STAY Cafeteria

Beautiful dessert place!
They do serve food and a variety of drinks and desert but we only ordered shaved ice. Me and my friend chose to order a matcha shaved ice and fruit shaved ice. Matcha shaved ice is served with matcha base shave ice with tons of red beans on top sprinkled with rice crispy while the fruit shaved ice is milk based with tons of red bean as well and 5 different fruits including strawberry, mango, watermelon, peach and lychee. I personally liked the milk based shave ice with red bean, peach and strawberry, however the watermelon, lychee and mango seems to be over-​ripe and over power the flavour. The matcha is good! It has a strong matcha flavour so I strongly recommend people who like matcha to get it.
The café has a classic café look with wooden tables, flashy light bulbs and several abstract art decoration. However in terms of service, the workers seems be to distracted with some tv shows and take some time to respond to us.
Overall, it is a sweet little café that is good for chilling with friends or go on a date. The price appears to be average and serve with great portion. Will definitely visit again to try out other dishes.

Came here with my friend on a Wednesday night. The restaurant wasn’t busy at all but the service was really slow. We weren’t sure if we had to wait for the waitress to seat us or not, but after like two minutes we just decided to grab a seat on our own. When we were ready to pay, it took us a few minutes to catch their attention because they were watching a drama on their laptop.
The environment is very nice. I really like the décor and the soft Asian music they play.
We shared a Fruit Shaved Ice and a Matcha Shaved Ice ($ 6.99 each). The Matcha Shaved Ice had a very strong flavour. I do like the matcha and red bean combination, but the matcha was a little too strong for my liking. It was still yummy though! There were rice crispies on it as well which added extra texture. I absolutely loved the Fruit Shaved Ice! The combination of milk flavour shaved ice, red bean and fruits was delightful. Out of all the fruits, I liked it best with peach and strawberries! The mangoes tasted a little over-​ripe and the watermelon and lychee had an interesting taste with the shaved ice.
Overall, I would rate it ⁴⁄₅. I wish the service was better, but I really enjoyed the food and the relaxing atmosphere. I would definitely come back to try their other food!

After the Market 707 portion of our downtown food trip, while we were on our way to our next planned destination, we walked past STAY cafeteria and my friend noticed that they had shaved ice. It was a fairly hot day (supposedly felt like 32 degrees in the afternoon), and we were looking for a place with air conditioning and WiFi to take a break. We couldn’t see the menu prices from the outside, but they had a takeout menu posted between their first and second set of doors, so we went in and took a look. We ended up staying for their mixed fruit shaved ice. At $ 6.99, the portion was not bad, and the shaved ice was quite tasty. This kind of shaved ice is not the flavored kind that comes out in sheets. This is more liked powdered ice. I really liked how it wasn’t gritty. It was almost fluffy. The mixed fruits on top of the ice included lychees, watermelon, mango, and peach chunks, and strawberries. There was also a scoop of red beans in the middle. The whole thing was covered in what I believe was evaporated milk. It was delightfully refreshing. Service was a tad absent (the servers were chatting at a back table), but we got what we wanted. They do have free WiFi, and STAY cafeteria was a nice place to take a break before moving on to our next food adventure.

We saw posts from friends on Instagram and decided to try it after having sushi for dinner.
Coming inside, we fell in love with the ambience and all their aesthetics. The waitress who served us was really sweet and friendly.
We ordered the sticky mango rice balls. or wait, was it sticky rice mango balls? Hehe, as well as the Oreo mochi toast and matcha crème brûlée.
The rice balls was average in taste and presentation. Nothing special, it was rice balls, vanilla ice cream and mango in a mango kind of juice or purée kinda thing. As for the toast, we didn’t like it at all. Good presentation but taste wise was a big no from us. The matcha crème brûlée was different, we liked it and would definitely get it again.
Overall, it’s a good location to hang out with your friends. We didn’t try the dinner foods but we would definitely come back!

Loved the ambience and interior, cute little place to come with friends. I got the passion fruit tea (with real fruits) and braised beef noodles.
The tea was amazing, it wasn’t too sweet and the fruits they added was a nice and fresh touch. It had strawberry, blueberry, peach, and lime.
Braised beef noodles was alright, I’ve had better and the portion was on the small side.
However my friends got the popcorn chicken and it looked really good. I’d definitely come back!

