Level Up Restaurant

Here’s the breakdown:
4 stars for food compared to similar HK style establishments. I ordered the lamb chop Provençal. I was not disappointed. It was pretty tasty. Cooked to specification. Gravy sauce was not too salty. Very good price at $ 10 for 3 pieces of lamb chop and side of veggies, rice. Includes soup, bread and hot beverage.
The HK style tea was surprisingly smooth.
I tasted the Portugese cream sauce with beef brisket. The sauce was pretty fragrant with hints of coconut milk and lemongrass. They actually put some thought into it.
Now the bummer was the service. I’d give it 2 stars. Servers are a tad slow compared to other HK style places. Most of them seem like they are day dreaming.
***
Since initially writing this review, i have since gone back 2 – 3 times. I’d have to say their food and drinks are inconsistent in flavour and quality. it’s a hit or miss.

I toyed between 2 to 3 stars for this one.
I came here once for lunch and once for dinner. The lunch experience was far better than dinner, as the food tasted good and the service was sufficient. The items on lunch menu were all available.
The dinner experience was strange as they were oddly out of appetitizers. We tried to order appetitizers and found out that all 3 types of mussels appetitizers and the shrimp cocktail were not available. What HK café does not stock shrimps? The waitress suggested escargots, smoked salmon or bread. I was not interested so we passed.
For entrees, we ordered a Rack of Lamb on Spaghetti a la carte and a Half Lobster with Lamb Chops combo. The protein tasted good, and none was over cooked. I could tell they were previously frozen meat, but all HK cafes used frozen meat, so as long as the food was cooked with skills, I was fine. I just wondered where the «level up» was. The spaghetti was over cooked to too soft. I also noticed that the soup and salad that came with the combo were too small, like 3-​bite size.
Services were sub par. For one, no one came around to refill water; I had to ask for it. Secondly, we finished the food past 9pm. We could not get anyone’s attention to pay the bill. All the waiters were out of sight. Someone came around after 15 minutes or so, and we paid and got out.
It is obvious that the business is suffering. I get the impression that its downfall is partly due to the success of Congee Queen. Congee Queen’s customers used to use up most of the parking spots in the lot around 6pm, and the customers of other businesses could not park. Apparently, the lot is shared by TWO shopping malls. The one on the east side, where Level Up, Maytag and Elegant are, hires a security guard to stop the customers of the west mall from parking on the east side. Now the customers of Elegant and Level Up can park at dinner time. I can smell more disputes coming for this East-​West side story.

I have been here twice with my wife and we ordered their set dinners on both occasions. The prices seem quite good and quantity of their portions are big! So on to the details:
Décor: I agree with other reviewers — the décor looks a bit weird and out of place. It was very red everywhere. It almost seemed like they kept the older layout and tried to repaint or position things. Not a big a deal for us — the seats are still comfy.
Service: We’ve never had problems with the service. On the Fri and Sat evenings, serivce was pleasant and food came quite promptly.
Food: Ok — the important stuff :). We have tried the following set dinners:
Steak and curry soft shell crab with rice — very good! Just a heads up that steak here is not a typical thick cut but a rather lean one but it doesn’t deter from the flavour. I thought this combo was great as I love softshell crab. Plus it came with grilled veggies — I would reorder this!
Bake sole with cream sauce and rice — great as well and huge portion as they must have given us like the whole fillet! No complaints about it.
Beef rolls and terayaki chicken with spaghetti– This is a set of 3 thinly sliced beef rolls wrapped around mushrooms plus a big chicken breast that is sauteed with terayaki sauce. Great flavour for the meat but so-​so for the pasta — given it is a chinese place I should have went with rice. Nothing wrong with pasta but it just seemed blank.
Chicken and porkchop with mushroom sauce and rice — Chicken was done well but the porkchop was too fatty for me. It turns out that my wife told me it was pork neck meat which explained why it is fatter than normal. Both us enjoyed the mushroom sauce.
All the set menus come with soup (standard Borchst or cream), chickpea salad, dessert and drink. So, we thought the value is really good e.g. the set dinners go from 8.99 to 17.99. For the two of us, the bill with taxes included is $ 29.
So in general, we like food there and as others have mentioned it is similar to Firefly. But it is probably a bit cheaper — for us we’ll go to both places.

Returned for late breakfast few weeks ago but had a terrible experience. We waited for close to an hour for our food. The were a few tables of people left because they got so pissed from waiting. We had a few kids with us so we didn’t have a choice but to stay since Congee Queen next door was busy. My dad ordered lunch cause he came late. We were told that the soup came with the combo was not ready! I felt that they were so unprepared… Although the food was not bad, I don’t think I will go back unless I have 2 hours for lunch time.

Bad service, bad people! The waitress was ignoring us since beginning, didn’t give us the drinks we paid for from beginning to the end, no matter how many times we asked. My kids were so thirsty in the dinner and had to go home for water. The worst dinner I ever had!
The restaurant should know it is hazardous for kids and adult that eating their salty food without drinks, especially we already paid it in the combo we ordered! I will report them for their unsafe behavior. They will be in trouble soon!

