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| - A full house on a Friday night at dinner time, a sure sign of its popularity! The open-concept seating keeps everything casual, and all kinds of patrons are found - families, friends, couples, etc. a short wait and we're seated, since the quick pace of food arriving keeps patrons moving out the door. Many came in for takeout, and I noticed a roast meat rack in the back - in-house roasting??
As with many Chinese restaurants - don't expect a lot of service because that just isn't the culture/style - here you'll see a few waitresses covering the entire store and doing a lot of running around, so take pity on the short staff and be patient! You'll also have to speak up if you want to get their attention - hand raising and attempts to make eye contact are encouraged.
I've been here in the past so I noticed they've recently(?) put in a newly printed menu - increased prices since my last visit, but still affordable and reasonable. The menu is bilingual - English and Chinese, with lots and lots of photos. Ordering is also language-friendly - a small piece of paper is provided along your menus with your table number, under which you jot down your item codes. Be sure to read carefully to see if there's customizations to specify for your items to ensure speedy ordering.
We got a bowl of congee, a fried rice, roast chicken, and greens. The congee is one-size, and somewhere between the small and large found at other similar casual Hong Kong style diners such as Congee Wong, Congee Queen, and Phoenix. The other dishes were average in size, so quite enough for a table of three.
The fried rice I got was the house special eel fried rice - it had fix-ins similar to a traditional Japanese eel rice, with the sauce, and added in onions (weird combination), fish roe (good add), and fish shavings (I don't know what they're called...those paper-thin shavings that move in the heat waves - they were an interesting bonus topping).
The fried chicken was a surprise - more moist than I've had at other places, more flavourful, and the shrimp chips were fresh and crunchy. Again comparing to similar HK-style diners in Markham/Richmond Hill, did not disappoint!
Dessert on the house at dinner is always an added bonus - papaya sago was served hot and on the sweet side, but very rich and creamy with a good amount of coconut flavour.
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