Utopia Dream Cafe

Heard a lot about this board game café so I decided to give it a try after a friend recommended it to me. It’s a decent place to play board games uptown. We went around the afternoon around 2:00pm and it was relatively quiet. There is gaming fee but you have to order something and then order something every 3 hours you stay there. Gaming selection is limited here but they have some decent games. The place got busy later in the afternoon. The food and drink selection was okay and you can say it’s very similar to a bubble tea café menu. There is also Mahjong there for those that like it. It’s a decent place to play board games if you happened to be uptown.

The place can get really packed at certain times (I went around 8 ish), the space was crammed and the atmosphere was very loud. The menu didn’t have that big of a selection in my opinion and the drinks aren’t anything special, same with the food. The service was horrible, I waved the waiter a few times but was ignored and when we finally ordered it took them a very long time. The only redeeming factor was the selection of board games wouldn’t recommend.

I’ve been here a couple times (all suggested by my friends) and I can’t say I’ve enjoyed it. There are a fair amount of board games, which I guess is the redeeming factor. Drinks are meh. I’ve definitely had better elsewhere. Atmosphere is LOUD. Everyone is yelling in Mandarin so you in turn, also have to yell across your own table to have a conversation (the vicious cycle of yelling). This in itself, isn’t so bad. People who have been to HK cafes know they’re just as loud. However, I’m here to chill and converse, and not just eat and drink, so it changes things a bit.
The tables just feel nasty. Sticky substances everywhere. Bring your own board games at your own risk because they will become sticky and gross. Service also sucks. You can never seem to wave servers down. When you do wave them down and get an order in, it takes awhile to get to you. I once spilled water on the table and asked for napkins. The girl looks at how much water is spilled (half a cup) and comes back with two flimsy napkins. Seriously? Are you that stingy with your napkins?

I’ve come here on a regular basis for the past 2 years. It hasn’t changed much really except for the addition of board games and now they take reservations.
The food, like any typical bubble tea shop, is overpriced. The food itself is subpar and if I were to rate this just based on the food I’d give them a 2. The bubble tea is powder based with lack of any strong taste or flavour. The tapioca isn’t terrible, but doesnt stand out either. However, the selection of board games makes up for it. There is at least 4 shelves overflowed with board games.
If you are planning to stay longer then 3 hours, you do have to order another drink. I don’t fault them for that, I always wondered how they made money if I ordered one drink that night and sat at their table for 4+ hours. Glad to see this place is doing well.

For a Saturday late night hangout, it’s a pretty good place. Tons of boardgames to keep you busy all night.
This bubble tea joint is mostly for rich chinese kids that drive expensive nice cars. Therefore a lot of the boardgames are Chinese games I’ve never seen. Thank
goodness they have Monopoly and Jenga!
Parking is ok. It’s always packed at night.
Haven’t tried their food but so far, the drinks were only ok. It tasted very powdery and sweet.
I ordered the large Rose Milk Tea and by the end of the night my drink was still ¾ full. (That’s how bad it tasted. LOL)
We came here as a group of 5. Each person is required to order at least one drink. We ended up staying for 3−4hrs.
Overall, I would definitely go back — it’s a fun way to spend a Saturday night :) but next time I’ll order a small drink or food instead.

