[URBAN NOTE] "Golden Chopsticks restaurant serves kosher Chinese food in Thornhill"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Aparita Bhandari reports on how a kosher Chinese restaurant in suburban Thornhill does roaring business with a Jewish clientele on Christmas Day.

At first glance, the menu of Golden Chopsticks restaurant doesn’t seem all that remarkable. The long list of items is the same as many Chinese takeout eateries across the city: egg rolls and sweet and sour chicken balls for appetizers, combo specials featuring General Tao chicken and Hunan beef with steamed rice. It’s the big sign on its window proclaiming “We Are Glatt Kosher” that’s unusual.

It’s a Chinese restaurant for Jews who follow a strict kosher diet and its busiest day of the year is Christmas.

Located in a Thornhill strip mall at the corner of Bathurst St. and Steeles Ave., Golden Chopsticks was the first kosher Chinese restaurant in the city when it opened almost 20 years ago.

Rony Gafny, an observant Jew who had never tried Chinese food, wanted to cater to the predominantly Jewish community in the surrounding neighbourhood when he opened the restaurant.

Jewish people eating Chinese food for Christmas is now part of a North American tradition, says Daniel Koren, a former online editor of Canadian Jewish News, and current media co-ordinator for B’nai Brith Canada. He included Golden Chopsticks in his “For Jewish Christmas: The 10 Best Chinese Restaurants in Toronto” roundup for Canadian Jewish News last year.

“Everybody, who’s Jewish, knows the place because it is the only kosher Chinese place. Or it used to be the only one,” he says. Although Toronto doesn’t have much of a kosher foodie scene compared to say New York or Tel Aviv, there’s a definite interest in kosher food in the city — and that’s brought competition.