and melamine plates, it still felt a little cheap.

Dinner for me was Spring Onion Pancake ($7.95), 6 Har Gow dumplings ($9.95) and 4 Pan-fried Buns ($8.95). The pancake and buns were winners for me. While scarfing down the former, I mused that some sort of fried dough dish must be common across all cultures. The vegetarian (mushroom, carrots, vermicelli) buns were also tasty if not quite as good as defunct BauzZa. However the shrimp dumplings were also-ran. When they came out gloopy on a dish and not translucent in a bamboo steamer, I was worried. Luckily, the thicker shell was still soft and the shrimp had a good chew but still mediocre though. Along with the free shrimp chips, this was a filling meal with leftovers for lunch. I received some fortune cookies but they turned out to be ads for online sports betting site Tonybet ("You may soon discover a new kind of thrill").

As I rounded the corner to my sublet, I saw an older man ride his bike into the backyard. I knew the long-time tenant in the basement was unlikely to be a young person living in their first rental. In fact, my cousin spent their university years in Toronto sharing a basement with 3 other students in Chinatown. I was too far from campus (in their opinion) to be a room-mate. Still, the idea of someone collecting a government pension living underground felt dystopian. But in gentrified Toronto, I'm sure many older folks have to contend with a shrinking stock of affordable housing.