Eating @ Chi Star House (Richmond Hill)

1:10 PM

Today, I went back to work and it just happens to be lunch adventure day. One of my work colleagues had a time crunch for a meeting at 1 pm. Always looking for a new place nearby and something hopefully fast, we agreed on trying this restaurant called "Chi Star House". It's located just north east of Leslie and Hwy 7 in a relative new plaza. The online reviews indicated that this place was a very popular Hong Kong café hang out that started out in 2013. This place replaced a $2 dollar dim sum restaurant that we used to frequent in the past (the quality just got worst event for $2 dollar dim sum …)

Reviewer: Eating With Gordon
Visit Date: 9/1/2016
Food Rating: 3/5
Service Rating: 3/5

Atmosphere:

We actually arrived early (11:40) just to beat out the crowd and put some buffer for the 1pm meeting. By 12pm, there was a huge line up out of the door. Inside the restaurant, the layout is arranged in a U shape with booths all around. There also appeared to be private dining rooms available (probably for dinner). One corner of the restaurant had these funky purple and white strip patterns on the walls with purple plastic hanging from the ceiling. Overall, the restaurant was clean and busy with customers. There was two tvs with one tv playing old Chinese soap shows.

Service:

The staff were straightforward with the orders and were very nice to point out the free wifi password for the restaurant (cs + their phone number).

Food Comments:

Judging from the menus, there are 4 menus available for the day: Breakfast time, Lunch time, Afternoon Tea and Dinner time. On each of the menus, there was a HUGE variety of options (30+). My colleagues and I were struggling on deciding what to get. In the end, I decided to focus on mostly the chef's recommendation.

I ordered the Hainanese chicken dish which came with some veg soup ($9.50). The rice had some of the flavour chicken but I still prefer the version at Restoran Malaysian. The chicken was tender and delicious with the green onion ginger dip (they also provided the sweet and sour sauce on the side). Overall, I would say this dish is better than the one I might get at Golden Pheonix. With this lunch set, I got the milk tea with meal and it was similar/average to the other HK style cafes.

My colleagues ordered beef with broccoli with side of rice and baked Portuguese sauce chicken rice dish. They weren't as impressed with their dishes especially the baked dish.

Would I come back? Yes especially if we are in a hurry. As we were leaving at 12:30pm, there was a huge crowd of people waiting. I don't think this place is closing any time soon.

Food Photos: