Congee Star

Quite a nice restaurant for the family. I come here often to get some dine-​in Chinese food. I love ordering the egg fried rice, salty and spicy squid (highly recommend this; I like to put chilli oil on it too), Cantonese chow mein (crispy, yet saucy, and garlic fried chicken (very crispy). Restaurant is pretty small, so get here early on weekend dinners and holidays or make a reservation if they allow. Overall, it’s a pretty good place.

Portions are huge. The fried rice has yellow food colouring which I don’t like. They don’t have much competition since there really isn’t anything similar nearby except for Congee queen.

Very surprised at all the 4 & 5 star reviews here. The food here is mediocre at best. I didn’t order but we had the General Tao Chicken, black pepper sizzling beef and some noodle dish with pork and shrimps. The General Tao was one of the worst I’ve ever had. Smothered in some gross very very sweet sauce. The beef was OK nothing special also sweet for some reason. The noodles were also pretty boring overall.
We had ordered sauteed garlic shoots but they brought us the wrong dish and we sent it back. By the time they brought the garlic shoots we had finished all the other food. Also ordered a sizzling shrimp with ginger and green onion which was the best dish of all. Still the sauce was very very thick and full of corn starch it seemed.
You’re better off going to Congee Queen for much better food. Also the portion size here is small. The only positive is that the service was good.

One of the best congee restaurants, I would say even better than the popular ones like Congee Wong and Congee Queen. This place is spacious, unlike other restaurants which can be crossed and uncomfortable to dine in. Food is good, flavorful but not too salty. Service is good too, the servers speak English (not very fluently but good enough) without making you feel weird if you don’t speak Chinese. This become my favorite place to go for some congee and Chinese food.

Amazing food. Service was ok, a bit slow.
We always order the eggplant in hotpot, vegetable fried rice, sizzling beef with mushrooms and onion. 5 stars for the food!

There are quite a few Chinese Restaurants in this area. However, Congee Star truly shines bright in this neighbourhood! (see what I did there? haha) anyways… I was «wishing» for a great place that opened late, tasted good, decent in price, and provided decent service… congee star possesses all of these qualities and more.
I have eaten in and ordered take out and both experiences were fantastic! I have ordered sweet and sour chicken, beef with mixed veggies, salt n pepper squid, ho fun, and chicken wings and fried rice and it was all cooked to perfection!
I have cut down on my msg intake lately but I can simply not resist congee stars delicious food! They are always consistent and the price is well worth it!

Love this place! Good portions with the right price! Gets super busy so I prefer to do take out. They are fast, efficient, and never get my orders wrong.
The food is great as well!

My go to Chinese restaurant. Very convenient location. Food comes very quick. Just avoid coming on their busy hours.
Their steamed whole fish was actually good. I prefer their fried squid tentacles better than in the other congee restaurants.

I’m writing this review for Congee Star as of lately.
My fiancé used to LOVE Congee Star, we would go almost every Friday for a take out dinner. Their BBQ pork fried rice is the best i’ve ever had! And the rest of their menu is pretty good too. We would always do take out, and take home big full take out containers full of their food.
The last 3 times we got Congee Star (since they have gotten their new chef), the portions have been cut in almost HALF and the price is the SAME. We got orders of the fried rice and an order of the chicken curry. The curry container was literally half full. They also changed the take out containers to smaller containers that are still only half full! What a rip off! That is just being cheap, and you will loose valuable take out customers! (I don’t know if the dine in portions are still the same). After the first time it happened we thought it was a fluke or mistake. After it happened two more times, we decided we will not be back, and on the hunt for a new take out restaurant.
The food is good, but not worth the teeny portion size they give you.

Everything is always made up to expectations. Congee Star is the way to go.
— preserved egg & pork congee +++++
— shrimp rice noodle rolls ++++
— I’ve tried many many dishes from here but those i can’t ask for better
Although it looks deceiving and that you may think congee queen or whatnot is probably better. I don’t think so.
I recommended congee star for the good food and good service.

My cousin and I were hungry as hell when we hit this place. We had the Cantonese chow mein and spicy eggplant. The food was fine, nothing revolutionary. The chow mein was crispy upon first viewing but got soggy pretty much right away.
The only thing I could think was how I usually only get Chinese food of this calibre at the end of a looong night.

My brother and his girlfriend love this spot.
I checked it out a few weeks back.
If you’re a non-​pork consumer like me this is definitely not be the place for you.
They had a lot of pork on the menu.
I had their steamed shrimp dumplings which were average.
I’m definitely not a fan of oily foods — does not agreed with my stomach and I found their fried items were really oily.
The service was average. No complaints but wasn’t fantastic either.

