Ten Mile Aroma

Cheap, cheap, terrible atmosphere, but cheap :)
Very ugly place with dirty tables, floor and don’t even think about using toilets.
Positive side is very cheap beer that taste like water, but again, cheap :)
The food is nothing special, but yet again, cheap :)
So if you are broke and have no need to satisfy any aesthetics or gourmet needs, this place is recommended.

For those who are looking for a pitcher of cheap mystery lager, this place is for you.
(The only reason this place gets 2 stars.)
Otherwise, there aren’t many positives about this restaurant. The service, the food, the atrocious washrooms, the atmosphere and even the patrons are thoroughly sub-​par.
I suggest eating elsewhere before embarking on your mission for cheap bland beer.

Other than the service was friendly, their food wasn’t good… The veggies in mu shu pork were under cooked, mushroom chicken stew barely had mushrooms nor did the chicken have taste, and the rice wasn’t that fresh (lots of clumps).
Would not come here again for Chinese dishes. If I had to come back I’ll probably try their buns.

Good, cheap, authentic Chinese cuisine in a horrible atmosphere. Worst washrooms in the city. $ 6 beer. That’s all you need to know.

Beer’s cheap and the glasses are dirty! Unilocal me… Hopefully I don’t get food poisoning…

The last few times I’ve gone I have been thoroughly disappointed in the quality of the food. Not sure what’s going on but I probably won’t be back.

Not a real pitcher and the beer couldn’t be identified by the wait staff. $ 5.99 for sub par light beer. Whatever it was you could get drunk on dirty beer if ya want.

My son and I wandered in here on a rainy Monday night and were surprised by the deliciousness of our meal. We ordered the eggplant with green beans, lamb dumplings, and noodles with shredded pork and vegetables, and every dish was a winner. It was nice to get a taste of something a little different too (their focus is northeastern Chinese cuisine). Great value and we love the name. :) Will definitely be back. In the words of aforementioned 7-​year old son, «the restaurant is awesome and good and excellent and yummy!!!»

Had a wonderful experience after Michaelangelo at the AGO today, it was like walking into the Cameron House in the mid 80s – a table of old guys drinking and being a bit loud. The reviews here about the cheap beer have explained what three old white guys were doing in this place on a Friday afternoon LOL
We ordered the Spinach Salad with Nuts and Fruit and one of the eggplant dishes – there were four on the menu! Both were excellent.
I also enjoyed the documentary on the Hainan Island textile industry that was on the tv close captioned in english :-)
Overall a prime urban experience. Magical!

If you’re planning to bring your date to a spot for good food, this is not the place for you. But if you’re planning to find a spot where you and your friends can get smashed before the club for cheap, then come on over!
Pitchers of beer here is 7 $ if i’m not mistaken. You don’t get your usual branded ones like Coors, Molson, Bud, etc, But their craft brew beer definitely measures up!
The owner here is a jerk. One time I witness him dumping out half of a paid pitcher because the customers were hanging around taking up a table.

We have been eating in this restaurant over 10 times. There’s just one dish made us coming back to this restaurant — lamp skewers (6 for $ 6.99). Their lamp skewers are pretty consistent, only one bad ones out of ten plus times.
Other than lamp skewers, have to talk about the cheap beer. One pitcher of light beer for 4.99, black for 5.99, where can you beat it… And the beer taste good too…
To be honest, other than lamp skewers and beer, other stuff are pretty under average…
The 3.5 star rating goes to the lamp skewers and beer only .
P. s. the atmosphere is under average as well.

If I could have given 8 stars, I would have. How do you place rating on a transcendental, utterly out-​of-​body experience that brought you back to some of the sweetest and most cherished memories of your childhood — memories that you didn’t even remember you had?
Having grown up in China eating Jian Bing Guo Zi and Lamb Skewers, I haven’t had a good one of either in 10 years ever since I have been in the U.S. I have gone to thousands of restaurants in major cities from New York to Los Angeles but never in the past decade have I discovered food as authentic and excellent as the Jian Bing that Ten Mile Aroma offered. Each bite brought tears to my eyes — enough said.
The dark beer we had was delicious and cheap as well. Food was a tad on the oily side but otherwise I recommend this place by award-​winning chef with both hands and feet and with my whole heart.

This place is not so commendable for its appearance of cleanliness — rather reminds me of my childhood back in China.
BUT it is the only place to find 煎饼 downtown, AND their glass noodle with cabbage stew is heavenly. You want northern China food — you’ve found it here.

