To my surprise, e-canteen in Richmond is gone and Enjoy Cafe 1+1 is in its place. This must’ve happened recently, as I came here back in January with my inlaws and it was still e-canteen. Anyway, although the signs have changed, the interior is the same. What is with the 1+1 part anyway? I’m curious and if anyone knows, please fill me in!

Just like the interior, the menu is still very similar to the old menu – it just has brand spankin’ new menu pages – or maybe it has changed since this is standard Chinese cafe fare that they serve?

I was most intrigued by one of their dishes – Strawberry and Sour Pork. At first, I thought maybe it was a typo but as one of the people I was dining with pointed it – in the Chinese characters, it indeed said “Strawberry”. The foodie in me said I should give it a go, but I knew that I would probably end up not eating it and it would be a waste.

I ordered off the Steak Combo menu which is $7.95 for one choice of meat, $9.50 for two choices and so forth. I also want to point out in their fine print at the bottom that if you come between 6-9pm – it’s a $1 extra (for the Steak Combos anyway). That being said, the combo came with soup and any drink on their menu (bubble tea and some other drinks were a little bit extra). The choices of soup are typical to any Chinese cafe: broth or cream. I ordered the cream soup.


The cream soup was comforting on a cold evening like tonight. It was heavy, milky and had fine pieces of ham and corn bits.


The dish itself was enormous. Even with just one choice, I was really stuffed! They were very generous with rice and the chicken steak. The chicken steak was tender, there was a lot of fat to it compared to some other places I’ve had the same dish. The veggies on the side were bits of buttered corn and boiled broccoli. The corn was fine but I found the broccoli a little bland. I did enjoy the vegetables here better than places like Honolulu or Number 9 because they were properly boiled and cut in bite sized pieces.

With the Steak Combo, you have a choice of several different sauces from mushroom, onion, etc. I chose my favourite sauce – the black pepper sauce. I normally get this sauce because I like the peppery spicy-ness to it. However here at Enjoy Cafe, I didnt find it as peppery as most places but it wasnt too bad.

For my drink, I got the traditional cold tea&coffee with milk mix. I found it much stronger than most places that water it down.

My husband ordered the Portuguese Chicken. It had a lot of vegetables but he said it could use more chicken. The sauce was very creamy and savoury. Normally, they bake rice at the bottom of the dish, but they forgot to this time around so he had a side plate of rice.


I forgot to mention that ALL menu items come with either a hot or cold drink. My husband ordered Passion Fruit Red Tea – he felt that it was sweet but good and decently sized.

Food
The food is good, the portions for the Dinner combo are big. The rest of the plates are normally sized.

Service: 
I’m impressed because most Chinese cafes don’t have great service, but at Enjoy they were prompt and friendly. Our waiter came back several times to fill our tea cups and was very accommodating to our needs.

Value:
The food is priced competitively but I found it to be a little bit more than most places. I guess because it includes a drink, but not everyone wants a drink when they go out to eat, so would you spend the extra dollar or two? The combo is definitely worth the price but I think that I could get the same food and the same portion somewhere else for less.

Ambiance:
The place is big, one of the guys said it used to be a karaoke place. The cafe is clean, the chairs and the tables have been renovated. They are capable of holding big parties because of the rooms that used to be for karaoke.


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