Sugar Marmalade

Sugar Marmalade is a great date spot, with refreshing drinks and beautiful desserts. Located in the far back corner of Linden square, it’s a fun place to catch up with friends after a long day.
Sugar Marmalade is not a restaurant, but it can function as one. It has great dishes such as Taiwanese Chicken and Curry on rice with various meats. In particular, the Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken, or even the Japanese style Popcorn chicken are «must try», and are sure to keep you happy. Sometimes, I order only the Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken with a side of rice (for an extra dollar) — will keep you full and content for a small price.
Their desserts are beautifully presented, and tastes great. Their Mango Crêpe is good, and comes with vanilla ice cream, drizzled in Mango Purée. Their «bowl» style deserts are also very refreshing, albeit a bit expensive. I highly recommend the Black Sesame Parfait or the Golden Royal drink as a beverage.
The atmosphere of the restaurant can be romantic, if you’re both very drunk /​in love — but it’s mostly just fun. Eating inside the restaurant puts you in tables of 2 to 4 closely bunched together — little privacy if you’re on the side. You can also eat outside of the restaurant in the «food court» area with that atmosphere.
Knowing how to speak Mandarin is a huge plus, since that’s the ideal language to order your food in. Any other language, and there’s a bit of a language barrier. English is sometimes effective, but hand gestures will help a lot. Jokes aside, service is actually pretty great.

I have only tried their desserts as that is what they seem to be famous for. The day I feel like a rebel I will try their savoury food and report back to base with an updated review.
The deserts are delicious and very fairly priced. The cuisine type is Taiwanese/​Asian. They remain open very late — 2 am or so but they stop taking orders for eat in after midnight.
Lets just say life is sweeter in KW because this place exists!

THEY DELIVER! Delivery fee is 10% of the total bill and it’s totally worth it for those lazy days. They have a variety of delicious Asian desert and tawainese snacks. My favourite items on the menu are:
Tawainese Style Minced Pork on Rice
Hong Kong Style Steamed Rice Roll
Japanese Style Popcorn Chicken
Golden Sago Mixed
Golden Treasure Mixed

This restaurant is mainly reputable for its dessert, so ordering their cooked food for takeout was particularly lacklustre.
I ordered Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken with rice which is a chef signature dish on their menu. The wait on the food was pretty swift as I waited only about 5 minutes on my whole order. The chicken bowl came with a half sliced egg and a couple pieces of bokchoy, sides that felt like filler instead of a complement to the dish. The chicken was crispy and tender. The rice however was too clumpy with a consistency of a thick pudding, so I personally felt it compromised the quality of the meal. The portion was fairly sized and fit within a standard takeout container.
Overall the food was filling, but it wasn’t especially memorable to crave another order or buy hot food there again. I suggest sticking to ordering their desserts instead, their mango sago pudding is delicious.

I’ve been here multiple times and i used to really like sugar marmlade. It’s a nice place to come for chinese desserts when im craving it!
But recently the service has dropped way off. Everytime we come later in the night ~11:30pm they tell us that they’re only doing takeout even though we called in advance to confirm that they seat people untill 12:30am. And when we try to order, multiple sections of the menu are blocked out or «sold out» but in reality its very obvious that they just dont want to make it. One of the staff members gives off alot of attitude all the time and is blatently lazy.
The prices are pretty high and the service is terrible. And if you do takeout the automaticallly add a 10% service charge to your bill…
Also never get their cheese cake… My friend got it once and it arrived as a frozen slice of costco cheese cake which they sell for $ 5 – 6

Updating because I did not try their desserts last time.
Came back here because I thought it was unfair to judge this place just by its bubble tea. Ordered the mango sago dessert and I was quite satisfied with it. Popcorn chicken was also pretty good.
Order can take a while, but other than that, not bad. Still would not get their bubble tea again though.

