Mimi Chinese is hosting one of BC’s most celebrated chefs for a collaboration dinner

On July 8, Toronto foodies will get a taste of one of Vancouver’s most celebrated contemporary Chinese restaurants—minus the cost of a plane ticket. Mimi Chinese is hosting a one-night collaboration dinner with the Fish Man’s Bo Li, whose cooking reframes northern Chinese seafood traditions through the lens of a local fishmonger.

Hosted by food writer and TV host Suresh Doss, the four-course tasting menu blends regional Chinese cooking with Canadian ingredients. “Bo is a second-generation chef from northern China with an approach I find really interesting,” says Doss. “He reimagines the dishes he grew up with using ingredients from the Fraser River and the BC coast—geoduck, ling cod, shellfish. It’s a tangential path through Chinese cooking that feels both classic and new.”

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The $185 ticket includes standouts like Li’s signature sour cabbage fish soup, a fragrant and spicy broth made with fermented cabbage, heaven-facing chili, Sichuan peppercorns and fresh herbs, with thin slices of gently poached ling cod. Another highlight is his claypot yellow chicken made with heritage Loon Kong poultry, dried mushrooms and vermicelli.

And from Mimi’s kitchen, one of the evening’s canapés—Chaoshan-style marinated “drunken” mussels—gets a splash of Johnnie Walker, which also stars in two of the evening’s cocktails, made with premium selections from the label.

“The reason we host these collaborations is to give Toronto diners access to chefs and restaurants they wouldn’t normally get to experience without flying across the country,” says Mimi Chinese executive chef David Schwartz, who has previously hosted collaborations with chefs Brandon Jew and Danny Bowien. “I haven’t been to Vancouver in 20 years, so this is my chance too. What excites me most is that, like Mimi’s, Li’s food is grounded in Chinese tradition but approached with a contemporary perspective.”