Restaurants in Markham

Mongolian Hot Pot brings the concept of hot-pot cooking to Toronto’s taste buds with a menu anchored in cauldron-based cuisine. Patrons gather around a pot full of simmering stock, dropping meats, veggies, seafood, and other edibles into the kettle, with delicious soups emerging from the bubbling eddies. Mongolian Hot Pot offers more than 60 items for its Super Set Dinner ($16.99 per person on weekdays and up to $18.99 per person on weekend evenings). Suggest a different profession for Little Bo Peep with premium lamb-shoulder slices, jolt awake your jaws with juicy tiger prawns, or savour spherical sustenance with the house meatball platter. Guests can opt for the free herbal soup base or upgrade to a spicy stock ($2), a vegetarian-friendly egg and parsley base ($0.99), or a sweet and sour tomato stock ($3.99). For those not hot on the hot pot, the eatery also offers dishes such as a three-cluster lamb skewer ($2.99). Cool the heat with a domestic or imported beer, available for impromptu toasts to the sun god Ra.

Although its dishes hail from India, Amaya Indian Room’s food reflects its North American setting. Crafted from fresh local produce, the dishes are delicately spiced to accommodate a Western palate, rather than eye-wateringly hot. According to the eatery’s profile in the Globe and Mail, the restaurant's founders likewise opted for Western decor, outfitting their dining room with wood panelling and photographs, rather than the temple-inspired decor that they viewed as stereotypical.

The upscale food, however, hews to the subcontinent’s culinary traditions. Diners can feast on lentils cooked for 12 hours in buttery tomato sauce, short ribs braised in kashmiri chili, and prawns bathed in coconut-milk curry. The wine-marinated lamb lollipops, meanwhile, are easier to eat than the original Indian lollipop, a tandoori oven on a stick. For an alternative to these à la carte items, the tasting menu lets patrons sample small portions of multiple dishes. The expansive wine list, meanwhile, pairs seamlessly with meals and offers a subversive touch—Indian food is typically served with beer.

The palate-popular chefs at The Lobster House emphasize freshness while assembling their hearty seafood dinners, using maritime lobsters that are shipped to the restaurant multiple times a week as the focal point of their menu. Before digging into salmon and halibut entrees, diners visit the eatery’s complimentary bread, salad, and ice cream bar, where they can hide scoops of ice cream beneath beds of lettuce to flout parental embargos on pre-meal sweets. The kitchen also prepares cut-to-order steaks boasting certified Angus meat that has aged for at least four weeks. Sandy tones wash over The Lobster House’s dinning room as sturdy wooden tables hoist hefty plates of delectable sea-fruits.

• For $10, you get $20 worth of deli fare and drinks. • For $45, you get $100 worth of catering services.

Inspired by its owners’ pack of six rescued malamutes, who make cameo appearances around the restaurant, Working Dog Saloon dishes out animal advocacy alongside its menu of pub fare. Locally sourced ingredients nestle between slices of focaccia burger buns or dapple pizzas named for labradors, malamutes, and Balto, the sled dog whose 1925 journey to Nome, Alaska inspired the modern Iditarod. Wolfish appetites can wash down meals with home-brewed Dogger Lager and Doghouse wines, whose proceeds benefit homeless animals. Annual fundraisers, such as pet photos with Santa and the Walk 4 Rescue 5-kilometre walk, further advance the dog-friendly cause.

Inside Working Dog, sleds and harnesses hang from wooden columns and timber-panelled walls, and a painting of a malamute with perky ears grins above a stone-flanked fireplace. The pub also caters special events and hosts private parties amid ceiling-hung twinkle lights and flat-screen televisions, or outdoors on a spacious patio.

The artistic chefs at Sushi Kai skillfully cut sushi and use fresh fish, meats, and high-quality produce when creating dishes for their traditional Japanese menu. Celebrating Japan’s most popular import, the sushi chefs can roll choices from 25 maki options including barbecued eel and thinly carved yellowtail sashimi, or set off in-mouth fireworks with cone-shaped spicy-tuna hand rolls. Japanese curries introduce diners to a lesser-known Japanese specialty, greeting tongues with a choice of chicken, beef, pork, or fish. As diners share bites of sushi, they lounge in Sushi Kai's minimalist dining room and lecture its plants on proper photosynthesis technique.