TenRen’s Tea Time 喫茶新饌 – Revisit

Last time we went to TenRen’s for the tea, and I said that I would go back again. So, here we were… We booked the VIP room for 9 people. Minimum charge for the room was $150, which was ok since we were there for dinner and there were 9 of us.

The room was quite nice, with Chinese calligraphy on the wall, which reminds me of my laziness and not practicing my calligraphy in a long time. (I’ll do it after I’ve settled down at the new place.) Looking at the menu, there were quite a few cool items that still weren’t available, most of them are well-known Taiwanese items/snacks.

We mainly ordered from the combo menu – chose 1 soup out of 3, 1 meat/fish entree out of 9, 1 veggie dish out of 3, 1 dessert out of 3, and 1 drink out of 6 different kinds of cold drinks + 6 different types of hot drinks. The green salad was standard.

Some of my friends found the menu a bit overwhelming… too many to choose from. Yes, I agree, sometimes, especially on the first few times when we haven’t got used to the menu, such selection could cause headache.

The green salad was fresh and I love the cute little tomato there. (OH… I’m gonna miss the tomatoes from my backyard.) The soup was so-so, nothing special. Look at all the steam cases 蒸籠 on the table. I think we were like the younger verion of the Chinese elderly people eating dim sum @ an teahouse. The food was ok. Maybe it was because I ordered the veggie. The tofu was good. The fish was somehow a bit tough. I thought the portion wouldn’t be enough for the guys but they actualy found it filling. (Maybe it was me who had a really good appetite that night).

After the meal, the desserts came. I chose the mango cake. I think the desserts on the combo menu were the same as the ones that we tried the other night. They were ok. Then, I ordered the Cha-ppuccino – rich green tea flavour. It was quite good.

Since Mid-Autumn fesival was coming (at the time we had that dinner…), we ordered a box of Taiwanese mooncakes. It costed about $38. Had to pay separately. There were 5 different flavours – cranberry, grape, greentea, red bean, chestnut. I think I liked the grape one best among all of them. But… after eating all 5 pieces, ah… they all tasted pretty much the same.

Overall, I like this place. So far, I’ve been there for 3-4 times and the service has been really good compared to many other places. One time a guy mixed up one of my friends’ drink, and his attitude was very good – apologized and exchanged it right away. Even this time with a group of 9 and we were satisfied with their smiles and services. The only thing about the VIP room was that it was hard to get the servers’ attention since there was no bell/ring/phone that we could use to notify them without sticking our heads out to call them.

The whole night of dinner, desserts and drinks, AND MOONCAKES. Cost per person was less than $25. I think it was great!

FYI: TenRen’s Tea Time 喫茶新饌
111 Times Avenue, Unite 101, Richmond Hill (Hwy 7/Bayview)
Tel: (905) 881-8896