My friends warned me that they only come here for the beer. I don’t drink, so while they partook in the cheap $ 5 pitchers I decided to be brave and try their veggie dumplings. They were completely soaked in oil and had crusted bits of stuff that had obviously been stuck to the pan from previous rounds of cooking on them. So gross. Then as my friends were on their second pitcher of beer, they went to pour a glass and a used piece of gum came out along with the beer. Again, disgusting. And don’t even think about using the washroom. I wish I’d gone in there BEFORE I’d ordered the dumplings, because I certainly wouldn’t have eaten anything there afterwards.

First of all, I am Northern Chinese but I grew up in Canada. Almost a decade ago, I visited Toronto and went to a restaurant that was simply the best Chinese restaurant I have ever been to. Now that I am living in Toronto, I have been trying to discover this restaurant. A few months ago, I discovered this was Ten Mile Aroma.
I am writing this review to respond to surprisingly bad reviews I see on Unilocal.I simply have no idea how this could have happened. I really hope there is some confusion or else I doubt these people have taste buds. Yes, I am right and all the negative reviewers are wrong and have no idea what they are talking about. And you know what? It was awarded one of top 100 of the best Chinese Restaurants in North America in 2013 by the Chinese Restaurants News.
It is rated as a TOP 100 BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT IN NORTH AMERICA. Let me repeat: IN NORTH AMERICA. This involves ALL the Chinese restaurants in Canada and the USA.
And multiple people have the audacity to rate it one star and call it ‘gross’, ‘awful’, etc? What the f*** are you talking about?! ?!
There are some Chinese restaurants that are more accommodating to the tastes of non-​Chinese people: Kings Noodle, Mother’s Dumpling, etc. I can see how being served by waitresses who barely speak English can be uncomfortable. I can see how looking at the menu, not knowing what the foods taste like, and blankly ordering a few dishes may lead you to be surprised. But you being confused does not mean Ten Mile Aroma is a bad restaurant. Ten Mile Aroma is an EXCELLENT restaurant.
If you think this restaurant is bad, it is like going to the University of Toronto, taking a Calculus class, not knowing what the Professor is talking about, and blaming the University for confusing you. It is absolutely pathetic.
Put some more effort in clarifying with the waitress in terms of what is being served to you. Have a good idea of what types of dishes you might want before you go in. Or, take a Chinese friend the next time you go there who might have an idea of what you might want and what the restaurant has to offer. I can guarantee a better experience.
Sure there are isolated incidents of being served bad food, but that happens to every restaurant. And for the people giving s*** to this restaurant for having cheap beer… WTF!!! Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing? If you are looking for some premium wine, do not go to Chinatown! Go to Chinatown if you want some authentic Chinese food! And if these tastes are too foreign to you, don’t go trashing the restaurant because you will be exposed as being an ignorant person who is has no idea what they are talking about by people who actually know the cuisine.
In conclusion: Ten Mile Aroma has some really authentic Northern Chinese food. For Northern Chinese people like me, it tastes great! However, it may be foreign to the average Canadian.

There is one sole purpose for the college crowd that frequents Ten Mile Aroma — their really cheap pitchers of beer that are $ 5 – 6. The exact brand/​type of beer is unknown by all but most people are fine with that. It’s nothing strong, just a lager. What usually happens is people use this place as a pre-​drinking spot since prices are comparable to the LCBO, then they head off for a night out.
As for the food itself, I have had the steamed dumplings and it came out watery and slimy. Definitely nothing amazing. Have a feeling the other food items aren’t great as well. The décor is nothing special, and the bathroom isn’t exactly upscale (nor is it expected to be). But it keeps with the Chinatown ambiance, right in the heart of Spadina/​Dundas (east of Spadina), not too far from Ryerson or the entertainment district.

Felt sick from the grease in the dumplings. The restaurant is quite dirty and you are not guaranteed to get what you ordered. I asked the woman why there was chive in my seafood dumplings and she said that was their recipe. Meanwhile there was no seafood flavour and mostly chive flavour in my dumpling.
So my conclusion is, come here if you want to eat DUMP-​lings.
I shall never return!