Went for a late dinner with a few of my friends, as we had been to the place before a couple of times and had decent experiences in the past. It’s just standard Chinese food, just a safe choice and usually made because we’re too hungry or unable to drive anywhere else. No complaints in the past though.
This time, we decided to not dine family style and ordered individually. I had the BBQ pork noodle soup, which came out quickly and was good. It could have been hotter, but tasted nice and had a good amount of pork and noodle. Two of my friends chose to order General Tso chicken on fried rice. The two orders came out relatively quickly and they enjoyed their meals, although commenting that the sauce was a bit too sweet in comparison with other General Tso chicken they’ve had. The waitress was friendly and even humoured my friend when he made a lame joke about working there since he wore a shirt that matched the orange of the servers’.
The trouble came when my other friend decided he wanted some chicken pad thai. He had waited to order, as he was not sure if he wanted to indulge, and did so as we were halfway through our meals. Again, the food came out quickly. It smelled terrible. We’re used to the smell of pad thai, but this smelled like something was spoiled. Upon tasting it, my friend spat it out into a napkin. We called the waiter over and asked if maybe we can order something else in it’s stead. He went to bring over the manager.
This guy walked over looking displeased and asked bluntly what the problem was. My friend didn’t want to seem rude and say he thought the food was spoiled, so he said that «it was not what I expected to get when I ordered it» and again asked if he could perhaps get something else. What came next was probably the worst manager interaction I’ve ever experienced. He got rude with us and started saying «so? You ordered pad thai, this is our pad thai. What were you expecting? So what do you want me to do about this NOW?» He even went so far as to say, «what? Should I have to eat it instead?» The whole time my friend felt extremely uncomfortable under this barrage of questioning, and after the interrogation, he just mumbled that he didn’t need anything else. The manager then told us that if we didn’t need anything else, that he would get our bill and asked if we were paying by card, basically ushering us out. When we responded that we did, he said «follow me» and walked away to the register. As we gathered our things and was deciding who was picking up the bill, he came back and condescendingly told us that we had to follow him to pay, like we were wasting his sweet time when he had been gone for all about 20 seconds. I followed him up to the register, and throughout the entire transaction, had to listen to him justify the fact that he was upset because now he had to throw the food out. In a small bit of redemption, they didn’t charge us for the pad thai and we left quickly.
Good servers, standard food (stay away from the pad thai though), but TERRIBLE management. Will not be spending our money here anymore because of the last point, opting for any other generic Chinese food place in the area, even if it’s a bit of a drive away.

I’ve come here a few times for dinner, lunch and take out. This place is in a decent location and there is always parking available unlike most places in Richmond Hill and Markam. There are always plenty of seats available and the servers will get your started quickly.
The décor is that of most typical Chinese restaurant or Cafes and it’s nothing out of the ordinary. The staff are fairly quick to serve you and your food comes out fast and furious. The food is usually pretty good and always comes out hot and made to order. I usually order the fried turnip cake, various dim sum dishes, e fu noodles with lobster and sea food congee. Portions are pretty huge here, so be ready to take home a ton of left overs for lunch the next day. Food is pretty flavourful and on par with places like Congee Queen and Congee Wong in my opinion.
If you’re hungry and looking for Chinese food in the Don Mills area this is a good place to start. Their all day dim sum options are also good for those who are too far from Richmond Hill and Markam, but still want to get their dim sum fix on. I’ll be back here next time I have that craving for spicy minced pork and egg plant!

Congee Queen was closed! Booo…
As a backup plan, I headed over to Congee Star for take-​out. Meh.
I ordered the rice noodles with beef, onions, and bean sprouts. The noodles were all broken up. The flavour was alright but who likes to eat short little bits of rice noodles?
I also ordered the seafood and wintermelon congee. This was okay in terms of ingredients, but it was bland. Me calling something bland is not a good thing.
Lastly (which was the biggest disappointment of the night) was the yin yang rice dish. This consists of egg fried rice half topped with chicken in a sweet and sour sauce and the other half a white, creamy sauce with shrimp. The ratio of chicken and shrimp to the amount of sauces was quite pathetic. It was like 95% sauce and 5% proteins. Sad.
I liked that all the sauces were put into separate containers for take-​out. I think this is the norm. The service was pretty good too, not the usual curtness at Asian restaurants. It’s too bad, if only the food was better.

Our go to place for Chinese Mcdonald type of food.
Quick service. Inexpensive. Great chinese food depends on who you talk to but decent.
Would prefer this over Mcdonald and for a family of 4 it’s actually cheaper and probably healthier.
Good for peanut allergies as both my kids have it but have to inform the servers. Sunday come before 11:30 am as the church crowd comes in after that and you will then have to wait for seats.

Our regular Congee-​chain since we moved to the area. We typically order spicy pork chops, turnip patties, fish maw with crab meat soup, congee with pork and preserved egg, and some kind of noodle dish.
They can accommodate large groups too as we had two large tables together.

Ample parking and no line ups make this place attractive to me. Still relatively unknown so they aim to please
I’m pretty harsh on my Chinese restos but I must say this one delivers.
The eggplant and bamboo shoots is very tasty and the pancakes are very delicious.
The sticky rice with shredded pork is a great appetizer and the snow pea leaves are fresh and green
If carbs are your thing the fried noodles and pan fried noodles dishes are big.
Lots of spicy offerings too

i come here far too often… to be honest im getting sick of it a little.
but the food is not bad. this is the closest you will get to cantonese cuisine downtown (excluding spadina) … congee queen is more north so its really the best you got if you live within this area…
fried turnip cake is good… congee not bad. expect left overs when you come here as the serving size is generous.

Really, I was not trying to be cheap!
I came here with good intentions since Congee Star has 4 Star rating and it is close by Shops at Don Mills and we were all hungry…
There is a good selections in the menu and the price point here is really good. Portion is huge but most of the dishes we ordered were meh to bad…
Officially now I had the worse ever Beef Short Ribs in Honey Pepper Sauce ($ 10.95) here. The ribs were chewy, tasteless, rubbery and dry. The sauce was bland and tasteless too…
Rice Noodle with Beef and Black Bean Sauce ($ 7.95) has the same rubbery beef, tons of noodles but not enough sauce.
Eggplant & Minced Pork Spicy Sauce in Hot Pot ($ 8.75) was overly sweet with no spiciness or the «fish fragrance»
Garlic Shoots with Garlic ($ 8.75) was a little oily but was the best dish of the evening.
Service was excellent and friendly but sadly the food was not up to par.
I just hope my Unilocal friends were drunk enough and would have eaten anything.