Five A’s Cafe

Food was not good. beef had a weird texture (if u know what I mean). I still don’t think that was real beef, I asked her what kind of meat it was and she did not know how to respond.
At check out something went wrong with her credit card reader so she ended up charging me 3 TIMES!!! worst part is she would not refund me any of the payments. she is in deny, saying there’s no way she has done that. But I can see it in my bank statement.
They need someone that speaks ENGLISH!!!
I will not ever visit this restaurant again

Formerly known as Five As Café, now called Full House.
They need to learn how to package their liquid takeouts better. I ordered noodle soup and soybean milk to-​go and by time I got home the top lids broke and caused a huge spill in my car.
They cut a slit on the lid to let the steam out — which is fine — but they should let their customers know so they’re careful not to tilt. And, they should know it’s a terrible idea to stack food or any boxed items atop of a open slit plastic lid steaming in heat. The lid softens and lose its shape and everything stacked on top drops into the soup container.
Clearly annoyed and over this place.

This place is called FULL HOUSE now.

This restaurant is excellent, and quite inexpensive for the quality. I’ve been going to this restaurant since I was 6 years old, and it’s changed hands several times. The most recent iteration has the best food of any of them.
The XLB, a new addition to the menu, are actually quite fabulous and significantly less expensive than the nearby Shanghai Dumpling Shop (though the SDS’s quality is arguably higher). Their noodles are wonderful – I particularly liked the dan dan noodles, which were extremely spicy. They have several hand cut noodle dishes as well. Their potstickers have thick, hand made skins and flavorful meaty insides. Their eggplant dish is wonderful.
The only thing I’ve ordered that I did not love was their roasted tea duck. It really wasn’t the best I’ve had.
The atmosphere is a little sterile. It’s a little stuck in the late 90’s and should have been updated when their menu was updated. The service is nice, though.
Five A’s does delivery and take out.
Over all, this serves authentic cuisine to a predominantly Asian crowd (which lets you know you’re in the right place). If you live in the area, it’s a good place to grab lunch.

Still do not see how people can rave about it. We ordered some of the dishes which other Unilocalers recommended the most — cold noodles and Beijing spareribs, noodles were OK — definitely not better than in other places, but the ribs were too fat and too tough — which simply indicates they needed to be cooked longer. Maybe they have a different chef on weekend, since on weekdays there are practically no Chinese customers, and so they serve dishes just one level above the Chop Suey. But I can only write based on my own experience. As far as the service — that was OK, food did come out fast, and waitress was sufficiently friendly. Anyway, overall looks like a throwback to the times when no authentic Chinese food (and no Unilocal) was available, but now one can easily get much better deal simply by walking a couple of blocks North to Millbrae. Or driving 400 miles South to LA, whichever is easier.

I love their weekend breakfast!!! Savory soy milk and pan fired Shanghai style dumpling, yummy!!!

Food is fine but lady who works in there so RUDE.
I try to pay with my debit card but she told me to pay with cash wow.

My favourite restaurant in this area. Although they have a lot of yummy food such as Szechuan Cold Noodle, Shanghai Dumplings, smoked fish and many many more, the creative chefs always bring some new dishes to customers and never make this place bored. Service is pretty good, they are friendly and smiling all the time.
I like the open kitchen style, people can watch how they cooking after ordering to go.
This is also a place my friends and i come every week. Once you come here, you love here, and you will never forget here. :)

Did they change the owner? The price has been raised and the portion is less for some items. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep coming back since there are more and more Chinese food choices in this neighborhood. It’s very competitive — they should be careful when they make any changes. I’ve seen they are losing customers… :(

Friend recommended the place and I thought I’d give it try. Must say this place was more than I expected. The door seemed small and unwelcoming but don’t let that fool you. They have a pretty spacious dining lounge and clean facility. Ordered Cooked Twice Pork and Shanghai steam buns (xiaolongbao), both were perfect. I also tried the Szechuan Cold Noodle and it was fantastic to say the least. Went back there for a few more times and tried more stuff but I gotta say the first meal was the most impressive.
The place is also take-​out friendly, call in and you can get your orders prepared fast. Good spot if you work nearby and needed something delicious and inexpensive. Highly recommended.

Quick place for lunch, love their lunch special which comes with Chow Mein and Hot and Sour soup. Pretty cheap too — $ 7.17 for a full meal. Not bad.
Service is okay. Sometimes there can be longer wait time during lunch. They do get pretty crowded at lunch time.
The food is good. No complain. I like that I see them cooking my food when I order to go.

Any review made without trying their Szechuan Cold Noodle is null and void. Useless. Garbage. Needs to be thrown out. gtfo.
Hard to find this dish around anymore. Cool, chewy noodles, julienned cucumbers, ground pork, and the mystery sauce (sesame paste? soy sauce? chili oil? sesame oil?) create one of the top 10 dishes I crave.
You need to get this.
Other things I get when I need to supplement the noodles are the string beans, dumplings, and cumin lamb.
But for real though. Get the cold noodles.