Food/​Games: ⁴⁄₁₀ — Value: ⁵⁄₁₀ — Service: ⁴⁄₁₀ — Ambiance/​Décor: ⁵⁄₁₀
This isn’t a very good board game café.
It fails for me because there are too few games and too few good games.
Half of them were foreign and didn’t look remotely interesting. Some of the games in English were missing instructions or pieces. There were a few popular English games, but most of the other ones seemed like variations of Apples to Apples. They just weren’t fun. It’s easy to buy small board games to pad your numbers, but are these actually quality games?
It fails for me because of the atmosphere.
Lots of really loud yelling in Mandarin. Every surface is sticky. There’s not enough ventilation (and the weather is cooler these days!) and it’s hot and stuffy inside.
It fails for me because of the service.
You just feel very rushed by employees who are counting down the minutes to three hours so that they can ask you to buy something else. Each person has to buy one thing every three hours. And good luck flagging anyone down after they’ve taken your order.
The food was perfectly fine; at least we can give them that. And they’re super expensive because they expect you to be there for a while. We had popcorn chicken, green tea with honey, mango slush, strawberry yogurt drink, and house special milk tea with tapioca. The strawberry yogurt was room temperature, which was really weird. The house special was $ 7.50. You don’t even pay $ 7.50 for something good at Cha Time.
This place may be the biggest board game café in Markham (their claim; I didn’t fact check this) but it is nothing compared to any of the locations downtown. I would rather plan a day downtown to attend Snakes & Lattes than come back to Utopia. Staff there actually make game recommendations and I prefer the food there.

This boardgame café. Has been around for a long time and have been here a few times. The price of food is overpriced. The drinks are about average when it comes to boardgame bubbletea places. Although décor is nice. And the boardgame selection is plentiful. This place is chronically understaffed
Weve ordered food here. And it does take a long time when it is a busy weekend night. And food is largely inconsisent. It is very salty most of the time when it comes to the food. And popcorn chicken is overpriced.
The service is subpar. However most peopl come to this place for one reason which is the games available and the comfortable environment. The place has mahjong tables as well. Along with poker though i would not play poker here since its popular with teenagers and therefore loud. Overall as a neighbourhood place it is good. Since not overly pricey and offers variety of games. I would suggest thise around the area to go if they like board games

Third time. They’re down a set of English Catan. Sad.
Food:
Ginger milk green tea ($ 4.99) — there’s ginger bits in it. The green tea is oddly floral. It makes for a very strange combination. I know green tea isn’t supposed to have caffeine in it, but I didn’t sleep until 4am last night, and it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Veggie fried rice — I didn’t buy it, and I didn’t try the rice, but one of my girls (the one who ordered it) handed me a carrot from her rice, and it was cold. Not lukewarm, cold. She said that when she bit into hers, they were like ice cubes. I see a big issue there. The peas in her rice were also bitter (as attested by multiple people who ate her rice).
Curry fish balls ($ 4.99) — I believe there were six fish balls. They were swimming in curry sauce. Notice to management: if you put that much curry in a bowl, expect people to spill… on your games.
Service:
Struggles with English. One of the servers bent really close to me while asking me a question about my drink, and her breath went into my mouth. It was gross.
They didn’t have onion rings in stock.
I asked for separate bills. They told me they could separate my bill into four. I said that would be fine. They gave me one. Then, when they saw we were struggling with our bill (not fun to make change for 12 people), they told us they could split up our bill into three. At that point, I told them not to bother, as we had already figured out half of our bill.
Ambiance:
Table size is an issue. We wanted a table for 12. All the chairs were right next to one another (so middle people trying to get out of their seats isn’t fun). If you want to play multiple games, it’s very difficult because there isn’t enough table space, especially once you have food and drinks going. Tough.

Aside from the previous review, the service here is really really subpar. The waitress was taking our order and pauses to take a call from her personal mobile phone. what kind of waitresses do that?!?
The drinks are still expensive and taste mediocre.
One cool thing is they have really innovative mahjong tables that help you stack it together.

Drinks are not cheap but I guess you have to make up for the games somehow right? The waitresses always look exhausted and I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 2 servers running about. I feel bad sometimes because they look so overworked but at the same time I really just want my goddamn menu .
My green apple green tea was $ 4.49 + $ 0.50 for tapioca and most standard drinks are in this range.
The food is eh but they put cinnamon on their fries which is really strange to me…
As for the games, they are not well preserved and many of them are missing pieces or are entirely in Chinese (bonus points for bilingualism). Not as many as say FTW or Snakes and Lattes, but decent selection. Also have mahjong tables and darts which is fun.
Basically a decent place in Markham for a casual night out.