I expected it to be a good place to try asian desserts but honestly the portions were tiny and EVERYTHING was microwaved. We literally saw the people pull thing out of freezers and microwave them. The orders were wrong and the service was pretty crappy. I rang the bell to get the attention of our server, she saw us even wave at her and still just ignored us and walked around. The desserts were unique but I doubt I’ll go back because of the low quality in food and service

When I first came here, I had pretty low expectations since the rating for this place on Unilocal was only 2 stars. But, I think this place is more of 3 stars place… The menu itself is great and has so much potential. The menu items are unique and creative, with Asian elements, and they sound extremely delicious, in theory. But in actuality, the dishes were quite mediocre. Not terrible, but they don’t live up to their potential.
Also, they’re kind of expensive. For the price you’re paying, you can get better desserts. But I mean, let’s be real. If you’re stuck in Waterloo, this is pretty good, especially since this place is open past midnight. But I think I’d rather get something from Foodie Fruitie upstairs.
About the ambiance, this place is very Asian. If you’re not Chinese, you might feel awkward there, because you’ll notice that everyone is Chinese, speaking in Mandarin, and playing mahjong.

The crepes are the best here. I usually order the strawberry and banana crêpe which is really good and it is filled with whipped cream! The only down side that I had to wait at least 30min everytime I wanted the crêpe.
The grilled eel & egg on steam rice is really good but I can’t finish the dish because the eel is very savoury and sweet but overall it’s good.
Their kimchi French fries are delicious because they use a crispy type of French fry which makes the whole dish mouth watering.
Also fruit drinks are a must with every meal! :)

Wish we had this place in Vancouver! This place is amazing with it’s large selection of Asian desserts and snacks. The first night my boyfriend and I tried the Macau Pudding and Coconut Milk Sago. Eating the Macau pudding was a little messy, but overall it was really tasty. I thought this place was really good so we came back the next night and tried the mango crêpe with icecream and takoyaki fries. (though the fries were a little bit soggy, the mango crêpe was pretty good.)
This place is also conveniently located near WLU and apartments which is great for those night time snack cravings.

When I went there the first couple of times it was great, I went there often enough to realize they changed the ingredients to my strawberry banana crêpe. It used to be ice cream stuffed inside the crêpe but they changed it to whip cream. LOL they cheapened out but yeah I didn’t enjoy the whip cream filled crêpe, the ice cream crêpe tasted better I’m not sure if you can ask them to change it for you. I also think they included the tips as a service charge, last time I went they like charged me 10% extra for included tip. They don’t mention it but there is a sign some where around the cash area. But I mean its the closest you’ll get to Chinese desserts.

Went there with my girlfriend last night. Ordered the mango and durian crepes. I’ll say they taste ok because I actually had higher expectations but my girlfriend seems like she just had the most delicious desert in the world… I’m guessing girls have better senses in tasting? lol.
Also got the Taiwanese popcorn chicken. It’s the main reason why I gave them a ⁴⁄₅. Highly recommended.
Nice place for dates. We like the environment there. Maybe we’ll visit sometime next week again!

Been in waterloo for 5 yrs already, always had to commute to toronto for decent dessert and finally this place opened!
I was actually a bit afraid to try it at first cuz of the negative comments, but since this is the only dessert place in waterloo I decided to give it a try, so I went with a couple of friends last night.
Dessert
Ordered the mango sago, it only took them about 5 mins to make it ready to my table. Mango was super sweet and I liked their coconut base. I would come back and try other desserts!
Atmosphere
Aside from the dessert, I liked their store and music too. Very cozy environment and comfortable seats.
Food
I didn’t know they have food so I went after I ate, but the pics of the food selections looked pretty appealing, I guess I’ll try them next time as well.
Service
Hmmm, not bad, but still space for improvement.
Overall
A great place to hang out and chat with friends in waterloo!

