Cafe 88

its re-​opened as c&m bistro, food and concept looks the same, but the place is bright and clean compared to café 88.

I think this place may be closed. I’ve been by a couple of times for a month and always closed during business hours.
Great place for Chinese BBQ. I personally love the Roast Pig. Small portions but good quality… not that much fat.

For the best roast duck and the best char sui… they are officially closed… so sad

I wanted to try the restaurant next door but health inspector must have closed the restaurant down because they called the security and they blocked me from going inside. So I came here but same thing happened here. Luckily i was already inside and my order was already in when the inspector came. I ordered roasted duck wonton soup. Not bad for the price but service sucked and took long time to bring my order out.

Time: 3:22pm/72°F sunny
Purpose: Wanted to try the Hainanese chicken rice dish. First visit they ran out rice wanted to give me white rice instead? Didn’t mention a discount for something totally not my fault. Not that I’m asking for a handout, its etiquette. So I left instead. Second visit same result, but I end up staying, hangry.
Ambiance: Place sits 55+ easily with television. Mirror panel surround dining area. Cushion bench style seating along the wall with table in center set up for any size. Front counter steam table for prepare hot food and BBQ meat sold mostly by the pound. The ceiling has four trampoline style hoops not sure what that was all about. Didn’t see any gymnast above. Yellow painted wall with shaded in window look. Only entertainment is television or your gadget. Kinda cold and boring inside not much going on.
Staff: Two ladies mid 30s were in front daydreaming. I walk in while they were doing nothing just staring at television. No greeting just cold blank faces. I grab menu sat myself down not a soul walk over. The whole place had four customers. I got up show show my resentment with facial expression. One of them got the message and took my order. Too late should be done without me doing such.
Cleanliness: Grade C, its not a very clean place. Hot tea was fill in plastic tumbler with markings of unknown matters. Didn’t drink any of it at all. Restroom was not on location you must ask for key to a door outside next to parking payment booth.
Eats/​Drinks: Baked pork chop w/​red sauce comes with a choice of coffee or tea $ 6.25. When order came, I look at it thinking yep, its one of those lackluster afternoon special. Rice on bottom were hard and clumpy red sauce look like sweet n’ sour with ketchup added. Pork chop was so hard as red sauce slather on top to mask it. Never had pork chop that require so much arduous work just to eat it. Not worth the $ 6.25 on any day.
Main Features: Hainanese chicken rice and steak platter.
Products/​Services: Refer to posted pictures for full menu/​prices. Takes plastic.
Punch Lines: Spacious, laid back, lackluster ambiance, snooty service, loud and busy, off putting, nothing special, attitude at the door, quite bland, not as great, go elsewhere, pretentious, itty-​bitty, television.
Tradeoffs: Come here for tea hour special and you’ll get left over from lunch time. Better yet, it may have been from someones plate. Portion just smaller to fit tea time prices.
Final Thoughts: After finding out what Hainanese chicken was from Victor G. I was pretty content of having it at all cost. However, it must be bad luck or just wasn’t meant for me. How can I be so unlucky twice? First time, I brush it off, but second time around, it signal something is up here. I still haven’t given up on Hainanese chicken yet, but I’ll be searching for another location to hit up. Any ideas or suggestions are always welcome!

Came here for breakfast. Very good and cheap chinese breakfast. Very convenient since i parked in the centre parking underground.

Come here if you want some affordable «Hong Kong style» American food! The food is fairly consistent and usually very good. You have to know what you want because sometimes the food is hit or miss if you just pick something off the menu. I really like the BBQ pork on rice and the Baked Pork Chop on rice.
Just a warning, they don’t like to take card and the workers struggle with English. This makes sense, since the restaurant is in Chinatown, but just be wary that they are basically Cantonese only, maybe mandarin.
I have had some bad experiences but overall, most of my visits have been positive.

Sometime eating is not the most important factor affecting the quality, other times it is embience and also the service Limited pricing

Honestly the price and food is pretty good but when I came here I ordered a baked Portuguese chicken and rice plate and what they gave me was some liquidy curry chicken with white rice separately. Now I’m no expert in these dishes but I’m pretty sure when it’s baked the rice should be under the chicken and sauce .
There’s two possibilities for this, the restaurant either had a terrible idea of what some of the dishes actually are or the waitress ordered my dish wrong and didn’t want to admit her mistake .
Overall the food is pretty good but the service not so much.

Must Try! The chinese bbq tastes exactly the same in Hong Kong!

My first two options for the day had long lines so we decided to try this place out for lunch. No wait, got seated immediately. Language was slightly a problem but no big deal, just point at the items on the menu and the waitress understood.
Dishes came out quickly and were pretty fresh. We ordered some rice porridge, the beef in satay sauce, pancakes with oysters, and some hong kong style pan friend noodles.
All were delicious and fresh except maybe the oyster pancakes which I thought was just ok but nothing like the Taiwanese style that I was expecting.
Anyways, overall this place was decent.

Please note that these 5 stars are mainly for the honey BBQ and roasted pork because these are the two things that I come for. I haven’t try other stuff yet.
If u r looking for Hong Kong style honey BBQ pork, this is the place! I came here from SF just to get the BBQ pork! ;)
Lemon tea is quite good as well.