Should be called level down! My mom and I came here for lunch. This trying to be upscale westernized Hong Kong style restaurant was a disappointment. We ordered a ox tongue spaghetti meal thinking it was pieces of meat not shredded pieces. There was no ox tongue in the whole plate. When we asked the waitress, she responded by saying there’s some in there and then left. I understand it’s a Chinese run establishment and we shouldn’t expect 5 stars service so we left it. What got me very upset was when we paid for the meal, we got our change of $ 5 in quarters. I took the change back to the cashier, she tells me in Mandarin that she doesn’t have change at the moment. I glanced over to another waitress beside her, the girl is holding a stack of toonies and loonies, lying RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Unbelievable! After giving her my death stare they finally exchange the quarters for loonies and toonies. I will definitely NOT go back to this restaurant. New city down the street serves much better food at a decent price with MUCH BETTER service.

Level Up is aiming to be classified as ‘upscale’/more westernized HK-​style café. Personally I think the décor and layout is tacky and not very comfortable, but the food was surprisingly not bad. The menu offers pork/​chicken/​beef steak, baked rice and pasta dishes, as well as lobster and other ‘fancy/​western’ dishes. Baked dishes start from $ 7.99 for dinner and for $ 2 extra, you can upgrade to a meal which includes a soup, bread and drink. More expensive dinner meals ($ 9.99+) include salad as well. Vegetable soup was okay; milk tea wasn’t great. I liked the bread the most — very soft!
Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice ($ 7.99 + $ 2) — Rice was white rice instead of fried rice, but it was good with the sauce. The sauce was very rich with a strong coconut/​Portuguese taste. Chicken was in pieces which I prefer over a steak or fried strips, but I think it might have been deep fried with batter so it was a bit salty (couldn’t tell as it was covered in sauce). The green bell pepper and onion was nicely cooked — not raw! The potatoes were soft. Overall quite filling dish.
Baked Pork Chop Rice — It definitely looks more Westernized and more ‘natural’ with strips of red pepper, onion and mushrooms and a less red/​thick sauce.

I tried the tea time special for this place, while my parents tried the set dinner.
The taste seems oddly similar to Firefly before the chef change (and the eventual downhill of that place). I had the Korean spicy noodle, which was one of my favourites at Firefly as well. Not bad.
On the other hand, my parents tried the set dinner. They weren’t satisfied with it, saying the steak was too lean for them.
Iced lemon tea is something I DO NOT recommend here; there are lots of other better places with good iced lemon tea. If anything go with the HK Style Milk Tea, as Jennifer mentioned.

Level Up is so new… the sign for the storefront is not even up when I dropped by for lunch this afternoon.
They opens at 11:00 am so there so they offers lunch/​afternoon tea/​dinner set specials which usually includes drink or a soup, which is typical of Hong Kong style café restaurants.
Lunch Specials starts from $ 7.99… And I randomly picked the first thing in the Lunch Special Menu:
Baked Pork Chop with Rice ($ 7.99)
— The Borscht soup comes with it is quite good, has a nice beef broth flavors
— The «bread» bun that comes with the soup is one of the driest thing I ever taste, I didn’t even touch that!
— The pork chop itself is really lean. really lightly breaded and deep fried before finishing off with a tomato based sauce in the oven
— A little bit dry. and little bit bland. but portion is big
— HK style Milk Tea though is the highlight of my meal… smooth and has aroma of the black tea
Staffs are trying… but seems to be disoriented and why are they cleaning the floor while I am eating? I am the only customer. that dirty spot can wait till I leave…
10% Grand Opening discount till June 1^st…
I might give Level Up another visit since they seems to be too new and still need to have a few things figure out!

*************Need to update review**********
Apparently, Congee Queen filed a complaint, saying that they were stealing their business by offering identical cuisines. So now Level Up is banned from serving chinese dinner dishes.
That stinks big time, as I found their chinese food better than Congee Queen’s.
I do really enjoy their steaks though. As some people said, it’s quite lean; but that is how I prefer my steaks. When I eat steaks at other steakhouses, after cutting away the fat, I’m sometimes only left with half a steak.
The Angus steaks are juicy. It will be interesting once the new plaza opens up on the other side of the street; if Level Up chooses to move there and then offer Chinese Food once again.
*************Prior Review**********
I ate here yesterday, and was PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.
There was food for everyone. You can get Italian, Chinese, etc. Variety of cuisines here.
They even have Chinese Breakfast. Which provides us a good option to go to, instead of Kennedy and 7 now in the mornings.
They had Dinner Specials for $ 10.99. These come with soup, salad, tea or coffee, dessert AND an entrée.
I ordered Shanghai Noodles, and the food was real tasty.
For the 4 of us, the bill only came to $ 40. This was also because they just opened and are offering 10% off, but I gave them a 20% tip since they weren’t overly busy as people are still flocking Congee Queen as if there’s no tomorrow.