The mango desert, i quite like this, with nice mango inside. They use a lot of fresh fruit for their products. Their food is not good like the dessert but snack are really delicious. And anyways I will also come back for the lovely dessert!

Ordered green tea and red bean shaved ice and house special black grass jelly mixed. The portions are small and the prices are expensive for the portions.
Green tea and red bean shaved ice: Slimy feeling, barely any taste.
House special black grass jelly mixed: It looks nothing like the picture. It tastes meh. the consistency is too thin, essentially watered down. Very disappointed.
Service: Nonexistent. Did not even bring water to us. Ignored us when we asked for the bill. took forever for them to tell us to go up and pay.
Conclusion: DISAPPOINTED and probably never coming back.

I like coming to this place and my roommate literally came here 3 times in less than a week. Service was great, we got our order pretty quickly and there were people coming around to add our water. Food was delicious as well and everything on the picture look so nice that you just wanna try them all! Price wise this place isn’t cheap, but I feel that it’s worth it taking into the consideration of the taste, presentation, store environment, and service.

My friend and I went crazy choosing from the food menu. I really enjoyed their large selection of desserts and finger food.
Presentation was nice and the food was good. Overall, nothing exciting and nothing terrible. It’s a nice place to come for a midnight snack after studying.
However, it’s pretty pricy– but I guess that’s to be expected when you’re opening up a cutesy Asian café in Waterloo.

Desserts
Ordered a mango, sago and coconut milk before and purple rice with coconut milk. Both were decent in taste and worth the price. It’s good for being the only asian dessert house in Waterloo.
I ordered steamed egg white with ginger another time and they added a lottt of ginger syrup to the dessert. I couldn’t finish it because it started to make me sweat and my tummy uncomfortable.
Drinks
Not so good. This was not my drink but my friend ordered one of their specialty drinks and I watched one of the staff members prep it. After blending the drink, they realized they forgot to add any liquid so it was just mush. Instead of fixing the mistake they poured it in a cup to serve. It was only ¾ full so they stuck in a few ice cubes in to make it look full. My friend had to add apple juice at home to be able to suck the drink through a straw.
Service
The first time I went the service was good but the times after that, it was bad. The first time, the desserts came out efficiently and the waitress was friendly. But for the other times I went, they made mistakes with the orders, didn’t give us water or utensils until asked, and ran out of materials for desserts ordered.
The time I had too much ginger in my steamed egg white, I asked if it was possible to dilute it or get it changed. The waiter brought it to the counter and a staff member just poured some water into it. The waiter looked apologetic but it really wasn’t edible with water poured into it.
I would suggest to go for asian desserts but maybe not so much for their other items or service.

Their hot foods are not that great, usually is just microwaved frozen food so don’t expect much if you want a real meal. The popcorn chicken was actually pretty gross. The kimchi fries were pretty good if you want some heavy saucy carbs after a long night out. The fried fishcakes were pretty good as well.
They specialize in desserts. Highly recommend fresh mango with sago and the traditional desserts like sweet sesame soup.
The Taiwanese Shaved Ice dishes are actually shaved snow (there is a difference, though I like shaved snow better anyway!). They are huge portions (better for sharing). The green tea & red bean one was pretty good.
The Golden Macau Pudding was just pure cream and cookie crumbs and didn’t actually contain pudding (pretty disappointed by it).
The service is a hit or miss. When they first opened they took awhile just to prepare hot foods. There was also an occasion where we were seated at a dirty booth and we asked them if they could clean it for us. We were simply given napkins to clean the mess ourselves. We’ve had really good service on a few occasions with both desserts and hot dishes coming quickly.
The portions given tend to be worth the price paid, though again, please don’t have any expectations on the hot food.
Overall a great place to grab dessert. Plus there doesn’t exist any other late night options in the area. Kw4rent knows what they’re doing by placing it right by the lester and uni apartments.

The best Chinese Dessert restaurant in Waterloo (theres no other similar store in this region). Good food and improving service.