I had matcha crème brûlée. I have no idea what that was exactly, but it tasted good. This is a lovely place to stay, with an odd menu.

Well what’s to say about a Taiwanese place that has a very simple menu. Unlike other places in the area where there is so much choice, Stay chooses to focus on a few key menu items that seem to be popular with patrons. The place is pretty clean and has better seating now, accommodating up to 60 people with accent lighting throughout. Service is good to start, but during the end of the meal it was clear they were understaffed, took us about 15 min to get the bill.
Food is where this place loses stars, the flavors are great, good main entrees and average sizes; the problem here is freshness. Everything is pretty much frozen or canned, my sticky rice was more like a paste and the squid was rubbery. On the plus side, the popcorn chicken and other desserts were really good. Compared to other places in the area that do things fresh within a similar price range Stay has a hard time holding its own.

Order the Sweet grass jelly. A bit too sweet for a desert. Environment is good for hanging out with friends.

More like STAY AWAY.
I ordered the «sweet rice balls with mango,» and it was basically a few mochi balls, canned juice, canned mangos and a ball of ice cream thrown into a bowl. Absolutely gross. And don’t order the rice balls with coconut milk. It’s literally a can of the cheap fatty coconut milk poured straight out, with clumps and everything.
We ordered that oreo mochi toast thing. The mochi is not toasted, it’s regular mochi inside a toast. After a couple of bites I discovered there was aluminum foil inside! (see picture)

I visited STAY on a Saturday night with 2 friends. We were greeted immediately by a staff member who let us know there was a short wait and asked us to take a seat on the bench by the door. We were seated within a few minutes, and our orders were taken quite quickly.
The three of us ordered:
— Fresh Avocado & Peach Smoothie
— Mango Coconut Smoothie
— Peach Melon Green Tea (Hot)
— Oreo Mochi Toast
— Matcha Crème Brulee
— Mango Shaved Ice
The smoothies, green tea, and shaved ice were all really great.
The mochi toast and crème brûlée were alright, but I was not a big fan of the textures of either of those dishes. The mochi is a bit too sticky and chewy, which I wasn’t expecting, and the crème brûlée was sort of lumpy.
The service was very good, the servers were friendly, fast to take our orders, and everything came out very quickly.
If I was in the area, I would go back for a tea, smoothie, or shaved ice, but otherwise, I might try out a different spot for something new.

Recently I’ve had a pretty severe craving for Taiwanese food because I’ve been living off of pizza and fried chicken these days. (Healthy, I know.) STAY Cafeteria had only a few people inside and a pretty good-​lookin’ menu outside, so my friend and I decided to go in for lunch.
The interior has a warm vibe and decorated in rustic, mismatched coat hooks along with dangling lights. The waitress spoke to us in mandarin but was able to communicate in English as well, and we ordered a few dishes that arrived relatively quickly. The drinks are too expensive and not worth the price, so we didn’t get any of them, but the food itself is pretty delicious! There’s only one waitress, and as more and more people came in she got increasingly frazzled but still friendly. (Props to her for surviving waitressing.)
My wonton soup contained a peppery and light broth brimming with wontons. It’s a good soup for the colder weather, and I liked the thin slices of eggs inside. The shredded chicken cold noodles are sweet ‘n sour and has a summer-​fresh taste. It also comes with a boiled egg! The mochi toast is really novel and quite interesting– the thick mochi is squished between two slices of white bread that looks like it’s been cooked French-​toast style, and the toppings consisted of caramel drizzle, candied pecans and vanilla ice cream. It’s already been cut in four for easy serving.
The food comes in a reasonable sized bowl and rather inexpensive. The whole meal came to around ~$ 25 including tip and tax! It’s a good place for a fun hang-​out with your friends after class, as a lot of students mill about in here.

I came here for lunch with friends on a Saturday and it was not busy at all. The one thing that really wow-​ed me when I walked in was the interior. The atmosphere is really nice here. The ambient lighting is very relaxing and romantic if you’re coming here on a date!
I got the Japanese curry with pork and rice. It comes in a small-​looking bowl, but don’t let the size fool you. I was SO full afterwards. Maybe it was because they gave me so much rice. The curry was delicious, but the pork wasn’t what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be pork cutlets, but it was actually ground pork that was deep fried. It still tasted pretty good, but I think next time I’ll try the eel on rice. They also give you a boiled soy sauce egg with each dish!
The bubble tea was really expensive: over $ 6 for one. I didn’t get it since I figured I could just go to Chatime afterwards and get cheaper bubble tea. Maybe I’ll try it one day, just to see if it’s worth the price.
For what it’s worth, I’ll definitely come back again since I was pleased with my first visit and the taste of the food. I didn’t get to try any of the desserts or drinks on the menu, but they look really good so I’m going to have to come back to try them! Definitely recommend this place! The service and atmosphere are great!

