M Cafe: Brand new but cutting corners already?!

Been eyeing this place for a while now, it's been "Opening soon" for some time, and every time I go to Sushi Town next door, I peek in to see if they're open yet. Finally, BlackBab00n mentions to me that they had just opened (finally!). Rounded up my family to go try it!

Restaurant: M Cafe

Location: 2773 Barnet Highway, Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Hong Kong-style
Price range: $15-20 per entree





Date of visit: March 5, 2015
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 3/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 2/5

Saw the manager (?) from Copa Cafe, I guess he transferred over here? Anyhow, Elephant noted that the menu was all words and no pictures, which was true and made it difficult to decide what to order. Finally we decided to order something from each section. First we ordered from their Signature Double Boiled Soup set ($14.95) for Fish and Tofu pot. It came with rice and of course, the soup. Soup came first and it was rather salty, but tasted ok. Had pork and shark cartilage in it... like what you'd get from a soup package at T&T.

The fish and tofu pot came sizzling hot with some rice to accompany it. Portion was decent and the fish was ok. I liked the tofu. It was rather oily though. After a while the fish stuck to the pot, we had to scrape it off ^^"

Next was a Western Style dish, Baked Seafood with Cheese on Rice ($9.95 mini size) and it came with a drink, I ordered Honey Lemon (add $0.50 that I didn't know about). Let's talk about the drink first, normally at Hong Kong-style cafes like this, you get two slices of lemons around 0.7cm thick. They managed, with great skill, to cut that in half and serve two slices of lemons that were 0.2-0.3cm thick. Very stingy. Needless to say, my honey lemon water had little lemon taste.

Now the rice, this was interesting since the presentation was quite nice, the cheese was golden and the sauce covered the rice well without much leakage. First spoonful in, I already knew something was off. The sauce looked overly creamy and thick, which came off in the flavors. It wasn't very salty but super creamy. Not what I expected, but the fried rice under was great. Seafood included imitation crab, sparse pieces of tiny fish, one mussel, some small scallops and some shrimp.

I ordered a Japanese Tonkotsu Combo ($8.95). You get a choice of soup, noodle, and two toppings. I chose original soup, flat rice noodle, pork rind, and deep fried egg. The soup base was very condensed and Old Bean felt it was way too salty. I liked the soup, it was a rich pork bone base, with a hint of creaminess. The flat rice noodle was al dente, pork rind was plentiful, but the highlight was the deep fried egg. It was literally a soft-boiled egg that was deep fried. I cut it in half to show the center in the picture it came as a whole egg. The outside became soggy and chewy.

Elephant ordered a Sizzlers Special Set ($14.95) with steak, fish filet, linguine, with lobster and shrimp roe sauce. He got the steak medium-rare, but it came pretty cooked-- and tough. Portion size was pretty decent and the plate was hot. He didn't like the sauce and I found the flavors odd too. Fish had a weird baking soda taste to it, not fish-tasting at all. Crispy though.

It came with a drink, soup, bun, and dessert. The soup was average. I found the bun quite good, chewy and moist.

We decided to upgrade the dessert to a Belgian Waffle ($4.95, original price $8.95). It took forever to come after we told them we were ready for it... sat around for at least another half an hour before it arrived, and it wasn't freshly made anyways. They had toasted pre-made waffles, cut it in half, and decorated it.

At least the presentation was nice! They also only gave us a spoon to eat it with... =.= LOGIC. Thankfully I still had my knife and fork from the meal, so we could cut it up a bit to share. Ice cream was good, waffle mediocre-- definitely not worth paying the full price for.

Since I had so much time to observe them as we waited, I noticed that although there were about four servers walking around, there was only one guy doing actual work. Everyone was looking and walking around doing minimal tasks. Our table was cluttered with empty plates and bowls, other tables were not cleaned or emptied, and I felt like I couldn't ask any other waiter for assistance. They gotta get their act together!