Summary: a decent "cha chan teng" with a couple of standout dishes with somewhat cramped seating conditions
Top Must-Get: fried instant noodles
Top Regret: hainanese chicken
It's hard to stand out in Markham's oversaturated Hong Kong style tea time meal market. Blue Ocean doesn't do anything bad - it offers a fairly typical menu with alright prices - but short of the fried instant noodles, no dish really wowwed me.
First off, the seating arrangements come across as a little cramped. It's not a huge space, but they pack in quite a few tables - if you don't like sitting with strangers, you might be out of luck (although from what I see, it's not THAT packed mostly.)
They offer two kinds of complimentary soups and I always get the cream one - it's pretty solid here, perhaps a bit thicker than other places (which is how I like it!) Quite good!
I have two meals that I judge these kinds of restaurants on: hainanese chicken and Portuguese sauce chicken.
The Hainanese chicken was not at all impressive. In fact, it was downright disappointing. Chicken lacked flavour, rice lacked flavour, and portion size was severely lacking.
After that, my friend kept wanting to come here for lunch, and I didn't have a better suggestion, so we kept coming and I just kept trying new things... Nothing really stood out until I stopped the fourth day and said "bro, can you order me what you get?"
Instant revelation: the regulars who come know what to order.
I got the fried instant noodles and they were GOOD. Flavourful and lasting taste in your mouth... Savour it. It transformed this from a forgettable experience to a pretty solid lunch spot.
I'm not a huge fan of their breakfasts, but my friend has gotten that a couple of times and seemed to really enjoy it.
For their baked noodle specials, they are not shy about loading it up with cheese, and I appreciate that they don't cheap out here.
All in all, I have got to ask my friend to order again for me next time as well (something different!)