Located at 9021 Leslie Street in Richmond Hill

I’m always starving after a court reporting job, so my mom and I headed to a Hong Kong style cafe that we haven’t tried out before called Chi Star House.  It is located nearby a karaoke cafe and close to Premiere Dining & Banquet Hall.

For a restaurant that seems to exist in an area where most people have to drive to get to (by that, I mean there is no TTC), there were a lot of people here on a weekday noon time.  

The place was packed! In a cozy and crowd-happy kind of way

Shrimp Wonton Noodle in Soup. $5.99

For a typical HK-style restaurant, I chose a shrimp wonton noodle in soup.  The shrimp wontons were mediocre and not too flavourful.  The noodles at first seemed to be hard when floating in the lukewarm soup but when I flipped the whole noodle in the bowl and ate from its underbelly first, the noodles were actually decent.

Two Eggs and Toast that came with the meal! Such a deal.

Preserved Cabbage and Shredded Chicken with Vermicelli in Soup + Two Eggs and Toast. $5.29

My mom ordered the vermicelli with preserved vegetables and chicken.  The vermicelli was good and the preserved vegetables were covered in some kind of slimy sauce.  There were very few pieces of chicken in the bowl.

We actually came here the day afterwards too; this time during the early afternoon so I got to partake in their afternoon tea menu.

I ordered the Afternoon Tea Set C which sounded so appealing to me since it contained a smoked salmon salad, fried fish fillet, a pork chop burger, and Chef’s Dessert.  I love cute arrangements like this! 😀

Chi Star Specialty Tea Set C. $7.99
Smoked Salmon Salad, Cutlet Fish Fillet, Pork Chop Burger, Chef’s Dessert

However, when the PLATE arrived, everything was small-sized (fun-sized) and much tinier than I expected.  Though for just $7.99, I guess this serving is about right.

The salad was basically cabbage with mayo, 2 slices of thin cucumber, 1 tomato sliver, and ONE smoked salmon.  Smoked salmon is always delicious and I savoured every inch of it. 🙂

Chef’s Dessert — mango yogurt

It came with a bed of French fries that were golden brown and super crispy on the outside!  I gobbled these up first.  They were so good!

The pork chop burger was a slider.  The pork chop patty was very tough to bite apart and contained lots of fatty parts that I had to spit back out.  So this wasn’t as big a hit.

The Chef’s Dessert was a small cup of mango yogurt with a small spoon (although it doesn’t look small in the photo).  This was yummy; I liked the thin mango sauce that was poured over the smooth yogurt.

We also ordered a Thai noodle that was good.  The rice noodles were the very thin type and tasted sweet and sour.

Stir Fried Rice Noodles in Thai Style. $6.99

I like how affordable and easy-going this HK-style cafe is.  They also provide free and high-speed Internet access with no password too!  Yay! 🙂  I’m pretty sure third and fourth-time visits are in the cards.

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Update:  March 10, 2016

I returned to Chi Star House for dinner!  On this night, we ordered a set dinner menu which consisted of “hand-shredded chicken”, lobster, and a plate of vegetables!

Ample dinner for two

Soup to start

There was a soup that came first for us after we ordered.  I don’t know the name of this soup in Chinese but it was very good.

“Hand-shredded chicken” is one of my favourite dishes to eat at a Chinese restaurant.  I love how the bones were torn apart from the meat so that you get these tender pieces of chicken that are infused with flavour.

Hand-shredded chicken

View from the other side of the plate

For this dish at Chi Star House, they shredded all the meat and draped the chicken skin over the dish for presentation.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the way they prepared the dish at this restaurant because I thought that the chicken meat weren’t torn apart enough, the meat was a little chewy and rough, and there wasn’t enough seasoning throughout the chicken.

I enjoyed the lobster and I really liked the fried small fish that were scattered around the dish.  This was delicious!

Stir-fried lobster with fried fish

The little fried fish were delicious!

The plate of vegetables was a little chewy and each bite took a long time to eat.

Boiled vegetables

We didn’t finish up all the food so we packed the rest home to enjoy. 🙂

Our dinner was rounded off with a sweet potato dessert.  This was delicious! 🙂

Dessert