Cafe Orient

I would not have gone in to this place had I been walking in front of it. But because of Unilocal we just had the most amazing meal! The flavours were amazing, the service was excellent (the server helped us decide and led us through the menu). Tender sweet beef, spicy chicken, sticky rice, savoury Dim Sum… Don’t judge a book by its cover, we would have missed out!

I came here upon recommendation from a friend who went to Carleton. He dubbed it «OG Chinese food» so I definitely had to check it out. It definitely lives up to the «title»!
The food was so tasty and the portions were great, I had plenty of leftovers for another meal or two. I got the mapo tofu, which is my go to dish and it was great! It wasn’t spicy, but you could added your own with the chili oil upon request. I’ve gone back once more since and has become my go to for Chinese food!

So I’m from Vancouver and used to going out with family to have things like beef brisket and wonton noodle in soup, fried turnip cake and various dimsum. I have been coming to Café Orient since I moved here 4 years ago and this is closest to what I relish eating back home. Their congee with century egg and lean pork is delish and almost as good as my own home-​made congee. The 3 meat chow mein noodles are well fried in the wok with sufficient heat. Don’t expect much from the décor, but I am pleased with the food here.

Yummmmmm! Congee, turnip cakes (my favourite!) and a nice selection of vegetarian food! The staff are so nice there and are happy to accomodate dietary needs. Even the toilet seats even are self cleaning! Debit and cash only, but such a great hidden gem.

When I am homesick, I come here. A good HK style café that’s been here forever and ran by the same owners.

Been coming here for awhile now thought it was about time I posted a review! I came across this restaurant after many friends raved about their delicious foods and HK-​style milk tea and invited me one night to have dinner there. Looking over their menu, they had so many delicious choices. One of my favourite food is Tofu and I have been looking all over the place for a restaurant in Ottawa that had a specific tofu dish. It is like an egg tofu in brown/​oyster sauce with different kinds of mushrooms. Low and behold, they had it on the menu!
During dinner time when you eat in at the restaurant, they have a special dinner menu where you can pick 3 or more dishes and it comes with rice and a soup to start. Once ordered, when the food came out, the portions were larger than expected for the price we paid.
Whenever I have come here with friends, we have all always left feeling full and satisfied with the dishes we ordered. From that first experience until now, this restaurant will always be my go to Chinese restaurant.

Visiting from Toronto and it’s the first restaurant chose to have lunch, worst experience ever. We sat down and wrote down our order on a piece of paper. The servers took our orders. From here on we waited and waited and waited.
At about the 20 minute mark, my gf asked one of the ladies, if our order was coming? The lady instead of saying what any normal server would say «I’ll check for you» she’s goes and challenges us by saying «you placed the order and we out it in for you, you have to line up». Meanwhile, another table of 3 that came after us had got their food already.
We waited some more. At the 35 minute mark, I asked a different server, we waited over 30 mins, can you please check on our order? Again, she challenges by saying «you did not wait 30 mins we were keeping track» basically, calling us a liar. At this point, we had enough, we told them to cancel the order and we stormed out.
I usually don’t rant. And I apologize.

Hidden Gem. Crispy noodle is the best! I always order the crispy noodle with shrimp and black bean sauce, not on the menu, but they always make it without a fuss. I have brought many people here and no one has left anything but satisfied! The best.

I have been to this place for many times when I lived in Ottawa. Came for a late lunch today since I was in town. The menu and pricing remain relatively th same, the staff was okay in par with most asian places, but I have to say… the food was only satisfactory. But I have to say in Ottawa this would likely be the only place to have hong kong style café food.

Finally got to try this gem that we’ve been meaning to try (but haven’t gotten around to until this weekend). Our group of 5 was supposed to go to dimsum at Hung Sum, but arriving late and knowing it would be packed, I volunteered Café Orient as our Plan B instead. Turns out it was a good Plan B, since a) we just beat the weekend lunch rush and got the last table; b) the food was quite fresh; and c) we finally have a place in Ottawa where we can get decent HK-​style milk tea. Sweet!
We ordered chicken fillet with lemon sauce on rice and pork chops with garlic sauce on rice between two people, and when it finally came, it was really fresh, and the portions were larger than we expected (for $ 8-​$ 12/​dish). The iced HK-​style milk tea was not powdered (yay!) and they put the liquid sugar on the side for you to sweeten as you wish. This works for me, since I’m a little less of a sweet tooth than the rest of my party.
The docked star was for our very surly server, who really looked like she wanted to kill herself every time she came to our table. I mean, our group is used to subpar service in Asian restaurants (in fact, we’re not even complaining about how long the food took since it was so fresh when we got it on our table), but it was a little unsettling having someone so unhappy serve us.
Otherwise, really great find, and a good value-​for-​money restaurant. I’ll personally be back to try the congee and Yin Yang (hk-​style milk tea w coffee).

Although this is not a big place, the food is always good and the servers are very friendly. They have a good variety to choose from — dim sum, congee, rice, noodles and different Chinese dishes. I love their Hong Kong style milk tea and mixed HK tea with coffee. It’s a must for me every time I come here.

we ordered steamed chicken feet in black bean sauce, iced HK style milk tea, stir fried rice with pineapple, shrimp won ton soup, and steamed golden creamy buns.
highly recommend: steamed golden creamy buns, not very sweet (egg yellow contained).
steamed chicken feet in black bean sauce. sounds horrible, but really delicious.
shrimp won ton soup, the quantity and quality are both good.
price was reasonable with qualified service.

Located at the corner of Somerset and Booth in the west end of Chinatown, Café Orient specializes in cuisine from Hong Kong. It is usually packed on Friday to Sunday nights with a lot of regulars.
As mentioned in the other review, the décor is pretty much no frills and resembles a diner.
As far as food goes, it is more or less the type Hong Kong style food that I have grown accustomed to. It is not near the quality of what I can get in Toronto but it is still pretty good in its own right.
The prices aren’t anything to write home about and is about on par with similar restaurants along the stretch on Somerset. What sets them apart is the expansive menu ranging from standard fare from the wok to dim sum.
If you are in a group, I recommend the dinner menu where you can pick 2+ dishes from a set menu. This special comes with a large communal bowl of rice and your choice of soup.

I am surprise no one has written a review of this restaurant. It is pack most Friday to Sunday nights, frequent by Chinese and residents of the area a like. The restaurant has a no frills décor, there are bunnies on the table cloth. The food is reminiscent of the Hong Kong style cuisine I grew up eating in Vancouver. I recommend coming for there dinner menu, order 2+ dishes from their menu get the rice and soup included. The dishes range from $ 10 – 13 per plate, so we usually have dinner for 2 for about $ 25 before tax and tip. The food is good and they have never disappoint. We love the head on shrimp with salt and pepper and the mince pork and green beans, both a little spicy. The restaurant closes at 9pm so get there early, once we showed up at 8:55 the owner was nice enough to stay open for my wife and I.