I’ve been hearing alot of comparisons between this restaurant vs. Chamecha vs. ZenQ and coincidentally bumped into this restaurant in Chinatown. I was actually kind of disappointed with the dessert here. The service was great though, we had a lovely waitress!
I ordered the grass jelly milktea dessert and the mango shaved ice. It was served about ~5 minutes of ordering. The place started to get really busy so lucky I came at the right time where there were no line ups! I think the shaved ice here is THE best out of all the places I tried — It was very rich and creamy and full of mango flavor goodness. However, the portion was actually quite small compared to chamechas/​zenQs shaved ice. I also paid an extra $ 2 for just 6 tiny pieces of mochi which was really tasty, but probably not worth it.
The grass jelly milktea dessert was the most disappointing… It was literally a small bowl of grass jelly in milk tea with some toppings for like $ 6. It didn’t taste awful… But it wasn’t amazing for that price. I don’t think I would come here again but if rather walk down the street 2 minutes away and go to sugar marmalade for shaved ice!
Tl;Dr expensive, small portions but really creamy and flavorful shaved ice

i went here a couple of times and to me their food was alright. nothing really stood out
when i first went here, i ordered the original shaved ice and got the tong yuen as well. the shaved ice was okay. (shaved ice, condensed milk, some kind of powder on top in which i forgot, almonds and mochi, oh and there was a vanilla ice cream scoop on top of everything) i loved the mochi and i loved how the shaved ice just melted in my mouth. there were parts where the shaved ice just tasted like ice (no condensed milk in that area) and the brown powder thing was a bit bitter. moving on to the tong yuen, it was quite good. the tong yuens were very nice and chewy and i loved the black sesame inside. they were submerged into this fermented rice wine i believe which gives the tong yuen a kick (honestly i would’ve preferred it to be your normal rock sugar base thought xD but it’s always great to try different things)
the second time i went i ordered the original cheesecake and the cheese and eel rice dish (forgot what it was called exactly) cheesecake was pretty bad like it did NOTT taste good at all. the cheese part was like biting into a block of frozen butter and just overall the taste didn’t go well together. it was an overload of no bueno for me. the eel rish was okay. i felt like the texture of the eel along with the cheese and wish didn’t clash together too well. it was like a chewy mush LOOLL
other than the food, i really like the interior. it’s kind of how i pictured my future home to look like. i loved their light décor on the wall xP

The atmosphere of this place was nice. Wasn’t too cramped as tables were spaced out just right. This location was also easily accessible! Their braised beef noodle was good, portions were fair and I also enjoyed their mango coconut smoothie… A fee things on the smoothie though, no a fan of the bitter pulp that was in it and also too much of the weird tasting tapioca balls when both were nor stated on the menu. I was hoping for just coconut and mango as the smoothie alone.

On the outskirts of Kensington Market in Toronto, this little café is a hit among the student population. It has modern décor that makes you feel cozy and at home, and boasts some good bubble tea. Its assortment of bubble teas is phenomenal, ranging from black & green milk teas served either hot or iced, refreshing slushies, and hot chocolate.
From my past experiences here at Stay Cafeteria, I recommend their apple lychee smoothie and hot taro milk black tea.
Aside from their beverages, the cafeteria also boasts a small but hits-​the-​spot range of snacks and foods. The portions are quite small, that is, it’s not a full-​size meal; however, if you’re thinking of ordering a bubble tea, the size would be filling. On the times I’ve visited, I’ve tried their dumplings and noodles.
Their food was a nice alternative to the foods I usually go for in between classes. I liked the dishes I ordered, and was pleasantly surprised with how they tasted. The cafeteria is a great place to be at not only because it is close to the university campus for students, but because of its price range. Their menu is priced at affordable prices for all, and for the quality of food and beverages you are provided, you are getting a good deal. In addition, when you ask your waitress, you will also be provided with their wifi password which is a plus.
All in all, this place is recommended for all! Great staff, great service, and great food. I dare say that it is better than the One Hour Cafeteria across the street, up one block on Spadina.
Food: ⁴⁄₅
Service: 3.5÷5
Price: $
Cleanliness: ⁴⁄₅

