Cafe East

Eat there once a week, always delicious, always plentiful and huge diverse menu. Red curry chicken is a favorite, but have never gotten anything I did not enjoy. No alcohol but they are happy if you BYOB.

I’ve lived in the NY/​NJ/​Philly areas for many years. Moving to the Lancaster area I found it was a challenge to find quality sushi and Asian cuisine. Café East is an exception. The sashimi platter is always fresh and delicious. Plus the price point t is lower and the quality better than other sushi places I’ve tried in this area.
We also love the spicy yellow tuna rolls, seafood soup, and shrimp fried rice. If you ever have a chance to sit at the sushi bar, the sushi chefs are always so friendly. If you’re ordering take out, call first otherwise be prepare to wait.

This place is owned by the same people as Mojos, and the food is exactly the same. Which is, by no means, a bad thing. I ordered the sushi and sashimi platter for two (don’t worry, it wasn’t just me) and the presentation, taste, and ambience was just stunning. It was a filling platter, even for someone with a large appetite, and the layered effect of the separate sushi area and the higher sashimi bowl. All lined with decorative greens, fences, and edible touches, the platter looked fantastic. The two rolls, the California and a spicy tuna were good, but the shining part of this dish was the nigiri and the sashimi. Incredibly fresh fish, fast service, and a surprisingly friendly waiter make café East a definite: would return.

Usually the food and service is average to good.
Unfortunately the last time we went, we ordered take out and were given and estimated wait time of ten minutes. Twenty minutes later, our food came out missing one entrée. We then had to wait an additional ten minutes, and when we got home we were missing an order of spring rolls. I understand things happen, but in my opinion it’s poor management not to address this issue with the customer and simply shrug it off.
This is an atypical experience here and I’m hoping next time we’re back to normal. If you’re looking for sushi, you can’t go wrong here.

When you are limited to an hour for lunch being served in a reasonable amount of time is very important. I always get served quickly with enough time to sit back and relax after my delicious meal!
I have never been let down by the quality of service or the quality of our food at Café East. Highly recommended.

I’m really picky when it comes to fried rice and out of the few places I have tried next to straight hibachi style this place has the best chicken fried rice. Its not too salty like some places I have tried and the sweet amd sour chicken is also really good here.

A clean establishment with friendly staff. They offer both sushi and American Chinese food. I can only speak on sushi which is good but nothing to brag about. It is very reasonably priced during lunch at around $ 13 for two rolls, a salad and miso soup.

Best, freshest Chinese food I have ever had. This place is so good. Great for take out or dining in. Doesn’t matter food is fantastic.

Decent potstickers, boring pad thai, meh pepper steak.

We have been loyal to Café East for many many years and are VERY RARELY disappointed. High quality ingredients, lots of flavor, fresh, generous portions. Nice, clean, friendly, atmosphere inside, byob. Also great for take out. Will continue to be our go to for Chinese and sushi in the area.

Their food is consistently good, but they can never get my carry out order exactly correct. I always order the dinner special, but get charged for the full sized meal, which usually runs us about $ 10 more and leaves us with way too many leftovers. I wish they had online ordering to avoid this.

Good meals and great takeout service. This is a local Readers Choice winner year after year with Lancaster News. One of our local restaurants of choice.

Café East is one of our staple «go to «restaurants. I like sushi — fresh, unique and beautifully presented… check, check, check and my husband likes hot, fresh entrees that are consistently well prepared — check!
Attentive, efficient service with warm, casual atmosphere and comfortable booth seating fits the bill.
Their consistency and excellence has earned them our, respect, loyalty and this review — the gift dessert from the manager (he learned it was our anniversary, birthday and Valentine’s) our delight and grateful thanks.
Café East continues to delight and we highly recommend.

