O Street Cafe — Restaurant in Newmarket

The 2 stars are SOLELY for the food and beverage. It was delicious by Newmarket standards. Food comment see below. But the 3 stars are deducted for several reasons:

The restaurant is NOT FIRST COME FIRST SERVE basis. We were second couple in line waiting for a table, with a couple before us. A group of 5 entered when a table that seats 4 is cleared. The staff insisted that the group of 5 should be seated in the empty table. I kindly rejected the offer and another staff decides to give the seat to the couple before us. Then another table that seats 4 is being cleared a few minutes later and without asking, the staff again seated the group of 5, hence making the start of the experience unpleasant. Customer service 3/10.

When seated, the chair was actually broken (see photo). The seat was not attached to the chair. When the drinks came, the cup was chipped (see photo). This does not feel like the restaurant was newly opened. Environment 5/10

We ordered the chef's recommendations, which was their infamous chicken rice and cheesy mushroom/bacon spaghetti. (see photo) The food waiting time for the spaghetti was 13 minutes, average by cafe standards. But the chicken rice came at the 27 minute mark. We asked a staff to update us/check on the order but did not receive an update from her. "It's on its way" would have been suffice. I had already finished my meal when the chicken rice arrived.

The reason for the 2 stars:

The milk tea has a good tea base, texture was silky smooth with no residual tea leaves. It is the best HK style milk tea you can get in Newmarket/Aurora area. Their infamous chicken meat was smooth even though it was thoroughly cooked. The spaghetti had just enough flavoring without tasting too salty. It has a good amount of bacon in relation to the spaghetti.

Pricing is very decent and I appreciate a HK style cafe opening up in Newmarket. But due to the above reasons, I may choose to order takeout to prevent any negative experience from dining in.

I absolutely recommend the food, and it was worth trying. But definitely can do better in the customer...

Finally a Hong Kong style cafe in the north! Apparently it has opened for about a month and a bit, but we didn't notice til my mother came across another YouTuber that mentioned this place.

Came here on a Saturday brunch time, it was already PACKED!! It wasn't a huge cafe/ restaurant, so if you planned to come with the whole fam, plan wisely. It was only the 2 of us so we got sited right away (at a corner with a small table). They have quite an options to choose from- breakfast, lunch, dinner, all-day, happy hour, etc.

We have order the Satay Beef in Vermicelli with egg sandwich (changed to rice noodles), Special Poached chicken w/ rice, and Signature french toast w/ sea salt cream. Both vermicelli and the chicken came with a drink so we opted for HK milk tea and salted lime 7-up. The satay beef has a decent amount of sliced beef and quite tender, but I wished it would have a bit more sauce and a tad bit flavour (salt). The chicken rice was very similar to most places' Hainanese Chicken Rice (one of my favourite dish in the whole world), tender and soft pieces of chicken, however the chicken didn't have much meat in it so it was a little disappointing. The dipping sauces were garlic soy sauce and minced ginger- garlic soy just simply diced garlic with a few dashes of soy sauce. The french toast was quite unique with the bread cut into 4 thick sticks which I thought was a little thoughtful. The whole combination of flavour was sweet, creamy, a little bit of saltiness, however, the bread did soak up the cream quickly. Salted lime 7-up... very disappointed. Rather than break up the lime a little to bring out its natural flavour, they simply cut a salted lime in half and dumped into your cup... oh, did I mention they only give you HALF A LIME? Barely any flavour in my drink, totally missing the saltiness I was hoping to have.

Overall, a lot needs to be improved- service and flavour, as well as table...

There was a younger waitress that seated me today. When I asked her if they accepted card for payment, she informed me they only take debit. However, I didnt have a debt card nor cash on me and so I asked if it would be okay to pay by Mastercard or visa. If she had said no, then I would not have proceeded to order my meal. She told me that not to worry about it and to just remember to bring my debit card for next time, as they would make an exception this time. That’s the only reason why I went ahead to order my food.

Once my food arrived, nobody came to check up on me, despite looking my way and even locking eye contact with me. Even the waitress that seated me looked at me in the eyes and then walked away. I did not feel the need to speak Cantonese this entire time, until later (see below).

When I got up to pay, an older waitress that other reviewers commented on, firmly insisted I paid by debit. I tried to explain to her (in English) what the other waitress said, and she just told me to talk to the cashier. At this point, I switched over to speaking Cantonese and once that happened, they instantly let it go.

Incredibly disappointed because I did enjoy the food and was planning on coming back with other people since I lived pretty close by. After this interaction, I will NOT be coming back.

If you read the other reviews on here, they mention the same thing where they felt treated differently. The difference is, I actually am fluent in Cantonese by background but I don’t prefer to speak in it. I understand that language barrier are important things to consider, but it doesn’t excuse inappropriate and awful...