Asian Course is a classy new bistro, all chrome and crystal shining like a culinary beacon amid a sea of strip malls and shopping centres.
The room is divided in two with plenty of room to spare in additional dining that is closed off during the day. Beautiful crystal and stainless steel chandeliers add ambience and a fountain made of glass and crystal adds to the sophistication.
Floor-to-ceiling windows provide an abundance of natural light, but cars, stores and parking lots do not make for the best view.
Billed as a pan-Asian bistro, Asian Course’s menu is exhaustive, to say the least, but seems to be more traditional Chinese Canadian than anything else.
At lunch, there are many specials from which to choose for a very reasonable $7.99 for a whopping plate.
Sweet and sour chicken boasts fresh ingredients, juicy breast meat and crunchy peppers and onions swimming in the requisite sauce that was plenty sweet but a bit one-dimensional. Salt and pepper fish was just that — fried fish bathed in more salt than the DVP after a winter storm. Can you say “overkill”? The fish, though, was well cooked and though fried was none too greasy.
Vegetable fried rice tasted of nothing but salt. Service was efficient, though they failed to bring a bowl of hot and sour soup ordered to begin the meal.
The menu is large and diverse enough to appeal to even the most fickle diner. Everything from hot stone and BBQ grill dishes to noodles and an array of dim sum options is available. There is also live fish, crab and lobster.
Asian Course should do well, despite the out-of-the-way locale across from the Promenade Mall on Disera Drive. But lightening up on the salt shaker, while maintaining the freshness of the ingredients, would be an improvement.
Asian Course, 30 Disera Drive, Unit 100, Thornhill,905-889-3888
