Chi Star House

Came here for lunch on new years day. The place was fairly busy but we were seated right away.
Tried a few different dishes here:
Baked fish + rice with crème and spinach sauce
Lemon grass pork chop with rice
Fried seafood udon
Satay beef in noodle soup with eggs and toast on side
All dishes came with drink and we all got milk tea
All the dishes were pretty good and comparable to other HK style cafes. The pork chop dish was really the only thing that stood out for me. There were 2 large pieces of pork chop and it was soft and tender.
Service was quick. All dishes were under $ 10 and the one breakfast dish we got was less than $ 6 so price wise its an affordable place to grab some quick grub.

If you ever have a craving for traditional Hong Kong Café Food, then this place is for you. They have anything you can hope for; from the cheap priced food to the weird service attitude.
Coming in, it is usually very busy, but this time, it wasn’t that bad. Had a seat very fast. The environment is the same as some of the other cafes that I went to in HK. Nothing special, but not ugly either.
The service was bland. No smiles, nothing welcoming, but if you call them, they will show up. There are many waitresses for the size of the location, so if you call someone, they usually arrive very quickly.
Food is nothing special, but it isn’t too expensive either. Standard place in my opinion. Overall, it is a bland place with a bland feeling. Nothing good to write home about, but nothing bad about the place either.

I went to this place for my Family’s Mid Autumn Festival dinner, which is one of the busiest days for Chinese restaurants in the year. Considering all those factors, this restaurant did particularly well, at getting our reservations correct, as well as the food in a timely manner. The service was a typical chinese restaurant, fast, and efficient.
The food itself, most of the food was up to the usual standards of a good Cantonese style restaurant. the one dish in particular that was very good of course, was the maggie sauce Lobster. this was the main dish that has attracted us to come to this restaurant. it is not served in many other restaurants or done well. This is one of those must try for this restaurant. Another of the dishes that was very much on the top of our list is also the oyster, the sweet oyster that is fried, is very crunchy and tangy, it is a dish that a lot of restaurant has. but this restaurant definitely does a good job at it.
Not every dish is good, the cube sirloin were average, as it wasn’t as tender as it should be. This restaurant comes with a lot of cool combos for 2 – 8 people. this meals come with lobsters and free lobster fried rice as well as lobster steam egg. It is definitely cheaper and more affordable when compared with other lobster house places.
This restaurant has definitely been one of my families go to places. Although it is not one of the fancier chinese restauarants in the area, it is a no frills place for dinner that covers all our needs. During lunch hours this restaurant turns into a HK café style restaurant. I would recommend anyone in the area who wants an affordable but good family meal to come to this place.

Dropped by this place over the weekend for breakfast. Let’s just say, with My Kitchen literally next door, it had a tough act to follow.
Pros:
Portions are good
Cons:
Food is average at best
Very dirty under the tables
I’m a little biased here maybe because one of ma favourite places for breakfast is just next door. We decided to try this place to see how it was like. When you walk in, the place is pretty big. There are a lot of tables so wait times are almost never a problem. We are seated very quickly.
Taking a look at the menu, I see there are actually very few breakfast specials. They have 5 items and 4 of them include congee. The menu also says any special with congee does not come with a drink. That’s a drag because I’m used to any special always coming with a drink. Also, there’s a completely separate special menu but it’s all in Chinese. There’s no English anywhere on it whatsoever. I’m always against all Chinese menus even though I’m can read them myself. When you’re a business in Canada, you need to have English included in your menu plain and simple.
I ordered the beef brisket noodle and my GF had the french toast with «beef cookie» which was ordered from the all Chinese menu. For those who don’t speak Chinese, I translated «beef cookie» directly from Chinese. This item is usually ground beef that’s steamed in a round (cookie-​like) shape. However, when we received the French toast, it just came with ham. We have a word for ham in Chinese but it’s not beef cookie. I guess they couldn’t be bothered to change the menu or something. My brisket noodle was alright. The bowl was pretty big and it came with a lot of noodles. The brisket though was mainly fatty pieces.
Halfway through the meal, my little one dropped her cup under the table. When I went to pick it up, I noticed how dirty it was. The floor was basically covered in dirt and filth in the corners. I couldn’t give back the cup to my little one after. It was a complete turn off.
So all in all, i think i’m going to stick with My Kitchen next door. I just wasn’t impressed with this place at all. I may have been more critical because of the competition next door, but when you do have competition you should step up your game to meet or exceed it. Chi Star did not unfortunately.

