Hollywood.Cafe / Cafe Hollywood — Restaurant in Markham

This has been the restaurant I have visited for decades. It opened back in 1994 and yes I have been there for a long long time since it was at Market Village. To be honest, I support many Hong Kong style restaurants especially they have been so long in Canada and they do bring back lots of memories. For this particular one, of course there were lots of memories coming to this place when it was at market village, but for this review, perhaps I just mainly focus on its quality on food and everything.

If you guys been to the old one, the service was excellent and you old Toronto people would know who I am referring to, they are great people and always great going there with great atmosphere and service; however, as time changes, with new generations, the service here i can definitely say, it’s really Hong Kong style = no service or bad service. why? I will share more after.

Good: To be honest, the quality always remained the same as not too good or from its golden years with great food then deteriorating over years then becoming steady quality = if you order any dishes with chicken, you know what I mean. I often come back and want to remind myself the boiled soaked chicken with sauce on top. Funny part that I missed how I used to eat it with this quality but then it went further downhill. This time, speechless. Mine was a portuguese chicken rice. Chicken as i mentioned above, sauce, bland with no taste, coconut flakes were the only flavor I got, and the rice, it has a very weird texture I don’t know if the rice was cooked with whatever water or what, it’s just weird.

But the main part was my friend’s rice noodles soup, upon she finishes the bowl, and while we were having a conversation of how bad we had food when we were young and saw stuff in our food etc, then all of a sudden, SHE FOUND A HAIR in the soup…

We told the server, he said, we kept everything clean so it’s impossible, and she almost finsihed the whole bowl, what do we want him to do…. anyways, we just wanted to reflect that to them and not asking for more food or free food. Feedback is always important if there will be any improvements in the future as well.

So it’s ok, we paid the full bill as we did not have further expectation on what else they will do anyway.

So for other dishes we ordered, I didn’t even take any pictures since they were not really impressive or maybe my friend will have it and he will post it and provide some feedback as well.

Hope it will get better in the future, it’s seriously a brand for the old timers and support Hong Kong style restaurants.

However, I don’t know when I will give this place another chance again. ...

Hollywood Cafe or Cafe Hollywood is one of the 2 restaurants in the Hollywood Square plaza. The restaurant is on the small side. The parking lot is rather small, about 10 parking spots just outside of the restaurant's building. Inside the restaurant, there's plenty of tables/seating available. The washrooms are on the right side of the building, along side some tables. The left side of the restaurant has the rest of the tables and the counter where you pay for your food and the kitchen.

I heard that they serve Hong Kong styled foods and bubble tea here. I had a quick look at the menu to choose what kind of bubble tea I wanted to order and drink. I had read that they had an extensive menu for bubble tea.

The food menu is extensive, ranging from Hong Kong styled breakfast items to snacks, soup/salad/curry, noodle/rice. There is a "Happy Meal" and some Hollywood Combo meals. They also have a wings special that forces you to buy a pitcher of either beer or soda to go along with your wings special. I read that the noodle dishes here a suspicious, and that the rice dishes are decent. I also read some reviews that this cafe has gone downhill in quality and possibly quantity of their food.

They have an extensive drinks menu, from Prestotea's teas and bubble teas to alcohol to a variety of beverages and specialty drinks.

I ordered the Royal Earl Grey Milk Tea Family bubble tea. The total cost for this one was $6.77 (with tax). It came in what seemed to be a large sized cup. The bubble tea had what seemed to be grass jelly and pudding as toppings in it.

Never had Prestotea before. The milk tea tasted pretty good. Not too sweet, came with ice. I was recommended to get the bubble tea here from a colleague. The bubble tea here is actually pretty good, considering that the prices here are cheaper than what some of Coco's menu items.

They accept cash, credit and debit cards. I'll be planning to try some more of their mil teas here, since the one that I ordered tasted pretty good. Maybe some day I'll order one of their meals just to see whether or not the rumor of the food quality went downhill is...

Café Hollywood is an HK Café staple in the Markham area, a pillar of the community you could say. They've been around since 1993 and still very busy.

I came here on a thursday evening for boys night, restaurant was packed, time was around 9PM. Ample parking spots in this plaza, the menu hasn't changed much over the years, the staples are all there. The beer and wings deal is the best bet as it has a wings special

Wings Special - Purchase any pitcher of drinks at the price listed and get a wings basket for $9.99 (20 wings total with fries and gravy)

Food:

We ordered the above Wings Special - Purchase any pitcher of drinks at the price listed and get a wings basket for $9.99 (20 wings total with fries and gravy) - flavor choices are limited, when we got there the honey garlic bbq was sold out, so we opted for the honey garlic with a pitcher of Sapporo.

Wings were crispy... could barely taste any garlic, honey was provided on the side as a dip (as they've been doing for a long time)

Got a happy meal - chicken fillet with pork chop, black pepper sauce and spaghetti - dish was lacking flavor in general, missing msg, salt, something... a lot of things.

portuguese style baked chicken on rice - same comments as the happy meal, just didn't hit the spot as it used to

french toast with condensed milk and peanut butter - subpar compared to cha kee

maybe it was because they were closing and staff were tired? last call was shortly after we came in, maybe 10pm or so, i dont know i was a little buzzed cause i aint eat nothing all day and was hoping for some blessed food at Cafe Hollywood

I was wrong - food quality has gone downhill since i came 5-6 years ago, everything was mostly bland, elements of quality control are definitely lacking, maybe if i came earlier in the day it would be a different story but i dont know, i don't have intentions to go out of my way to eat here and if a friend suggested it to me i would rather just eat at the golden arches which even at 11pm doesn't...