the new Ah Yuen Steakhouse 阿遠茶餐廳 - nothing like its old counterpart.

My plane from HK to Toronto landed on the night of January 17th. Not even 48 hours later, 阿媽 drove me to Apple Creek Blvd to try out the new Ah Yuen Steakhouse 阿遠茶餐廳, insisting we must try it because it claims it's the same owner as the one we reminisce about. And the only reason she waited two days is because I had a full morning-to-night class schedule the day after my arrival. Sometimes, I think my mom is even more of a hardcore foodie than I am.

I apologize for the lack of visuals on the storefront. It's the restaurant next to Royal Teahouse 君皇茶房, in the plaza at Apple Creek Blvd. and Woodbine Ave.


Because we were reminscing their old restaurant's flavourful and filling 車仔麵 HK-style bowl noodles, 阿媽 ordered their special 車仔麵. It contained beef brisket, fish balls, beef balls, radish, slices of Chinese red sausages. She said there wasn't enough flavour in the soup base, nothing like what we remembered Ah Yuen's 車仔麵 to be.


I ordered their Japanese style chicken with vermicelli, ham, egg and steamed veggies. The chicken was very oily and everything else was quite bland.


阿爸 ordered chicken and dumpling noodles. This was the most bland of all our dishes, almost no taste at all.

Each dish cost $6-7.50, not the cheapest yet not the most expensive HK style cafe.

Fast-forward a month and a half later.

阿媽 and I came back for dinner a few weeks ago, in hopes that their dinner chefs are better than their lunch ones. Or perhaps we just went on a bad day the first time. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. That night, when we were waiting for our orders to be taken, a loud argument erupted from the kitchen. Every word of the shouting match could be heard from every single seat in the restaurant. And these are not pretty words either. There were swear words and very rough terms, vocabulary that kids should not be hearing. Like 阿媽 said, if it weren't for the fact we already sat down and had a sip of their tea, we would've walked out of there in a heartbeat. How good can their food be with such an intense argument going on? Lack of organization, and lack of manners. There's no door between the kitchen and the dining area, so they clearly knew the patrons were unwilling audience members. We all waited in silence for a solid 10 minutes or so, with no apology from any of the employees for the disruption.

Anyway, 阿媽 ordered 苦瓜排骨飯 bitter melon and spareribs with rice and I ordered 茄汁烤豬扒飯 porkchops baked in tomato sauce over fried rice. Both were below average. Instead of serving spareribs like we ordered, they gave us (tough) 豬扒 porkchops. I've never seen bitter melon and porkchops together like this, and they did not complement each other at all. Furthermore, I didn't enjoy the tomato sauce of my dish, making the dish a flop. Very disappointed, again.

Altogether, nothing like the old cafe and steakhouse we remembered it to be. Will probably never come back here either. Advice: there's plenty of other HK style cafes around that is better, both in quality of the food and service, for the same price.


Ah Yuen Steakhouse 阿遠茶餐廳
10 Apple Creek Blvd, Markham, ON L3R 5Z1
(905) 474-1228


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