Highly recommend their wonton, smoked fishes and cold noodles! Best Smoked fishes I’ve ever had in the bay area! Try their new dishes!
–Szechuan cold noodles
–Smoked fish (It tastes so good!!)
–Shanghai style wonton
–Green onion pancake
–Chicken wings
Also, good customer service, and food came out quickly.

This place was one of my faves for Chinese food until one day I ordered take out and found raw chicken in my salad. Person on the phone tried to tell me that they are sure that the chicken is cooked through so I decided to take it to them. They offered to replace the salad. I will not be coming back to this place. Posted a pic of it if you want to see.

Summary: most of the menu is meh, but it’s hard to know what to order! The dan dan noodles were spicy and interesting, and the szechuan eggplant was good, but nothing else was memorable.
Overwhelmingly large menus just don’t make any sense to me. How am I supposed to know what’s tasty here? Ugh! We tried the dan dan noodles, which is something I’ve been wanting to taste for a while… not sure what good versions of this dish taste like, but it had a nice kick. It was also quite salty. Everything was quite salty. The XLB was mostly oil and mostly all exploded (bummer), and I have a hard time enjoying sweet & sour pork when the color is fluorescent :(Considering how many Chinese places there are on El Camino near Millbrae, it’s been tough to find one that is a true gem.
On the upside, the food came out QUICK.

HANDS DOWN one of my favorite go-​to chinese/​taiwanese restaurants in the bay!
I come here every chance i get when I’m in the area! All my friends know not to go near this area when they are with me, I will trick them into eating Five A’s!
I absolutely love the «drunken chicken» as appetizer! I am half Shanghainese and drunken chicken is a must eat when you are in Shanghai. I can honestly say that the drunken chicken here is better than the ones in any other restaurants. Keep in mind, it is a cold dish. Some people get a little thrown off when they taste the cold chicken. It is supposed to be like that.
5A special noodle soup is good if you like hot and sour soup. It is super sour and spicy with yam noodle with pickle veggies and shredded pork. Watch out for the splash because yam noodle is super slippery and the noodle soup is covered in hot chili oil. Their cold noodle (dan dan mian) is good too with peanut sauce and it’s a little spicy!
Steamed dumplings
wonton in hot chili paste and hot chili oil
chicken wings
short-​rib rice plate (taiwanese style pai gu fan) is bomb!
pickled bok choy with rice sticks stirfry
any fried rice
sweet black sauce short rib
spicy cumin seed beef and lamb
combination chow meen
* and they give you chinese kimchee (pickled veggies) for starters. They are super yummy but very spicy!
good service! and i’ve never been disappointed coming here!

They seriously have some of the best noodles at the best price. I love coming here for a quick to go dinner for my parents or my grandmother. I love all their noodles. Really. This is also a good alternative for Chinese Style Breakfast! Love their rice rolls. They give such bigger portions than Shanghai Dumpling Shop down the street and at a much cheaper price. Must try their Chinese Donut. Crispy!
I haven’t really eaten in here, but service is usually slow. They have four chefs, which you can see them cooking and usually only one to two servers. The layout of the place. what can I say… If you enter the side facing Magnolia, it’s the restaurant side and if you enter the side facing El Camino, it’s the kitchen side. (: Pretty cool.

FOOD:
The food here was okay. The snow cabbage and pork soup noodle was flavorful and gratifying. The so-​called Taiwanese pork chop over rice, however, was a far cry from the real McCoy (i.e., the bento served on trains in Taiwan). But, as far as fakes go, it’s not terrible.
SERVICE:
The service was a tad slow but okay overall.
PRICE:
Our bill averaged out to around $ 10 per person.

This place has a really strange layout, and so is not even remotely welcoming to new incoming customers. Their kitchen is in the front room, while the restaurant itself (and person who takes your order) is in the back. A customer who was waiting for her food had to tell me to go to the back to order, since I stood there like a moron and not one of the 5 guys working the tiny front-​room kitchen bothered to point me in the right direction.
I ordered the shrimp and chive dumplings, which I’m pretty sure is not what I got (I didn’t taste a bite of shrimp…). They were pretty flavorless and just did not stand up to places like Kingdom of Dumpling in SF. So, $ 7 for what seems like pretty empty, bland dumplings and an unwelcoming atmosphere (even for to-​go food)… no, thanks!

Mediocre food. Just barely acceptable in this market.
The prices are good, but the food is super bland. There are a lot more choices here in NorCal that will be much tastier.
I kept wanting to put salt or chili sauce on everything that hit my plate. This is the kiss of death on my book. We had 7 dishes and I couldn’t find even 1 that I liked.