Pangea Hot Pot (Chinese)

Pangea Hot Pot is located in the plaza at 390 Silver Star Blvd., at Midland and McNicoll in Scarborough, Toronto's east borough. Lunch includes broth, which is an excellent value but only if paying cash with 2+ diners, otherwise the broths are $12 or so. Make sure to have the cash beforehand as there are no bank ATMs in the area! AYCD pop is available for $2.99 or non-AYCD for $1.99. Decor blends the new and the old with booths being very traditional, especially the ornate hot pots which I've never seen before. There is a a sauce station which also has pickled radish salad and other snacks. An interesting find there was Vietnamese sate sauce, an interesting combination of flavours which isn’t usually found at AYCEs; it’s not to be confused with the similarly-pronounced satay peanut-based sauce. One nice touch is a basket at the end of the booth tables to put bags, purses etc. in to keep them out of the way.

We chose sukiyaki and mushroom broth and both were delicious; it is even included to have two broths split, which is excellent as most places will charge extra for that as well, even if the two together are the same size as one alone. For starters crispy chicken with salt out of the snacks area was delicious and we both loved it. We also both enjoyed the radish salad and Mishy enjoyed the peaches. Beef/pork, meatballs, fish balls, lobster meat balls, and Chinese sausage were all delicious and fresh and very well seasoned. They went very well with the flavours of both broth. Mishy wasn’t big on the beef which is just about all she completely enjoys and she said it seemed to be of lower quality, but I figure that since it both gets boiled and picks up the flavour of the broth this is of lesser concern; still, I must note it and factor this in. Spinach and the mushroom broth was an excellent flavour combination. Fries, yes plain old French fries, were quite good, crispy and included ketchup. Tofu was very good and had some slight sweetness. Dumplings were delicious and didn't need any extra sauce.

For dessert there are included popsicles which are not on the menu, one per customer. They are the same Chinese variety that are available at Asian Dragon which is just a couple of streets away. The popsicles are absolutely delicious with a flavour that is definitely banana plus some other fruit in perfect harmony. From the menu there are also sesame balls, glutinous rice cakes and glass jelly with brown sugar, which is a very traditional Chinese jelly... it is also the only thing listed as dessert but the other two are dessert enough. The jelly was excellent as was sweet enough to be called a dessert dish with buba... I am not usually big on the herbal jelly but I did love this one. Sesame balls and glutinous rice cakes were quite good, but beware the red filling in the rice cake as it is super hot and burned my mouth. It’s $28.99 lunch ($30.99 on weekends.) This is pretty much standard for hotpots, however the included broth saving $12 or so makes it very good value.

Rating: 9 / 10