Woodstone Eatery 森石 — Restaurant in Markham

Spark Notes: There was melted cheese, BBQ pork, delicious sauce, and rice. It was fire. See below for the low down.

The boys and I had just finished up with a marathon workout session, so we were in immediate need of nutrition. Thankfully, the Woodstone Eatery had recently opened up across the street, so the choice was easy.

Woodstone Eatery is a new Asian fusion restaurant around Woodbine & Hwy 7. There is no shortage of Asian restaurants in the area, so props to Woodstone for putting a refreshing and fitting twist on Asian cuisine. The midsize restaurant has decor that presents a lively, modern feel. The creative lighting is a fun touch, and the greenery is well thought out.

After opening up the menu and catching a look at the first rice dish, everyone at the table had pretty much settlled on the cheesy baked BBQ pork on rice, topped with a poached egg, (which turned out to be fried). Although I wanted to make an original decision, the food porn photography was too enticing, and the FOMO was too real. Thank God I didn't try to be creative. It was delicious! In a casserole-esq dish, I was served a bed of white rice topped with large chunks of BBQ pork, a warm tomato sauce, toasted cheese, and a fried egg. When you take your first bite, you'll be reminded of that comforting BBQ pork rice that you can grab from any old Asian restaurant, but Woodstone takes it to a wonderful savoury next level, starting with this tomato sauce. It adds an unexpected sweetness to the dish, and oddly enough, it's reminiscent to ketchup. Depending on your palette you may or may not care for it. I personally think the dish could do with one level less of that flavour, but I was really happy regardless. Oh, and we can't forget the extra dimension of wonderful that you're bless with once you break that egg yolk.

I also treated myself to an ice coconut macchiato. Being someone who never has added sugar in his normal diet, I really don't care for overly sugary drinks, but they hit the sweet spot (pun absolutely intended) with this drink. The presentation was pleasant, and I really appreciated the drink overall.

All in all, I had a great time. The food was well thought out, delicious, filling, and didn't break the bank. The service wasn't too bad either. I'm sure we'll be back sometime soon to see if the rest of the...

With so many Asian/Oriental related food choices to pick from, the result of numerous new eateries sprouting up around town. It is therefore a rare sight to see a lineup formed by potential customers outside a particular restaurant, all waiting to get in….this was exactly the spectacle we observed at 3.00pm from inside this restaurant!

The aforementioned remark pertains mainly to new eateries with monotonous, one-dimensional ‘ Hot-pot, Spicy Sichuan, Hand pulled noodles and/or Dumpling ‘ theme. As such, to discover a restaurant specializing in ‘ Macau style Portuguese food was a refreshing and welcoming revelation!

To avoid the long weekend crowd, our party of four arrived after 2.00pm for a late lunch at this new found hidden neighborhood gem. The menu contained an attractive array and a good variety of authentic and traditional sounding Macau style Portuguese food augmented by some popular S.E Asian favorites……Hainanese Chicken Rice, Malaysian Curries…etc. The Macau food related segment of the menu contains perennial Macanese favorites like Pasteis de Bacalhau ( Salt cod fritters ), African Chicken, Macau style Pork-chop in a Bun and the ever popular Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice.

For our late lunch, we decided on the following: Pasteis de Bacalhau Cream of Potato Soup with mixed vegetables Hainanese Chicken Rice Baked Macau style Portuguese Chicken Rice Baked Whole Pork Loin (Char-Siu Style) topped with creamy Tomato sauce and Sunny side up fried egg. Baked fried Grouper Fish Fillet with Creamy Tomato Sauce

All the main dishes were topped with delicious and well balanced sauces, seasoned to our liking. The greaseless and savory Salt Cod Fritters were crispy, fluffy and light…..Tasty and addictive. The soup, rich, creamy and flavourful. With so many places claiming to offer the most authentic creation of Hainanese Chicken Rice, it is therefore an almost impossibility to settle for ‘ The One ‘! IMO, the main thing was for the dish to offer a delectable taste profile that happens to fit our palate. This was exactly the case with the version we ordered! Stand out dish was the - ‘Baked Char-Siu Filet with creamy Tomato sauce Fried Rice’....different and appetizing!

All in all a delightful, enjoyable and relaxing, casual...

Food is great I used to come here a lot, but have to put a two-star for a recent unplesent experience…

My friend and i ordered the pan fried chicken. I know it says the dish would take around 25 minutes to prepare on the menu. But it actually took around 40 minutes. We also ordered drinks but it never come while we were waiting, have to call the waiteress to bring them up. So I guess the order was not sent to kitchen…I am actually okay with this. But what happened later made me feel so disrespected.

After we finished the food we wanted to pay separatly. I told the waitress to separate bills but she bought only one bill. So I asked her again but she told me that I had to tell her before the bill is printed and refused me to do that. This excuse is just absurd!

I understand that the place is noise or the waitress is not used to Mandarin. And it is common for Chinese restaurant in this area to not take credit card or do not separate bills to save the cost.

But none if them would refuse a customer by telling them "You have to tell them before". If the bill can be separated, what's wrong with you to print out the bills again for customers. Its like saying "I can separate the bill but I don't want to do that for you".

And why it takes you 40 minutes to prepare the dish but cannot take 40 seconds to reprint the bill? In the end I paid that one bill without tips. I explained to the waitress about my reasoning. She pointed me to a paper pasted on the counter (there's no way for me to see it from the table) saying something like the restaurant don't separate bills during busy time. This just got me more disappointed because the restaurant was not full at that time. Sad that I won't come here in the future, will miss the pan fried chicken, red curry spaghetti with meatballs, and bqq pork...