1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
After seeing so many Ho Lee Chow branches throughout Toronto for at least 10 years, I decided to finally give it a try - after all, it gives the impression that business is well and that should mean that the food is good for something.
I ordered some basic dishes, wonton soup appetizer, sweet+sour chicken and singapore rice noodles, along with one chicken/shrimp springroll(which i was told was average). Uponn opening the wonton soup, I was surprised to find a lenthy metal wire from those heavy duty scrubs (ball of wire) embedded in one of the wontons. Strike one. Then i tried the sweet+sour chicken which was a farcry from the real thing, not to mention the ratio of meat to veggies was ...1:12?? and not even tasty. The meat was barely deep fried and the sauce lacked good flavour. And there were a LOT of onions. A LOT. And NO pinapples - which is a standard for this dish. Strike two. Last was the Singapore rice noodles..which had a sort of sweet flavour?!? This dish should be pleasantly spicy with a sort of curry taste and NOT sweet. Also I noticed that the meat used in this dish was the same one carelessly thrown into the discarded wonton soup with the metal wire. I have to say that I am deeply disappointed and saddened to learn that so many people are supporting this low quality food, probably because they don't know better. After all, they've been here for about 15 years - that's 15 long years of lying to people and having them believe that this is authentic chinese food. Shame on this company for selling supposedly tasty Chinese food to unknowing non-chinese people. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but if i can offer this advice: save your money and if you want to have mediocre-decent Chinese food, just go to Chinatown and order something even if you have no idea what it is. I can almost guarantee that it will taste a LOT better and cost a lot less too. Although, for the ultimate in quality and cheap chinese food, head to one of the core chinese communities in Markham (Kennedy+Steeles) or go to Richmond Hill, or just east from that is First Markham Place. There, you can find so many restaurants and fast food places where your biggest problem will be deciding which one to go to..most have pictures and some sort of english description. The thing about chinese food for chinese people is that we always want the best quality for the lowest possible price - and being that these are some of the core chinese communities, these are the rules that the restaurants/fast food places go by or else they go out of business - cause chinese people are cheap ;-))
one last thing - the selling point of *NO MSG* --> that's a big load of BS cause no real chinese fastfood would be without it. anyway i've calmed down with the food thing but i hope this was helpful, because i'm still feeling really ashamed about this holeechow crap for food.
I do not recommend this place.
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