Beef stew and noodles, won ton soup, spring rolls all were good! Service was good waiters offered suggestions without asking. Think we were looking at menu to long.
I’ll be back

Not the best cha chaan teng in Chinatown, but they get a lot of customers because they’re linked to Peony upstairs. I believe the first time I came here (years ago around when they first opened) the staff at Peony suggested coming here since the wait for dim sum was going to take a long time. I’m not sure if that still happens nowadays since I haven’t gone to Peony in years.
Food comes out relatively quickly, as they should at a place like this. The only things that don’t are the baked dishes, but that’s expected because of the extra preparation time.
Usually their baked items are fairly good, and are probably a more reliable option than other plates. I tried a rice plate with barbecued items recently but I wasn’t fond of the sauce they use for the meat (mostly the roast duck). Unlike other places where it’s just soy sauce, the sauce here gave my rice a peanut taste and the soaked rice tasted gross.
When I came here with my grandma recently, she got a bowl of lai meen with yellow feather chicken. She enjoyed both parts of the meal, but the chicken that was supposed to come with the noodles didn’t come out until she was at least halfway through the bowl.
Appetizers are not really worth the money — you don’t get much for what you pay. The fried chicken wings appetizer only provides three wings but is $ 4.50, almost as much as an entrée.

Although this place is as clean and modern as you can get in Chinatown, the food underwhelms. An entrée of tofu topped with shrimp was rather unappetizing because the shrimp paste topping was raw and undercooked. Other entrees were rather bland or, worse yet, came out drippy and oily.
While the food is certifiably authentic and the crowd here Chinese as well, you’re simply spoiled for choice in Chinatown, and it speaks volumes that other eateries nearby are always far more packed than this one.

Their roast duck, barbecue pork, roast pork or salt boiled chicken over rice (accompanied with chopped ginger, scallion and oil) is the thing to get at this place. All other dishes are just so-​so and nothing fancy. .
Service is bad. Sit, get a menu and you have to wave down someone to take your order… then they disappear… have to ask when your order is going to come and only then they check. Getting the bill is another ordeal. Hard to eat here when you’re on limited time for lunch.
Cash only

My boyfriend and I decided to try this place out since we always park in the parking garage below. There are a lot of asian food places to choose from in this part of Oakland. We needed to eat at a place that would serve the food quick because he had to go to an appointment in about 25 minutes.
There’s roasted ducks hanging in the front and you can order take out. But we decided to dine in. I got an iced lemon tea with seafood pan fried noodles and he got the BBQ pork over rice. His food came out really fast and mine took about 15 minutes. By the time my food came out, he was already done and had to go to dentist. I ate by myself to finish my food. The lemon tea was great also. I like it sweet and this place happens to make their lemon teas sweet!
We both enjoyed what we got. Even though my food took a little longer than his, I still liked it! Pan fried noodles are my weakness. This place is also very cheap too — but cash only! If you have BofA, there is an ATM across from this restaurant :)

3 ½ stars.
We needed a quick lunch. We arrived at about 1:30 PM. We were not quite sure whether to eat at Café 88, or at Gum Kuo next door. But, we decided to go to Café 88. Café 88 is a Hong Kong Style Café located in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in Oakland. Parking is easy in the underground parking lot.
We ordered a Malaysian Chow fun, a beef chow fun with egg, and a appetizer of roast pork. A few minutes later, after taking our order, one of the waitresses came out and told us that the remaining roast pork was «ugly» and that we should order the duck instead. This impressed me since most Cantonese places would just serve what’s left.
The roast duck duck came out first. It was flavorful. The duck didn’t seem as fat as the ducks that they serve next door at Gum Kuo. But, I though it tasted better than some Southern California ducks. My daughter and I liked the plum sauce for the duck. She almost finished the sauce by herself.
The Beef Chow fun with Egg was okay. It is my daughter’s favorite noodle dish. I don’t care for the stuff. But, when I am in a rush to get out of there, she gets her favorite. The daughter says that it was good.
We made a mistake in ordering the Malaysian Chow fun. I know a couple of Malaysians. I have never seen them eating Chow Fun. When the Malaysian Chow Fun came out, it looked just like Singapore Rice Vermicelli, except with different noodles. I thought the ho fun noodles were too sweet. It would’ve tasted better with Rice Vermicelli.
Café 88 has much more on it’s menu. They also serve teas, hot pot rice, other Hong Kong Style Café Dishes. They have wifi, that you could probably hack into.
Overall, an okay place in Oakland. Gum Kuo next door is a little better. Not bad if you want a quick meal at an off hour.

Café 88 is in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in Oakland Chinatown.
The place is cash only and they don’t have their own restroom (you need a key to the plaza restroom).
They have the Chinese bbq hanging from the Window.
— bbq pork or pork shareribs are $ 8 per ib (that’s a little pricier than other places in Chinatown but I like the quality of their meat).
— It’s about $ 16 for a roasted duck.
They will cut them up for you if you ask them to.
They have a pretty large menu including dim sum made-​to-​order in the morning (until 11am), clay pot rices and other Hong Kong Style Café dishes. Around dinner time you could also do individual hotpot.
I recommend their baked pork chop rice, scrambled egg chow fun, or their claypot rice with eggplant in garlic sauce.
Their service is pretty quick depending on what you order, certain things like the claypot rice takes a little longer.

Pretty good food for the price and location in Chinatown. This located really close to my grandma’s house, so I come here to get some HK Chinese food because it’s close!
The food: I usually get either the pork cutlet sandwich, which is pretty yummy! The thousand island sauce makes the sandwich tasty. It’s also super cheap (~$ 4 – 5).
I also like to get the bbq cha siu pork and roasted pig with rice! They give you a pretty big bowl of rice, and it is tasty for what they give.
The décor: Eh. It’s not impressive and for some reason, it is always so COLD. Like why?! The inside of the store isn’t even that clean either. Meh, I would choose other places, but sometimes it’s just so cold in Oakland!