+.5 for service
Chi Star House is located beside the famous Inatei, and you would probably spend a quarter of the amount you would otherwise spend in Inatei. It’s a HK style café restaurant during the day, and more of a traditional Chinese restaurant at night.
I came here for dinner with two others, and we only ordered three dishes as we weren’t that hungry: BBQ duck with plum sauce, general tso’s fish, and shredded chicken. Nothing was terrible, but nothing really stood out. The prices were also quite low (but not crazily low like Ocean/​Hai Tang).
Service was very good for a typical Chinese establishment; I didn’t need to wave anyone down for any sort of requests the entire time I was there. However, I had nothing that I ate which attracted me to coming back, at least for dinner.

all their dishes don’t LOOK that great, but they all taste good!!! :D
would have been a solid 4* but they forgot one of our dishes, and even after a couple times of asking them to check up on it, it took the third lady to finally actually do it and notice that it wasn’t punched in :(so we got it after we were pretty much done our meal.

The lunch is like a Hong Kong Style cafeteria plus you can order dishes like dinner. The quality is really average. If I have to eat Hong Kong style lunch, there are better places.
For dinner, I like their set dinner with both the lobster and grouper. The lobster is of 5 lbs, enough for a table of 10. There are various ways of cooking it though some has to pay extra. Quite some time the big lobster is sold out and has to settle for a smaller lobster. It is delicious to have the big lobster as every piece is meat.
Tip: You can negotiate to exchange for another dish if the big lobster and trade in for a smaller one

Great HK café in Richmond Hill to grab all day Chinese breakfast! Not many places offer all day Chinese breakfast, so I love coming here for that. The prices are reasonable and offers good sized portions. Pretty much all meals comes with a hot milk tea or coffee. I have never tried the coffee but the hot milk tea is very smooth and flavourful.
Their lunch portions are pretty generous as well and can be split between 2 people if you both aren’t two hungry. Again the lunches come with a free hot drink as well. Don’t expect much out of the services as is with most Chinese restaurants. But this place is consistently busy especially around lunch hour, so I would suggest going there just before noon.

Came during peak lunch time with a group of 10 people. We were given a table almost immediately. The waitress was very friendly and patient with us as it was our first time here and we studied the menu (so different from what other Unilocalers have experienced). The food was decent and they had something my very picky eater son actually ate and liked, so I was happy. It can be hard to travel with an extremely picky eater, but their menu offered something for every palate.

Average Chinese fast-​food restaurant. I must say that before a lot of people discovered this place, the service was a little better. Today, they neglected to pack my drinks with my take-​out portion of the food. The Hainan chicken rice was also way too salty today but traditionally, it has been mediocre. XO sauce beef rice noodle is pretty good.
Unfortunately — very atypical of Asian restaurants, service is quite slow when it’s busy.

I’m surprised at all the bad reviews! My family and I love this place — as do all of our Chinese friends.
You can’t expect much from service — it’s pretty much on par with all other Chinese places that are about high turnover. Actually, their servers can be downright frosty-​faced most of the time. And if you come when it’s busy, the wait can be atrocious (so make a reservation for weekend dinners!).
The food though, is always reliably delicious. Authenticity is a given. But their Chinese dishes («siu chow») are just right! Sweet and sour pork is delicious (and stays crispy til the end of the meal), their meat pies/​patties are delicious and hand-​chopped, which is the traditional «right way» of making it (try the one with squid!), their stir-​fried veggies (gai lan) with preserved meats is delicious as is their ginger stir-​fried gai lan, their fish and tofu pot (hung siu ban lam) is awesome… we almost never have anything here that we don’t like.
Prices are reasonable, though not dirt cheap. We come here often for «proper» Chinese food and especially for things we don’t make at home.

Another average HK style café. Nothing special about the food really. Servings are decent but like everyone has mentioned, service is SLOW especially when its busy.

