How can they offer so many choices?
Chinese fast food stall maximizes the uses for every ingredient
Eva Lin has lost count of how many dishes are on her menu at Great Fountain, a fast food stall that’s plastered with pictures of more than a hundred menu items on the front. But it’s definitely more than 200.
It’s a stark contrast to other restaurants — and even fast food chains — that have scaled down their menus during the COVID-19 pandemic due to fewer customers and staff, as well as the need to eliminate dishes that don’t translate well to takeout.
But there’s a method to the seemingly overwhelming choices at this food stall inside Dynasty Centre, at Sheppard Avenue East and Glen Watford Drive in Scarborough, and it exemplifies the endless combos Hong Kong-style diner food have to offer.
Hong Kong cuisine varies greatly, with influence from Cantonese cooking and elements of British and Southeast Asian cooking due to its history as a British colony. Western influences can be seen in the French toast (topped with golden syrup rather than maple) and club sandwiches on the breakfast menu. Curries and satays are also commonly found in rice and noodle dishes.
There’s also the staple of baked casseroles. They always start with a base of rice or spaghetti, then a choice of sauces (tomato, cream, satay, black pepper, curry) and a meat like a pork chop, fish filet or chicken before it’s baked until slightly blackened. That alone already makes up two dozen dishes on the menu.
A black pepper sauce is also used to smother crispy fried chicken on a bed of fried rice as well as sizzling platters of steak, chicken and noodles. The same pork chop in a casserole can also be found in noodle soups, or given a lemongrass marinade to fit into the section of Vietnamese-style dishes. The same rice acts as a base for dozens of other dishes topped with some combination of tofu, vegetables and meats infused with the fiery kiss of the wok.
It’s about maximizing the uses for every ingredient and seeing how they can carry over to another dish, which is how a lot of Chinese restaurants are able to pull off a seemingly endless
menu and have the food coming out fast.
“The most important thing is having everything prepared before we open,” said Lin’s husband, Jack Peng. That means having the spaghetti cooked, the rice steamed, the half dozen sauces ready to be ladled onto any rice or pasta dish; simmering the soups that come with the meals, and brewing the tea for iced lemon tea or hot milk tea.
“It also takes a lot of practice. We know how to do it by memory,” he said.
The couple took over Great Fountain six years ago after its previous owner decided to retire after more than two decades. Previously, they ran a fish and chips shop in Pickering, but
they decided to set up shop in Scarborough, where there’s a larger Chinese population, to feel a greater sense of community.
The retiring sifu (chef) stayed on for a few months to help the couple get used to transitioning from a small fish and chips menu to this.
“If they can say it, we’ll make it,” said daughter Anna Peng of the endless combos of noodles, rice, sauces, meats and vegetables. “Chicken, pork chops and steak are the three most common meats on the menu.”
Anna, a recent OCAD graduate, created an Instagram account and helped set up online ordering for Great Fountain to drum up new customers during the pandemic. She works the
cash register, switching between Mandarin, Cantonese and English to help new diners navigate the menu.
Before Markham and Richmond Hill, Scarborough’s Agincourt neighbourhood was the hub for newly landed Chinese immigrants, especially those who left Hong Kong during the late ’80s to mid ’90s, ahead of 1997 when the territory was handed back to China after more than a century of British rule.
Across the street from Dynasty Centre is Dragon Centre, a former roller rink that was turned into North America’s first indoor Chinese mall in 1984. It’s slated to be demolished to make way for condos, but no date has been set.
In the meantime, the Dynasty Centre’s food court continues to be a reliable spot for takeout, even though the tables and chairs are fenced off and it has stopped being a gathering place for locals.
Those in the know continue to come here for Cantonese and Hong Kong-style cooking, not just from Great Fountain but also its neighbouring stalls such as Flavor Cuisine, Sam May BBQ and Silver Fountain Fast Food, each with dozens of options as well.
As for Great Fountain, the family is looking into possibly doing delivery and trying out a new fried chicken dish.
“People would be angry if we take anything off,” Lin said. “We’re just adding more.”