I have eaten here or gotten takeout on numerous occasions. I don’t know if it’s inconsistency, or if this place has gone downhill overall over the past 3 years we’ve been going here. It *had* been the best of the couple others we’d tried in the area (which isn’t saying much). At least they pass their restaurant inspections consistently. Pricy for Chinese food, but we didn’t mind when the quality was good.
Having been unable to eat for a couple of days due to a minor surgery), I was craving Chinese food, I called ahead to order takeout: We were there in 15 minutes, 5 earlier than the 20 were were told our order would take. Our order this time was:
–3 Shrimp egg rolls (specified «nice and crispy»), which are $ 1.65* each (NOT $ 1.50 per the online menu).
–Large order of BBQ ribs $ 10.95* (per online menu)
–Shrimp Pad Thai $ 9.95* (per online menu)
–Jumbo Shrimp with Garlic Sauce $ 13.50* (per online menu)
–Thai Stir Fried Beef (spicy) $ 11.95 * (per online menu)
Our bill came to about $ 55.
*NOTE: Their online menu quotes egg rolls at $ 1.50, but they’re $ 1.65 – MOST if not ALL PRICES POSTED ONLINE ARE INACCURATE, AND HAVE GONE UP.). I’ve thrown the paper menu away – won’t be needing it anymore…
This order was a new low. The egg rolls were limp and soggy, light years from «crispy» after our short ride home. They also seemed to have gotten shorter and skinnier. I did detect one or possibly two very small shrimp inside.
Ribs were tough with barely any spice, no sauce – obviously cooked the day before… or beyond). Mostly bone with very little meat. Of the 10 ribs in the bag, I’d say 3 – tough stringiness aside – were of adequate size. Lots to pay for lots of bone. A t least half of them were 3 – 4 inches long. One was pretty comical – a long bone with a small bit of meat clinging to one end… another was like a 3″ bone «sandwich” – 2 bones with a thin layer of meat within. (Darn! Wish I’d snapped a couple pictures!) On ONE occasion, these were delectable! But never since – the other day’s were the worst ever.
I had the shrimp pad thai, a heap of brownish noodles topped with a wedge of lime about the size of a lima bean. Not much flavor, barely a bean sprout or scallion could be found in the pile of noodles. Quite a few small, mushy shrimp though. It was edible, but not much beyond that.
Husband had the «spicy» jumbo shrimp in garlic sauce. It was absolutely NOT spicy, and the shrimp had a very unusual taste that he described as «metallic-​lemony-​pineapplly»… I did not want to try this. Loaded with broccoli, although there were 2 or 3 water chestnuts and a couple snipped scallion ends. He had a couple bites and and started feeling nauseous, then retching — then the rest went promptly into the trash. How can a Chinese restaurant screw this up? By using shrimp past their prime, that’s how. EWWWWWW! I think these actually* cost $ 14.50. What a ripoff.
He recovered after a few minutes, then had some of my pad thai, and tried my son’s beef dish. Son and husband said the beef to dish was pretty good.
Atmosphere for eat-​in is nice, The management is friendly. But the language barrier with staff has been troubling on more than one occasion. I am patient, and have no trouble speaking slowly with non-​native speakers of English. But I think it is not unreasonable that a server understand and and communicate SOMEWHAT in English. There always seems to be a new server working – we have never had the same one more than once. Last time we ate in, we had to laboriously go over and over that we wanted my husbands egg roll served WITH his dinner (not as an appetizer). After explaining this 8 times (at the very least), guess what? The egg role was delivered to our table at the same time as the soup we ordered. Our server seemed perplexed, obviously unaware of what the problem was, which we RE-​explained, and sent the egg roll back…
Sushi – meh. Especially terrible is one of their «special» rolls, the «Jumbo Spider Roll» at $ 10.95* (per the online menu). I have had these before at other places, and they’re soooo tasty when made correctly. This globby softshell crab «tempura» must’ve been yesterday’s (or ???), maybe pre-​cooked out of a box – not crispy whatsoever. Instead, a mushy, nearly tasteless thing that fell out of its seaweed wrapper when touched. We didn’t finish it. «Special,» yeah – not in a good way.
Still looking for that elusive, consistently GOOD Chinese restaurant in Lancaster County (Mountville area) – any tips would be appreciated. For now, I’ll be heading to York. Would also LOVE to find a good JAPANESE sushi restaurant locally – but alas, don’t think any exist in these parts…
We don’t mind paying for quality, but HATE sub-​par, un-​fresh ingredients, not to mention that «ripped off» twinge. Have given Café East a numerous chances, As Judge Judy says, «time to put a period and move on.»

had intense craving for chinese food friday and based on Unilocal reviews gave this place a try. ordered the following: crispy noodles with sauce, eggroll, crab rangoon, triple chicken (sweet/​sour, sesame, and pineapple chicken), and pork lo mein. it was ready fast and bill came to $ 33, bit on the high side for chinese but not outrageous. it was ok. socks were not blown off. filled my yearly craving for chinese and didn’t make me sick so i’m going to go with 3 stars. it’s so hard to find good chinese food!
inside the restaurant looked nice and they also have a sushi menu that i didn’t try.

Best Chinese and Thai food in Lancaster. Many exceptional dishes and very consistent. When we have visitors from NY, they always comment that they are very surprised by how tasty the food is at Café East.

My husband and I were so impressed when we walked in tonight. The restaurant is clean, the staff friendly. The menu offers plenty of variety at fair prices. We came for takeout that was delivered very quickly and are excited to return again for a sit down experience. All food was delicious and well-​prepared!

Fresh and creative sushi rolls. I’ve tried several chef’s specials and was not disappointed. Thai duck dish was also right on point. Friendly owners made us feel like family.

I had written a previous review on 11÷09÷13, stating the service was poor, and had been so the last few times we had been here.
Because I enjoy the food so much, I decided to give them another try (or two) to eat in. The service was very good, very much improved from previous recent experiences.

Yet another very tasty meal. My wife got the sashimi as usual but tonight I tried the drunken noodle dish. It says spicy but rarely is any dish as spicy as I like it, I asked for some peppers in oil and added that to the dish along with a tad soy sauce. It was quite tasty. Only went with 4 stars instead of 5 because yet again the soups were bland. I had the hot and sour, my wife had the miso and my son had egg drop. All seemed a bit weak in flavor.