One Stop Take Out, There's Something For Everybody

In a low-key stretch of local shops and restaurants in Williambsbridge Road, a big green awning with huge letters shouts the promise of Fresh Tortillas AND Japanese food.

If that’s not enough to elicit a double take, entering the clean, simple space will reveal a menu with so much more than the awning told you about, you’ll need a moment to take it all in.

It’s not just tortillas and Japanese dishes. There’s Chinese. There’s Boba tea—iced or blended. There’s steak and chicken, burgers and even falafel or shawarma. Vegetarian options are available and include tofu skin sushi, vegetable or avocado rolls, steamed mixed vegetables with brown rice.

You’ll find more options in the Tex-Mex offerings, where fresh flour tortillas, made from scratch on a pressing machine, are morphed into enchiladas, or stuffed with anything from black beans and guacamole to steak, chicken or shrimp fajitas. There are tacos, Quesadillas Sincronizadas (two tortillas with your choice of fillings and melted together with cheese), burritos, and owner Ken Xue’s favorite, the Quesadilla Gigante, filled with chili or your choice of meat, mozzarella cheese and topped with beans, guacamole, jalapeños, and tomatoes.

With so many offerings, it’s hard not to wonder about the quality of the quantity, but the steady stream of customers ordering fresh sushi platters and Maki rolls is as many as those ordering the popular chicken with broccoli or the tacos and tostada salads.

Xue, who manages a small team of cooks along with his wife, Nicole, is still as hands-on in the kitchen as he was when he opened 18 years ago. With 40 years of experience in restaurant kitchens, Xue hails from a region of Southern China, not far from Hong Kong. The techniques he learned at a Mexican restaurant stuck with him, and so did the knack for making fresh tortillas that are a light yet perfect vessel for the hearty fillings that won’t weigh the meal down.

Xue learned to cook a variety of cuisines but played off his strengths in Tex-Mex, Japanese and Chinese kitchens when expanding the menu through the years. There are designated chefs preparing the Japanese and Chinese meals, while Xue wrangles the phones, the register and anything that’s needed in the different stations.

The sushi is consistently fresh, with many of the rolls or sashimi served in nice-sized portions. For a mere $1.85 you can get a big helping of miso soup, won-ton soup or choose from three others.   

The Chinese menu offers reasonably priced dishes with generous portions. Even the seafood dishes, like the Tung Ting Shrimp, served in a white sauce with mixed vegetables on a bed of rice, or the seafood delight, with shrimp, scallops, fish, crab meat and vegetables in garlic sauce, are a good deal.

With all these choices, it’s hard to pick, but according to Xue, it doesn’t have to be. “Some customers, they come in and order the same thing every time. Why? Try something new!”