The thing about Mississauga is that there is a plethora of well-known chains, so dinner options are kind of limited in my opinion. Even Vietnamese restaurants up here are chains with multiple locations throughout the GTA. Out of all the choices that we had, we chose Pho Dau Bo, cause it was a short drive away. Pho Dau Bo serves traditional Vietnamese food at reasonable prices. They're located in a nondescript plaza, and offers minimum decor. However, they are always bustling with customers on both weekdays and weekends.

I have been to this Pho Dau Bo at least three times in the past two months. They make pretty solid rice dishes, so I have always ordered the same rice dish. My regular order is always (#469) grilled chicken, grilled pork chop, shredded pork, steamed egg, and fried egg with steamed rice ($8.25). This dish was generously portioned, and came with a bit of everything that I like. Both the grilled chicken and grilled pork chop were flavorful, and fairly moist. Additionally, the overall presentation of the rice dish was pretty decent.

The brisk and non-conversational service is exactly what you come to expect from any Vietnamese establishments in the city. So for me, the service isn't really a factor when it comes to choosing a Vietnamese restaurant to eat at as the food quality is much more important to me. I find the food at Pho Dau Bo to be pretty consistent, and I have never had any issues with them. The portions are generous, and you can easily feed two people for under $25 (including tax/tip).

Address: 1125 Dundas St E, Mississauga, ON, L4Y 2C3

Five Guys Burgers & Fries is a chain of fast food restaurants with multiple locations in Canada, US and UK. The limited menu is centered around the usual fast food fare; burgers and fries. Just a note that there are no combo options, so everything is individually priced. I opted for a cheeseburger, regular fries, and a medium drink, and the total was a little under $20. 

The cheeseburger ($8.49) was a lot smaller than I expected, given its price. However, I do have to give it them that they are consistent with the quality and taste of their burgers. All burgers are made to order, so the patties aren't frozen like a few other known chains. For those who likes to customize their burgers with various toppings; Five Guys offers quite a few free toppings. Looking at their counter top, they do have a good selection of free toppings that you can add such as mayo, lettuce, pickles, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, jalapeno peppers, BBQ sauce, hot sauce, and more. Overall, the cheeseburger at Five Guys Burgers & Fries was not outstanding, but it was still a good burger.

 Address: 1510 Dundas St East Mississauga, ON L4X1L4

Jade Dim Sum is a small dim sum restaurant offering fast and affordable dim sum in Mississauga. My significant other, J, recently purchased a home in Mississauga, and I have been spending some time up there lately. The location of the home is a lot closer to his workplace (about a 10 minute drive), so he prefers to stay up there on the weekdays. However, we will mainly be staying downtown on the weekends (Friday through Sunday), but will occasionally go up there as well. So, we have been randomly picking restaurants to eat at whenever we're up in Mississauga together.

About two weeks ago, we were craving for some dim sum, and did a random online search. We stumbled upon Jade Dim Sum, and decided to give it a try. Jade Dim Sum does not offer traditional cart services, as they use the pen/paper method. The restaurant was only half full around 11 am, but it quickly picked up once it was lunch time at 12:30 pm (we were leaving). 


We started off with the garlic baby bok choy, which honestly looked underwhelming when it arrived to the table. However, the dish was rather tasty and flavorful. The prices for their vegetables was a little high, but their dim sum dishes were very reasonable in price. The dim sum was good, and comparable to the ones that I have had in downtown Toronto. My personal favorites were the shrimp dumpling (ha gow), shrimp rice flour roll, and the garlic baby bok choy. Personally, I'd skip the fried shrimp triangle as it was overly crispy with a lot of residual oil.

Overall, I'd say that Jade Dim Sum is a good standard choice for dim sum, and I'd return again in the future.

garlic baby bok choy ($9.95)

beef rice flour roll ($2.20)

shrimp rice flour roll ($2.20)

preserved egg and pork congee ($2.20)

shrimp dumpling (ha gow) ($2.20)

pork shrimp (sui mai) ($2.20)

fried shrimp triangle ($2.20)

steamed Shanghai dumpling ($2.70)

spare rib with black bean sauce ($2.20)

Address: 2280 Dixie Rd, Mississauga, ON, L4Y 1Z4

Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu is a very budget friendly Korean restaurant. Their menu is limited with only 10 dishes and 6 of them are variations of soon tofu which they specialize in. 

