Kanpai Snack Bar - Toronto, Ontario

The food here is spectacular and unique. Four of us ordered a lot of dishes and they were all great. Service was an issue...incredibly slow and it was not busy....but I think it might have been a short-staffed by accident or circumstance situation.

Open concept kitchen cranking out some of the best chicken in the hood. Tofu had some good spice to it. Went well with a cold Kirin. Staff were professional and tentative. Nice music, great food and booze, we were all very happy with the experience.

Food came fast but after that service was non existent. Descriptions on the menu made all the food sound interesting but when the it came it was basically typical Asian food and dim sum. Pricey if you're comparing it to Asian restaurants but on par for the Cabbagetown location.

The fried chicken is one of the best fried chicken I had. Crunchy, juicy and not too oily. The rest of the items were a hit and miss but overall the ambience and the food was good. Its not too cheap either if you are hungry and ordering a lot of other ... dishes 😊 Recommendation: must try it for sure!! Read more

Let me start by saying Kanpai has some positive things going for it - a nice decor in a small charming resto, a seemingly good environment for libations and a good selection of drinks (most notably the rotating tap from Great Lakes Brewery). The menu items look and sound interesting, ... and it is tapas style dining so that is always a great combo with drinking. Prices are not bad. However, despite all the positives, the food is what matters the most in a restaurant - this is where Kanpai falls flat. The first thing when we sat down was to put in an order of their famous Taiwanese Fried Chicken, which can take some time to prepare. We then took our time to decide what else to order. For the 2 of us, we ordered: Taiwanese Fried Chicken: Chicken just by itself tasted ok, it is not as flavourful as what I would consider very delicious fried chicken, but it's hard not to like fried chicken in general. With the plum (??) sauce however, it becomes overly salty and almost unbearble to eat. Other reviewers seem to note this as well. OG Bao (pork belly in steamed bun) - presentation was good. The taste falls flat and it's overall "meh". Again, it's hard not to like anything pork belly but definitely better steamed pork buns at Banh Mi Boys or even at Momofuku. A Tribe called Hakka (hakka style spicy stir fry of pork, squid, tofu and veggies) - this was the most disappointing dish of the night. First off, there was no tofu in there, not a big loss. There is a lot of scallions in there, which are "throwaways" for us; very limited amounts of meat or squid. The dish itself is a tad spicy, but the big negative (again) is its extreme saltiness. We were told that it is best to pair this with a rice dish, which brings us to Sticky Fingaz.... Sticky Fingaz (sticky rice with pork, mushrooms, dried scallops and village sauce) - the village sauce is just a sweet and sour sauce drenched over this ball of rice. The sweet and sour sauce made the rice taste salty (again with the salt!) and is kind of overwhelming. The rice itself is nothing special, but pair the sauce and the Hakka dish that it is supposed to be good with, and you end up with a spicy salty mess. It was not good. Overall, the dinner itself was not pricey. But the one-dimensional taste (salty) of the food and the lack of wow factor in the "top 10 best fried chicken in the city" made this visit disappointing for us. Needless to say, unless something big changes in the kitchen on how the food is flavoured, we will not be back. If you were to try Kanpai, I would suggest only getting the fried chicken (without using sauce) and the pork belly bun. Read more