Honestly, I really wanted to give this place more stars, due to the variety of games, the roominess, the décor etc. But it doesnt deserve recognition as a café if theyre this inconsistent. If I knew the food was going to be THIS bad, I wouldn’t have even considered ordering any, and would’ve happily obliged just paying a $ 3.99 sitting fee. :(
Green Tea Buttercream Toast ~$ 4.99 — It looked really unappealing, like bird poop plopped onto half the surface. The bread was wayyy too stale and wayyy too chewy (because it was slightly soggy — essentially if i grazed a knife on the surface, it’d be disappointing to hear; actually you wouldn’t hear anything because there’s absolutely no crunchiness). The green tea buttercream was the only source to combat the dry toast but was lacking.
Vanilla Icecream Waffle ~ $ 8.99 — I thought maybe in comparison it’d be much better than the toast. All’s fair in redemption. but no! The waffle batter was missing every single protein (egg) /​dairy component in it I swear. It was so dry and dense that with every bite I felt like I could choke. I applaud them for at least knowing how to scoop icecream and cut up bananas and strawberries.
Why… just why…
We didn’t really mention anything from the above, but even when asking for water, I had to go up to grab it since the servers were not very responsive. I can’t believe they had the guts to serve us stale food and even so, we did not dare try out the bubble tea as dry as the food was and as thirsty as we were (plus my friend was a huge bubble tea fanatic — so that was a clear indication of how shocked we both were.)
… Im just really envious towards my friends who’ve told me they had good snacks here. I’ll give it another chance. sometime in the distant future.
TL;DR — food sucks, come here for games only

First time at this board game café. My friend had called to reserve a table just in case it was super busy which it does later in the evening. Nice environment and feels comfy inside. Really liked how the tables are not too close to one another so you don’t feel too crowded. They have regular tables, electronic mahjong tables and electonic darts. I would say they have a medium sized board game collection. The «entry fee» is pretty much just buying anything from the menu and they will let you stay 3 hours. If it’s a really busy night they will tell you to leave but if not you can stay longer.
My friends and I had dinner here as well. I thought that their prices are a bit on the pricey side for the amount and quality. Most of the entrée items are around $ 7.99 — $ 9.99 and most of them didn’t appeal to me. I ordered takoyaki, 6 pieces for $ 5.99. It was meh, not enough squid in the filling and it was missing the brown sauce. Also got a matcha slush which was very good, not too sweet.
Tonight we tried a gamed called Tokaido and we loved it! It’s an easy-​going game but also involves strategy (and also very pretty!). It was missing one small token though, but thankfully not a very important one. I would totally recommend it to anyone. We also played a game called Coup and noticed the cards were very sticky and gross to touch. I would suggest bringing some hand sanitizer if you are a germ freak.
Overall a pretty nice place to hang out with your friends. Good service and waiters are nice. It can get pretty noisy when there are more people though.

Super popular and awesome board game store! So many varieties and we played zombie mall.

Washrooms are a little gross but place is great aside from that. It’s well decorated and has a nice medium sized selection of games to choose from. You obviously can’t compare it to the huge selection of board and card games at Snakes & Lattes but games at Utopia are still decent to play. This café also has mahjong, poker and darts to play, which makes up a bit for the difference in game selection.
House rules requiring every guest purchasing food or drinks every few hours are very reasonable considering that they make money off that to stay open. It feels almost as if their business exists because they simply want people to have fun and not because they’re trying to make a lot of money.
By the way, please don’t order the rose carnation aloe tea from the flower hot tea section. That drink was just so bitter even with the sugar syrup. The honey tangerine tea, on the other hand, was excellent.

Environment was great with a nice ambiance, however it was quite noisy and all the smoothies or non-​herbal or teapot drinks were way too sweet. When I bought their mango milk smoothie drink I barely drank it because it was way too sweet & you can easily see the sugar settle about ¾ of the cup of you leave it sitting there for a while.
Excellent place to just relax with a group of friends if your interested in both Asian games like San Guo Sha or English games like Munchkins. Although I highly recommend not getting anything with too much sugar if your drinking late at night.

