Star Chef Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Markham

October 2023 Update: Came here for lunch and tried the fish noodle soup and Singapore noodles. I found the Singapore noodles to have improved and is well seasoned. The fish noodle soup was customizable, large in size and tasted pretty good. For my own taste, I prefer a more intense fish broth. Service is very friendly.

New Cantonese restaurant in East Markham. I came for dinner when they still had a promo where you got a free drink with every dish which turned out to be great value but the staff were definitely overwhelmed and understaffed. Good news is I think the boss understood they were pushing it and needed more staff.

We tried the Singapore noodles, spicy pepper salt pork chop, and stir fried tong choi. The food is not bad with decent portion sizes but everything just needed a bit of improvement. The Singapore noodles was missing a bit of salt, the pork chop marinade needed a bit more baking soda to tenderize the meat, and our dish of tong choi had a lot of the stalks which were a bit chewy.

Since they just opened, I think the community should give them some grace and time for adjusting and improving their operations. I'll visit again once the new opening rush has...

I get that they opened not too long ago but full on made eye contact with a waitress, tried to flag her down to order food but she just ignored me As I ordered the waitress tells me they don't have congee which is like the first bit of their menu so I chose something else. She repeated my order and got it wrong so I told her I wanted pork not duck and she's like oh we have that? So I literally pointed to the menu to show her and she's like oh didn't know that. When my order came they said it was duck so I told them I ordered pork so she went back to check and was like oh I just read it wrong. I started eating and realized they actually gave me duck but at that point I honestly just gave up. We also ordered a laksa soup noodle but it tasted more like Tom yum? Drinks weren't great, got a HK milk tea and milk tea and coffee. Not sure if it's the tea they used but something was off

At the end of the day I think I would come again since the location is super convenient and I don't have any allergies so I'm not as concerned that they give me the wrong food, just annoyed.

Side note is they are super busy so if you come around dinner time, there will...

I am being completely neutral about this restaurant, but I still have to give it a 2-star rating.

There are several reasons for this decision:

1. They keep changing their promotion regarding the red bean ice cream. It has shifted from being included in all-day meals, to only being available during afternoon tea, and then to just specific dishes during afternoon tea. While it's fine for them to change their offerings, they should at least provide advance notice to customers. This inconsistency frustrated my uncle and family friends. Personally, I would prefer to go to Tim Hortons or a fast food chain for cold drinks, so it’s not a huge deal for me.

2. The waitress service really needs improvement. Based on my first-hand experience, as well as feedback from my family friends, the service is not very accommodating. The staff doesn’t engage in small talk with customers unless they know them personally. Their tone can make it feel as if they assume we can't afford to dine there.

3. The food quality is also quite average, especially considering the high prices...