There should be a circle of Hell reserved for those who only pursue cheap booze. It would be covered with hand-​scrawled and barely-​literate signage, viciously inebriated derelicts (no less than two in this joint, and a few from our party), the pungent stank of failure (that you probably could smell from ten miles away), and all the other flourishes that are legion in Ten Mile Aroma.
Authentic northeastern Chinese? Perhaps in that it’s an incomprehensible clusterf**k in there, and everything costs pennies. But with all the amazing options in Chinatown, there is one and only one reason to visit this place. And you’re damned if you do.
I am a sinner that can’t resist the promise of cheap beer, let alone DANGEROUSLY cheap beer. The aforementioned Sun Draught (from the mysterious Amber Brewery) are the suds du choix in TMA, and the pricing had our entire group scratching our heads trying to suss out profit margins and the legalities of the brewing operation. Though I went for the $ 2 glasses, on my arrival I was greeted with two plastic-​wrapped tables COVERED with $ 4.99 pitchers. Let me repeat: five dollar jugs. Ever feel like buying a round of pitchers? Now you can. Again and again and again.
But like the clever ironies of Hades, there is a twist. The food is subpar. The portion sizes were certainly enormous, but everything seemed greasy and that includes the plates and fistful of chopsticks they dropped on our table with all the care of a logging crane. I had a few bites of noodles that were OK, but you’d be stupid to ingest food there voluntarily.
All hope abandon, ye who want cheap beer.
Obligatory Title Pun: I would walk 500 MILES in the opposite direction.
Menu Readability: There is a fascia sign outdoors with some of the specials.
Need to mention: Sun Draught lager tastes like grass and barley and despair. Not bad, actually.
What this place teaches me about myself: That I am obviously, regrettably, and invariably a sucker for cheap alcohol. See you in cheap beer Hell.

Unforgettable.
I’m not really sure what to say about this place. It has got to have the worst food/​service/​smell I’ve experienced in a restaurant. It also has 4.99 $ pitchers of «Sun Draught Lager» (note: don’t try googling it, you won’t find it) — canned by a «brewer» in Mississauga called Amber Brewery (
). Oh, and pints are 1.75 $.
So you can see the dilemma. Apparently the cheapest beer in the city by about 50% — but everything else is just awful.
There were 12 of us dining on a Saturday evening — as we walked into the restaurant we met one of the foulest odours, as Justin H. will likely describe as «Spicy B.O. Very spicy.». The doors were shut, the interior was a mess, and we were seated at two tables (still drops of soy-​sauce all over the table/​cups). I went over and propped open the door to try and air the place out — which was somewhat successful… but the stench of the Ten Mile Aroma was still strong and stuck to the insides of our mouths.
The beer came out, we liked that. But the waitress would disappear, have to be ran down and asked to bring things like: plates, cups, water, utensils, food, etc.
When we got her over to take our order, she stopped after 2 (of 12) and walked away. So we had to run back over and tell her we all wanted food.
The food was just… so gross.
The people inside this place… were a mix. Some like us: young reputable adults in search for a cheap drink and funny experience, a small handful of Chinatown locals, and the largest segment; crazy/​smelly dudes.
One patron actually was asking our group for money about two blocks away after we had left.
Oh, 8 pitchers and food for 12 people after tax was 120 $.
Bathrooms: slightly better than you’d expect. Slightly.
So — I guess this is the end of the review. It’s a weird place — but one that exemplifies «you get what you pay for»… especially if you’re interested in paying for the greasiest, cheapest, most repugnant Chinese food around.

I cant believe I forgot to write a review for this place. Came here about a week ago and it’s probably the worst food experience I’ve ever had in Chinatown.
Located in the lower level, this place is dark and dingy with not many customers (reasonably so). The plates were all dirty, one of them even had a bug crawling on them. Service was extremely slow.
We orderd the:
— water cooked beef: generally supposed to be spicy and numbing, and it wasn’t. On top of the lack of flavour, the beef was more like beef jerky. So hard to chew… i’ve never had beef like this in any chinese restaurant
— spicy stir-​fried taiwanese cabbage: the only dish that i found edible. not that it was good, or spicy, but it wasn’t awful
— ma po tofu: everyone else said it was edible, just not great but i didnt think it was good at all
— tien jing pork buns: lacking in flavour and the consistency of the skin was way to dense. i felt like i was eating flour
— pork rib bun with long beans: same problem with the skin, though the stuffing was very good. However, of the three buns, one of them was severely burnt and super hard.
Honestly, I don’t know why I bothered detailing the food, because really, you shouldn’t even go.