Evenings + board game cafes usually = jam packed, hour-​long waits.
However, at 10pm on a Friday night, my party was able to get a table of 8. Impressive.
They don’t have a sitting fee — only a requirement that you get a drink every so often. Quickly browsing their menu, after skimming through the typical bubble tea line up, I came across something interesting. Utopia served fruit-​flavoured yakult drinks. For those that don’t know, Yakult is the probiotic dairy drink that comes in the small clear/​red plastic bottles, commonly had as a snack as a kid. It’s a little sour but sweet at the same time.
I had the large Green Apple Yakult drink with tapioca. +$ 1 for a large size, +$ 0.50 for tapioca. It was… alright. The green apple taste was too artificial and sugary for my liking, and I’m not sure I needed a large size Yakult drink. I’m happy I tried it, but it’s not going to make a regular customer out of me.
On to the board games — they have quite a large collection. My eye test counted at least 100. The games appear to be in relatively good condition. The game we ended up playing was not missing any cards or pieces, which is a good sign. In addition to board games, they also have mahjong tables, a couple electronic dart boards, cards, and magazines.
One thing I found weird was that their menu says they will provide a maximum of 2 glasses of water per customer. Never seen that before. Oh well.

My brother has been headed to a bunch of board game cafes, and has been recommending them to me. One of those recommendations was Utopia.
Went in during a Friday afternoon, so it was very busy but had a couple tables around. Definitely was decorated and catered to an Asian market, serving bubble tea and even having some Chinese board games and mahjong tables.
Food and drinks weren’t bad overall. You can’t really screw up a Green Apple Green Tea, but it did come in a cheap plastic cup you’d get for takeout. Popcorn Chicken were good, as they weren’t too salty, and the cucumbers were great, but definitely NOT worth $ 4.99.
A medium selection of games on the shelves, but use to the gigantic variety at Snakes & Lattes, so was a bit underwhelmed.
Good overall experience, but found it a bit too quiet at the time we went. Felt that we couldn’t talk to loud there… Not a bad place to hangout, but probably would head to another café in the area.

Went in on Sunday at 1pm wig a group of 9. The place is good for large group. They offer many different board games, but I don’t know if it’s free to use.
They also offer mahjong, automatic align table is $ 10/​hour; traditional table is $ 5/​hour.
Do not expect good food from this place, but the drinks are yummy. Food price is pretty expensive too, plus a drink on a side you are look at around than $ 18.
Service was so-​so. They don’t have many staff to serve, probably didn’t expect people comes in for lunch/​food? The waitress wasn’t very friendly while the waiter was better.
I would go for a drink and some chit chat time, def not food.

So many people on weekends…
The place is great for casual gatherings with friends when you want to enjoy rounds of board games or have loud chats in general. It’s perfect if you’re looking for a vibrant environment, because the place is super busy and sometimes you have to yell over people.
Food wise the place is pretty average. Bubble teas can’t compare with real teashops like Chattime, but the price is like them…
They offer a large collection of both Chinese and Western board games, plus majong tables. Be sure to ask the server for pokers because they don’t keep them out

i know this dish is a rip off already for what it is, but i like having it everywhere i go.
scrambled egg with shrimp on white rice.
most of the food items are decent here, you can give it a pass. but their version of the scrambled egg + rice was a disaster. not only did it come out as something different the past 2 times i ordered it, but when my order finally came out right this time. it tasted nothing like what i expected it to taste like. it just taste like oil, very minimal seasoning.
anyway, they also made some changes that are notable, which i have nothing against because they do need to make money somehow. 1 order per person per 3 hours. it’s fair. in the past u could stay there forever and only order one small item. and now that is is busy pretty frequently, i think the charge is fair.