About 1 month ago, I went to Wendy’s (the one on Woodbine, north of Hwy 7) duing lunch time. Across the street, I saw a new plaza with one of the restaurants called Royal Teahouse. Hum… that name sounded familiar. Later, I recalled the one called Modern Teahouse originally located in First Markham Place (that moo blogged about). Last Friday, me and 3 of my colleagues decided to pay a visit to this “dim sum specialist”.
It was around 11:45am by the time we arrived. The look and feel of this restaurant was very “unconventional” for a chinese teahouse. With a lot of square tables instead of round ones, it looked more like a congee/noodle place. Looking at the menu, the price was slightly higher (as expected).
Compared to a lot of the Chinese teahouses, obviously this one is marketed towards the mainstream customers. A lot of the customers were non-Chinese. Some of them seemed to be quite excited about trying out the Chinese dim sum and asked what we were having on our table. Here are what we ordered…
First dish of the day, BBQ Pork Patti (叉燒酥)… it was quite small and there wasn’t a lot of fillings. Um… I’d say that was not one of the best that I’ve ever had.
Since new year is coming and we didn’t want a lot of fried food, I ordered the steamed turnip cake (蒸蘿蔔糕), which was not bad.
Then, as usual we like to order the steamed rice noodle (腸粉). This is the shrimp one. the rice noodle was quite good! Smooth and thin rice noodle wrapping good portion of shrimps. I like it.
Of course… how can we not order the shrimp dumpling?! (蝦餃) It was quite good. The dumpling wrapping was thin. Maybe that was why it seemed a bit over-cooked.
Steamed beef tripe with ginger and green onion (牛柏葉) – the taste was above-average.
Ah-ha! dessert time… I just couldn’t help ordering the steamed egg white with almond juice (杏汁蛋白). Not bad… I could taste the almond, although it wasn’t very strong.
Other dishes that we ordered are:
– Steamed bean curd with meat and oyster sauce (鮮竹卷) – my colleague’s comment was the taste of pork meat was too strong that it covered the taste bean curd and I agree with her.
– Deep fried meat dumpling (咸水角) – freshly made, above average
– Steamed rice noodle with deep fried flour stick (i.e.炸兩), that one was so-so; the rice noodle was good, but the flour stick wasn’t that fresh, a bit hard.
The total for 4 people was around $38 before T&T. Overall, the food there wasn’t as good as expected. I think you can get better quality food at the same price, or similar quality food for less at other places. Maybe I’ll also order something else if I happen to be there again next time… It’s always good to try out some new restaurants! Also, another comment is – they should offer cutting up the dim sum (e.g. for the steamed bean curd with meat & oyster sauce and the deep fried meat dumplings) since they came in 3 servings and we would like to share them.
OH! Another selling point of this restaurant is its opening hours… I think it opens til 10-11pm at night… so in other words, whenever you feel like dim sum, you can have it there :0
FYI:
Royal Teahouse -DimSum Specialist 君皇茶坊
10 Applecreek Blvd., Building B, Unit 3, Markham, ON L3R 5Z1
Tel: 905-946-1898
i’ve been there at night — they didn’t serve dimsum !! that have regular dimsum items .. and the place is PACKED on wkend lunches ..
They now serve regular Chinese dinner at night (dim-sum for lunch only). Because of their restaurant name, customers are led to think of dim-sum only. We went there for lunch and dinner on the same day. The place was packed by lunch crowds, but was only half full during dinner.
Thanks for letting me know about this. I just presume that they’ll have dim sum after hour. :p
Does this place serve bubbletea?
If not – any suggestions for the best bubble tea in the Markham/Richmond Hill area .. other than Ten Ren’s of course!
Hi Amanda, I don’t think they have BBT there, but surprisingly Fortune BBQ (https://carbonxiv.com/?p=601) sells BBT. Not sure how that is though. I’m not very fond of BBT. Usually just order honey black tea OR lychee black/green tea w/o tapioca. It really depends on how the person makes the bubbles, even the same store (e.g. Tea 168), the quality varies from time to time. There are some pretty good BBT places @ First Markham Place. The best tapioca would be chewy w/ a bit sweetness. Anyone knows any place that sells good BBT? in Markham/Richmond Hill area?
“a place for us 杯中蜜” has really good BBT in 1st markham place; “go for tea” on hwy 7 & east beaver creek is a nice place to go. food and drink are more expensive than a place for us 杯中蜜 but it’s a nice place to go… check out this pic. http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/107390127_d1b674803c.jpg?v=0
Hi Bonnie,
Yes, I have to agree. That place has been there forever, and the drinks and food there are pretty good (at least when I was there last time about a year ago).
Didn’t notice this post~
Actually, the food at Royal Teahouse is better than other “teahouse” i have been to. well, it’s true that it’s a bit more $$, but most item taste better.
also on the higher price group, the Diamond Restaurant in First Markham Place does pretty much the same, but with a bigger place, it’s less stress and waiting at the door.
don’t know about weekday lunch though…
For dinner, Royal Teahouse, kinda sucks. With high price, but low quality food. well, i have to say it isn’t much better than those food court take-out places. Or may be it’s just that we ordered the wrong food?
Next time at Royal Teahouse, you gotta try the fried eggplant, it’s really good.
We went there for dinner last Saturday night. We got the VIP room. The food was EXCELLENT! We had delicious “real” Crab meet & fish maw soup (蟹肉魚肚羹), peking duck (2 dishes with lettuce wraps), tofu pot (highly recommended), drunken chicken, steamed fish, sizzling beef on hot plate, stir-fried baby ba-choy, pork with lemon grass and fish sauce (魚露), scallops and snowpeas in bird’s nest. Complimentary “red bean soup” was included.
We enjoyed the dinner very much and highly recommended this place to every one. This place is not only for dim sum for lunch.
NB. The owner told us that they recently hired the head chef from Dragon Dynasty Chinese Cuisine (龍騰金閣). I used to be a frequent customer of Dragon Dynasty. Now I know where to go for a good Chinese dinner for my family.
Wow Betsy! Thanks for the good news~ I’ll go there for dinner if I get a chance next time. 🙂
I was there about a week ago, the Small, Medium and large Dim Sum will be at $2.50ea. when you pay your bill by 11:30 or 2:00 till 4pm
I wll says the Tea is HOT and the look of the Dim Sum OK too.
Wow Thanks for the update Tonia 😀
royal tea house has dim sum all day…but they close every monday night…they have early bird as breakfast just 2.50 each dimsum before 11.30 am order…ummmm
does the early bird discount on dim sum apply on weekends too? do they still have the discount on afternoon tea on weekdays/weekends?
only weekdays…9am-11:30am..2pm-4pm
The atmosphere is fine.
The food looks ok.
I went there on the weekday at 12.00PM and ordered the food at 12.05PM, waited until 12.30PM, then walked out.
It was not that busy on the day. This restaurant was very slow… very slow. Oh, the waitress forgot to put my table number on the order. It was the reason why it was slow.
I also went there and i would like to say that they do serve Dim Sum at dinner it just has to be ordered and asked for. Another point is that i go there very often now a days and i had asked something that many may find interesting they have gotten a new dinner and lunch kitchen chef and his dishes seems better cooked then the last one. many of the points that many of you have mentioned has been fixed such as over cooking and things being not as freshly cooked, and taste issues