Updated: 26th Feb 2011: This restaurant has closed and replaced by Enjoy Cafe 1+1.
We’ve been to this place … oh … three months ago and had not gotten down to blog about it. I am going to just take these old blog entries and clear them out of the way the next few days.
I don’t know about you but the name e-Canteen just have no class to it. Before we first visited this place, we had always known about them but never going in … well, because we could not make out what this place is like since they are located on the second floor. Not until someone (honey, was it Polly who told us?) said it was a Hongkong-Style Cafe that we went to check it out.
This is located in 8171 Westminster Highway in Richmond.
Seems like in a past like this place had been a karaoke joint or something like that. There are individual rooms around the side and there’s a bar counter, which they do not use to serve drinks.
Like other HK-Style Cafes, you order a main dish and that comes with some extras. Here, the extras are soup and rice in bowl. We had cream soup which was surprising very good.
We also chose Vegetable Tomato Soup (known as Loh Sung Tong in Cantonese).
The Black Bean Prawns Sizzling Plate was great. It’s simply one of the best we had ever tried. The sauce was just perfect with steamed rice. There were lots of large sized prawns. It’s a bit pricey at $11.95 but worth every dollar.
The Szechuan Seafood Tofu Hotpot. We love tofu and almost always gets a tofu dish in such meals. Before it came, we thought this will be spicy because, well, this is a Szechuan dish … but it was not a bit spicy at all. Not sure if they got our orders wrong but we have no complains … the boys slurped down everything here. $8.80 … not bad huh?
Then we had the Spicy Chili Beef which costs $8.80. Again this is also not a bit spicy at all. Well, they used sweet chili.
There were so much food that we ordered extra bowls of rice. Each bowl costs $1 each. Total bill came up to $35 including taxes and tips. Not bad … not bad at all. For a hearty meal with affordable prices, this is certainly a place to check out.
Charging for rice makes me a sad panda.
Forceful service.
9 people ordered 6 things to share. After putting in the bill, the manager comes in to force us to order at least 9 things or else, we’d have to leave. Bad service. Do not go there. No Chinese restaurant will ever do that, without stating it on their menu. 0 for service. Ruined the whole nightout for us. All they said was, its’ their policy. I’ve been going to the same restaurant since they opened, and they treat me and my friends like garbage. There were 3 girls that barely eat, so hence, we wanted to share. $2.95 for a drink which we forcefully had to accept.
0 for service
2 for value
2 for food/drink – they made it smaller just for us =)
Piss poor management.
James, are you sit in the VIP room???