 We were greeted by a friendly waitress, and given the menu. We both knew what we wanted, so we got our order in pretty quickly. Before our meal arrived, we were given four small dishes of bachan (kimchi, bean sprout, radish kimchi and beans).

Instead of soon tofu, I opted for the broiled BBQ (beef) with hot stone pot rice ($10.62). The dish arrived on a sizzling hot plate, and accompanied with a bowl of freshly made purple rice. This was a solid dish as the portion was generous, and I really enjoyed the flavorful beef. 

John got the kimchi soon tofu (pork) with hot stone pot rice ($7.97). You get to choose the spice level for the soon tofu from the following selection: extra spicy, regular spicy, medium, mild and white.

Overall, this is good comfort food for the cold weather that we're currently experiencing.

Address: 3085 Hurontario St, Mississauga, ON, L5A 4K9

Swiss Chalet is a Canadian chain of casual dining known for their rotisserie chicken. They have roughly over 200 locations all throughout Canada. I had been to a couple of different Swiss Chalet locations throughout the years, and there's really no consistency sometimes. This specific location in Mississauga was one of the better ones that I have eaten at. I try not to return to the same chain often (as I like trying out new restaurants) but this choice was made by a friend of mine who I was meeting up with.

Cheese perogies ($6.49) - cheese and potato filled dumplings served with zesty Cajun sauce for dipping.  

I ordered the chicken & shrimp ($12.99) - a quarter of our famous Rotisserie Chicken paired with eight shrimp, sauteed in a light Tuscan garlic sauce. Served over our seasoned rice pilaf with your choice of a white or multi-grain roll and Chalet sauce for dipping. The chicken was of a decent size and wasn't overly dry or brunt like I have had at some other locations. Normally, the shrimp would arrive out at the same time as the chicken. However, the shrimp took more than 20+ minutes to come out from the kitchen. Our waitress apologized for the delay and placed down a plate full of shrimp. I believe that the meal only comes with about 4-5 pieces (judging from the picture in the menu), but I got about 10 pieces. She apologized again and explained that the extra pieces was for the delay of the dish. The shrimp wasn't super plump but at least the sauce was flavorful enough without being overly salty.

The service was surprisingly good as our waitress was genuinely friendly, and accommodating. It was rather busy that lunch hour, but she was quick to take our order, refill water and bought us extra plates. The food wasn't spectacular (more so on the generic side), but the service made up for it

Address: 1170 Burnhamthorpe Rd W Mississauga, ON L5C4E6 

Growing up in a Vietnamese household, I was spoiled by countless bowls of home-made pho and bun bo hue. I rarely order pho out nowadays as I have been disappointed with most of them as they are sometimes MSG-laden and comes with tons of fillers (bean sprouts, lime, and not much meat). I was in the Mississauga area one afternoon, and decided to check out Pho Mi 99.

The restaurant sits in a rather busy plaza, and there is a large parking lot with free parking. Walking inside, the restaurant was simply decorated, but its interior was rather spacious. My bf and I were greeted and quickly seated. Like many other Vietnamese establishments, they offer a variety of items from appetizers, rice dishes, pho, bun bo hue, soups, vermicelli dishes, drinks, and etc ...

As a starter, I ordered the deep fried spring rolls as an appetizer (#13) ($4.25) which came with two pieces. The spring rolls had a good crunch to it, but there was nothing special about the filling.

As my main course, I got the grilled chicken & grilled pork with vermicelli (#423) ($7.00). I thought that the noodles were perfectly cooked and the there was a good amount of meat. Additionally, both the grilled chicken and grilled pork were tender, and I liked the marinate that coated the meat. Portion-wise, it was a very filling meal.

The bun bo bue (hue style soup) #436) ($8.00) was available in only one size. The soup had a decent amount of noodles, and the broth was flavorful. I know of some places that opt out of blood curds, but there were two pieces given here.

