Szechuan Legend Restaurant - Thornhill

In a recent Toronto Life article (May 23, 2017) Guangzhou-born (came to Canada at age 12) sushi chef, Jackie Lin, talked about places he and his friends have found for Chinese food. This is one of his favourites and Mapo Tofu on rice is tops on his and on my list! The service was fast friendly beginning with tea and hot sour soup. The spicy minced pork and tofu provided both flavour and sustenance for a very tasty lunch.

Despite the abundance of peppers in the second photo, the fish in the hot pot tasted bland and watery. It was too soft for my liking and the dish came out lukewarm, which was disappointing. I wondered if they had reused the peppers and we ended up with ones that had lost their flavor. I usually love spicy fish but this one was unexciting and flat. As a third dish, I decided to order spicy clams to make sure we were full. Unfortunately, my friend had a terrible experience when she found a green/black clam in the dish and ended up spitting out sand and grit. It was a shock for both of us and it completely ruined our dining experience. The rest of the dish was very oily but tasted okay, although we will definitely be more careful about checking our food before eating in the future.

This place is awesome, many Szechuan flavored dishes to choose from, almost every single one is done right (unlike some Chinese Szechuan places they overdoes it by adding too much salt, or sometimes not flavorful).. What's more they also have a few non-spicy food that's good for the kids too. Great place for taking the family out anytime for a casual eating.

We ordered too much food and it was all very hot, greasy, and delicious. If you can resist overeating, you will enjoy the pork belly, organ meat hot pot, noodles, and tea-smoked duck. Overall, the food was fantastic, but I just ate too much.

In a Richmond Hill strip mall full of restaurant options, this is a gem. We were looking for authentic Szechuan food, and found it here, The attentive staff are lovely. They helped us order so we had a great cross section of food flavours. Clean restaurant. No complaints. Reasonable prices.