I came here for family dinner (6 adults) on a Sunday and was hugely disappointed. There was a bug in our soup! A man in plain clothes (the manager?) came by and explained that their dried vegetables are sourced from China and that they have no control over the quality control overseas. He said sometimes bugs wind up in the food no matter how well they wash their vegetables beforehand. Seriously!!! I was pregnant at the time so this was more than a bit disconcerting. They did not replace the uneaten soup and still charged us for it. The other dishes tasted OK (had to keep checking for bugs) but were WAY overpriced for their quality and presentation, especially in this area which is full of good, cheap Chinese restaurants.
To add insult to injury, the waitress brought us the bill before we even requested it. And then IMMEDIATELY after we paid (literally after handing back the card machine), the manager asked us to leave because it was crowded that night! INCREDIBLY rude, and simply inexcusable after we purchased a $ 160 meal.

The worst place to eat if you are in a hurry and want something cheap. There was nothing good about this place. I highly recommend you not to come here. Did I say cheap earlier? It’s definitely not cheap for the portion you’re getting! The soup and food had a lot of msg. It was like I had a bowl of Phở (except Phở taste so much better). Service was slow, too slow. And just… Nothing good to say! No saving grace this time.

I came here in November with a group of four for a weekend lobster lunch special that was advertised in newspaper. The lobster was steamed with garlic and tasted really good, though personally I prefer the ones at Fisherman Lobster Clubhouse in Scarborough. We also ordered a seafood congee, snow pea tips, and steamed chicken. All of the dishes tasted great. The interesting thing about the chicken was that it the skin was very yellow, which I haven’t seen before, but tasted very fresh. The restaurant was fairly packed, and service was slow.

Cheap greasy food that is filled with MSG… I was so thirsty after eating their food, even tho their prices are cheap I rather save my money and pay a bit more to eat somewhere else then this crap

Came here for afternoon tea on a Sat evening. Place was more packed than I expected. Service was quick but food took a while to come out. I could hear tables around me complaining as well. So it seems like it is normally like this. Food was decent for a Chinese diner, price was comparable to other diners for tea time. Will come back for dinner or lunch next time as there was so good looking dishes.

Can’t say I am too impressed with this place for service — even with a Chinese run restaurant.
Food was ok, I had their fried e-​fu mien and it wasn’t too bad. Their fried rice noodles in xo sauce looked more intriguing — but our friend’s hoi lam chicken rice dish was missing the requisite soup that comes with the dish and when we had asked after the soup — the kitchen gave us a bowl of the borcht instead — which was odd.
Few notes — the VIP rooms are not very VIP at all as they are separated from the main dining area, which you might say is the whole point of having a VIP room. However in this case, VIP meant out of sight and mind. It was surprisingly busy for a Monday that was a non-​holiday — so it maybe the reason for the so-​so service.
Also the set meals come with either daily soup or drink, not both if you are used to the typical HK style tea cafes in Toronto.

2.5***
So many Hong Kong style cafes opening lately I can’t even catch up. Since its closeby and saw Jennifer K. Review it i decided to come here for brunch today.
Ordered: the satay beef vermicelli with 2 eggs and 2 slices of toast… $ 4.99 only. quite a deal i would hafta say… quite alot of beef slices with heavy satay sauce.
Family member ordered eggs with corned beef sandwich. @ 3.99…average price
The pricing is acceptable. Food quality is ok. nothing memorable that would make me desperately wanna come back. Jus an average hk style café…
10% off during grand opening

Chi Star House just open 2 days ago.
I expect confusion during the first week or so when a business opens up. So this review is based on their soft opening and trying to figure things out.
The open concept deco is really simple. The space feels really spacious and inviting. Tons of booth seating which is great for small group.
Chi Star House is kind of a mixture of Cantonese and Hong Kong Style Café. With breakfast (8 – 11), lunch (11 – 3), afternoon tea (2:30−5:30) and dinner (5– 11 pm). All time slot has set special available the includes a drink or a soup.
Arriving at 6 pm looking for something light and the waitress gave me a regular menu that only have dishes that are good for groups… I feel really not single friendly. I should have left but ended up suck it up and ordered Satay Beef with Vermicelli in Hot Pot ($ 7.99). The portion was really good at that price point but just lack satay taste and the sizzling hot pot factor.
While talking to another waitress complaining about the lack of other options during dinner. She said they have noodles, fried rice and even all day special from $ 4.99!!! Ended up I was not given the special menu and they didn’t realize that the all day menu is grouped under breakfast…
I guess I need to come back and try out their $ 4.99 special… but for now 2.5 star rounded up to 3 with room for improvement!