La Mere Restaurant :: Super Find in Scarborough

La Mere Restaurant
3278 Midland Ave.
Scarborough, ON M1V 0C9
416-297-0297

Every so often I read Yelp reviews and come across a place that I saw a while back but was a bit unsure of trying and then wish I did try it so I could be the one to discover such a great place!  La Mere is one of those restaurants.  In a short time, they've even opened a second location in Richmond Hill at Times Square (Hwy 7 and Leslie).

  

We had tried to go once on a weekend and it was packed!  The tiny restaurant only has tables of four's and two's.  So, definitely go off peak times if you don't want to wait.  I'm not quite sure if this place is considered "Northern Chinese Cuisine" but there are a several dishes that are characteristic of Northern Chinese Food. I'm happy Toronto has more and more Chinese restaurants that showcase the extensive variety of Chinese cuisine.  We ordered a few dishes to sample the range of offerings and all were tasty!

We ordered a cold dish of celery, cloud ears, and bean curd, which was light and crunchy.  Simply dressed with sesame oil and a bit of salt, it started the meal off great.

Cold Appetizer

The pork neck soup came with 3 pieces of pork which were tender and lightly flavoured.  The noodles were  chewy which we liked but became soggy near the end; common for a lot of noodles if you let it sit in the broth too long.  The broth was probably the most disappointing part of the meal.  Not too much on flavour but I'm also glad it wasn't too salty.  The noodle soup offerings are well priced and would be great as a quick lunch.

Pork bone soup with hand pulled noodles

If you like lamb, these were tender and fairly decent.  More spicy than cumin IMO though. Would be great with a beer, especially when served with toothpicks.  My only gripe would be the price is a bit high for the amount you get.  At $13 I expected a little more.

Toothpick Cumin Lamb

Below is the beef pancake that the Chinese name of the restaurant (老媽肉餅) is named after.

Crispy skinned and filled with a ground beef mix that tasted pretty good.  

Definitely a comfort food, oily, crispy, and meaty.

Beef Pancake ("Meat Pie")

Service was okay, nothing extraordinary.  But just an observation, another table had plastic gloves to eat their pork bones with but we weren't given any...maybe we had to ask?

There were definitely a few other things on the menu to try but we'll save that for next time!  Overall, a great find in Scarborough for good, hearty, and (for the most part,) reasonably priced meal.