 The overall service was rather friendly, and attentive. Additionally, the food didn't take long to arrive to our table.

Miga Korean & Japanese BBQ is a fusion restaurant located up in Mississauga. The original plan was to go to Sushi 168, but the estimated wait time for a table for two was 1.5 hours. That was a really long wait for an AYCE, so we decided to go next door to Miga Korean & Japanese BBQ.

The price for the weekend (Sat) AYCE dinner was slightly steep as it was $26.95 per person (drinks are not included). However, I am rarely in Mississauga so I'm not sure if that's the normal price range of AYCE places in the area. Looking through the menu, I noticed that a majority of the cooked food is traditional Korean dishes. The only Japanese food that they do offer are rolls and udon. The list of rolls wasn't extensive as they only offer 15 different rolls; many are basic rolls too. I am a huge Korean food fan so I was happy with the selection. However if you prefer Japanese food more then you will surely be disappointed.

The great thing about uptown restaurants is that it's usually free parking. There is an allocated parking in the front of the restaurant with a decent amount of space. Additionally, I thought that the rule regarding any leftover food was rather excessive as you'd be charged $5 per unfinished dish. That sounds pretty crazy to me considering the portion for each dish is pretty small. However, we ate everything that we ordered so I am not too sure how lenient they are with this rule.

Seafood selection was not that great

The seafood selection was not that great -- it was pretty much limited to crab legs and very small shrimp.  I think there was probably something on t - See more at: http://www.goodeat.ca/2011/09/im-sucker-for-mashed-potatoes-eagles.html#sthash.mXqZY55m.dp

The menu was conveniently on a single laminated sheet.

The side dishes that we got were vinegar radish, kimchi, seaweed and potato. Nothing special, just standard bachan dishes.

The Miga salad was a lot larger than I expected. It was probably twice as large as what you would regularly get at sushi restaurants as a complimentary dish. The salad was lightly dressed in a tangy sauce, but some pieces of lettuce were quite large.

The udon soup portion was extremely small; I had to order three of them. The broth was average and it came with a few pieces of udon noodles, one mushroom and one piece of fake crab.

The bulgogi (marinated beef) was soft and marinated perfectly with a sweet sauce.

I didn't like the pork at all as I found it rather bland and a little on the dry side. 

The chicken was coated in a thick marinade and it was sealed in nicely with the meat. Additionally, I liked the contrasting slightly spicy and sweet flavor of the chicken.

Whenever I order noodles, I must have it spicy. So I was happy they had stir fried spicy noodle with beef on the menu. For those don't take spices very well, there is a non-spiced version of the same noodles. The presentation was rather plain but I enjoyed the dish a lot.

The fried calamari was horrible and I had to force myself to finish the dish. The batter was absolutely tasteless and the calamari was overly chewy; making it difficult to chow down.

I don't think anyone can really screw up tteokbokki (rice cakes) as it's quite a simple dish to make (from personal experience in the kitchen). Anyways, I enjoyed the tteokbokki a lot here as it had a lot of flavor and there was a nice spicy kick to it.

Bibimbap is a signature Korean dish that is served in a bowl of rice topped with assorted vegetables and a fried egg. The presentation of the dish was rather nice looking for an AYCE and it also tasted good.

Another personal favorite of mine was the kalbi (marinated beef short rib) dish. The meat quality wasn't the greatest since it is AYCE but I thought it was grilled well.

I was too full from all of the cooked Korean dishes that I didn't order many rolls. I opted for the spicy salmon roll (3 pcs) and crab roll (3 pcs). As expected, it was very plain tasting and the rice was a little too sugared down.

As for service, our waitress was friendly without being intrusive, quick, and attentive. It was a nice change compared to the lack of service that are often found at many uptown Korean restaurants (based on personal dining experience). Additionally, the food arrived quickly to our table and our empty plates were constantly being cleared.

Old Barber House is a restaurant set in a home built in 1862. The property has a small sized gazebo in the back, and a beautiful garden full of booming flowers and grasses. The view was quite magnificent.