Mango Shaved Ice Cream was wicked and the little «magic bubbles» provided an interesting (literal) «pop» to the dessert. Overall, solid and would recommend/​order again.
Matcha Green Tea Shaved Ice Cream was more green tea than matcha (sweet with a pinch of bitter) and even then, not quite as rich in the green tea flavour compared to actual green tea ice cream as it felt somewhat watered down. No complaints about the red bean, it was fine. Felt that the mochi chunks could have been halved or quartered (e.g. think Menchies size) — one piece was quite tough and unpleasant, pity.
Personal gripe with both were the rice-​Krispy like crunchies at the top– not a fan. Otherwise, worth 6.77 $ for the amount of ice cream.
IIRC Waitress suggested the following desserts: egg pudding (photo friendly and unique) black rice, durian sago, and the sticky coconut rice. Cute interior as well, deserves a revisit.

I have been to this place several time as it is quite convenient for a large group of people, ok prices and the atmosphere is not too bad either. There are hooks to hang your coats and outlets at every tables against the wall, pretty convenient and a nice place to «study.» They also have free Wi-​Fi as well, so remember to ask for the passwords!
Just putting this out there, don’t come here and expect good service lol. The service is terrible and the servers look like they hate working here.
Order:
–Sour & Spicy Shredded Potato — $ 4.49: Horrible. I believe the potatoes were pretty much raw, and the sauce was so sour that it gave me a stomach ache after having a few bites. The pepper flakes added no flavor nor spiciness to the dish.
–Peach & Melon Green tea — $ 5.49: Surprisingly it tastes really good! The tea wasn’t too sweet and the peach flavor wasn’t too artificial, a very nice and relaxing cup of tea.
–Black Sticky Rice with Durian — $ 5.49: the black sticky rice has a nutty and natural sweet flavor, and here it was paired with sweet coconut milk, delicious! If you don’t like durian, try the mango version as the sticky rice can basically go with any fruits: D. However, for a $ 6 dessert I wish there was more black sticky rice :(…
–Traditional Braised Beef Noodles — $ 8.99: bad. On the menu it says the broth is supposed to be spicy, but I would say the spicy level were non-​existent. Also, the broth was so sour! Is it just me or the chef here loves to put vinegar in all the savoury dishes?! The tomato added a bit of sweetness but the sourness of the broth overpowered everything else. The braised beef brisket was tender and very good, but my beef pieces were all fat!
Conclusion: Come here for the dessert, not savoury dishes. There are so many options around Chinatown that it would be better to have dinner around the area, then come here for their dessert.

Tucked away in Chinatown, Stay Cafeteria is a cozy tea shop that serves a nice variety of Asian desserts, Taiwanese hot dishes and drinks.
I ordered the Beef Noodle Soup hoping it would have the taste of home, but unfortunately it just wasn’t the same. The beef was finely chopped and tender, however, the noodles used were the thin type that overcooks very easily. The portion size was small too — you’d have to order other appetizers to leave with a full stomach.
The drinks are also very pricey. A small cup of pomela honey tea was over $ 6.00 after tax. I didn’t feel like it was anything special — the drink mix can be bought in any Asian supermarket.
The dessert was the only thing I would come back for. I tried the Matcha Snow ice and it was so fluffy! I may be crazy to order shaved ice in the winter but the pictures were too enticing! The portions again were small compared to places like Cha Me Cha where the shaved ice is piled up high and almost toppling off your plate.
Service was VERY slow. Only one waitress was serving the whole restaurant, and you can see you stressed out she was as the line up begins to build up.
I was really looking forward to some authentic Taiwanese dishes, unfortunately, I don’t think I’d come back.

Really good café with a good selection of Taiwanese food. Prices are definitely on the expensive side, especially for drinks. it is $ 6 – 7 for a drink! However food and drinks overall was quite delicious.
I ordered the Minced Pork with Rice and it was tasty and filling. I also got Osmanthus Milk Tea and I really liked the flavor! Their smoothies and desserts seem quite good.
It is right beside Breakout escape room so this was definitely nice place to grab a bite and chill with your friends after.