Sunday Cafe

After we sat down and ordered, leave it to my partner to say «wait, did I take you to the wrong place?» when I talked about a HK style café I went to a few years ago. The stereotype that all Asians look alike… This is like the stereotype that all Chinese places taste the same in 626! Jokes aside, the food here is definitely on par.
We ordered a dish with fried tofu rounds and enoki mushrooms in brown gravy sauce. The tofu is the soft kind that you’d find in Korean tofu soups, which I really like. We also ordered the salt and pepper chicken wings, but there wasn’t as much seasoning on the wings themselves, but I liked the crispy texture (not too oily either).
Generous portions as an affordable price, why not? Also, if you’re a fan of rice, they’ll give you a huge plate of white rice. Back in San Diego, you’ll have to pay per bowl and they pack it in small bowls every time. Don’t forget to sip on lemon iced tea (with free refills!).
Similar interior to Sunday Bistro, I like the booth seating and it was very clean inside. Service was pretty good, although it wasn’t busy when we dropped by for dinner.

Ok, so I know what you’re thinking: it’s ludicrous to give a Chinese café 5 stars, but is it really when you compare it to other Chinese cafes in the area? It would be more ludicrous and completely unfair to compare an SGV Chinese café to Melisse or Providence. Apples to oranges.
Anyway, Sunday Bistro (particularly this location as opposed to the one in Alhambra) is great! The service staff is attentive, quick, and reliable and the food is great (as great as this type of café can be). Best of all, they make the best jook (aka porridge) in town! It’s prepared in a clay pot and comes out nice and thick, just the way I like it. Unlike at Garden Café (aka the worst place to get jook). Garden Café serves flavored meat water with small kernels of broken rice that they try to pass off as jook. It’s horrendous. There is also ample & spacious parking at this location (unlike the one in Alhambra) and they don’t have an outside patio area where smokers smoke drift into the restaurant (like the Alhambra location, ugh).
All in all, this Sunday Bistro is great place to get your cantonese fix on. Great Lo mein and jook and drinks! All for a really great price!

When you have a restaurant with crappy service and lazy waiters standing around like this one you should keep an eye out on your credit cards. Heck, just bring cash. This place will try and jip you if you’re not careful.
This place DOUBLE CHARGED me for my meal. Thanks guys! I didn’t want to wait until they posted both the transactions to find out if it was just an accident so I called my bank and told them the situation. They said they’d dispute it if Sunday doesn’t already correct it and drop one of the transactions. Sure enough… they didn’t. They tried posting both of them and the bank disputed it. I got my money back but man I’m pretty pissed. Shady shady business.
Save yourself from this horrible place and go get phở nearby or Lee’s Sandwiches if you’re in the area. If you do come here don’t get any of the steaks. Spare your tastebuds because they taste like they’ve been sitting in a freezer for a long time.

Typical café food… service and food was okay. Haven’t been to a café place for awhile. Decided to drop by on a Saturday for lunch. Overall it’s okay. You want lunch specials they have it.

=FOOD=
1. Orange Flavored Chicken — SKIP IT! — Where’s the chicken? I can’t find it. Oh… there it is. While John T. said there was so much batter, I thought we were eating ONLY batter until he showed me the bit of chicken inside the batter. @.@ What the heck… really? Also, tough to bite. I hate to say it, but I’d rather order Panda Express’s Orange Chicken. =X
2. Walnut Shrimp — MAYBE — This is always a little guilty pleasure of mine at cafes. Who doesn’t like jumbo shrimp drenched in delicious kewpie mayonnaise, sprinkled with walnut? (I LOOOOOVE MAYO… especially kewpie mayo!) Sunday Café’s wasn’t bad, but there was so little! This is not a cheap plate either… so I expected a little more. Plus, I didn’t like the way they just put their funny tasting walnuts on the side. =\
3. Chinese Soup — Believe it or not, their complimentary soup was pretty good. I’d prefer that over other café’s cream or borsch/​tomato soup any day.
=SERVICE=
Not as bad as most reviews say. Since the restaurant was quite empty, with maybe 3 other tables occupied, the food came out fast and the waiters were always standing by.
=FINAL VERDICT=
Not my favorite café for food, but pretty conveniently located if you’re in the Rosemead area shopping in the Rosemead Supermarket.

My Order: Thai Style Vermicelli & Seafood Soup (delish)
Pros;
— modern asian fusion meals
— cute/​decent décor
— ease of finding parking
— booths for privacy
Cons;
— like many people mentioned, the service is BAD. I believe I asked this waiter for a few bowls (to share with friends) and he made a snarky remark. I was scared that he’d spit in my food…
I was brought here on (ironically) a Sunday when I was missing traditional Chinese food from back home. So, my friend brought me here. On a whim, I ordered the thai style vermicelli out of my cravings for hot & sour soup. It didn’t fill that need, but it was absolutely delicious. Tangy, sweet & sour: it was quite scrumptious. Now I crave it, but I can’t find it in Toronto… :(Trip to Cali anyone?!

I ordered out from this place. Did not know that when I order more than a certain amount from the menu, I get to buy a dish from the special menu for only $ 0.98
Dinner for two became enough food for dinner for four! The only gripe I have about this place is the lack of workers. There was only two workers serving, ordering, and cleaning the tables.

I’ve been here mostly for breakfast and once for dinner.
Breakfast is pretty standard. You have the chinese options (Congee, noodles) as well as the western options (eggs, ham, steak). Quality is not that much different from most other places. Cleanliness is decent, but not particular good or particularly bad… hence the three stars.
Service is dreadful though. One waitress always makes snarky comments at my mother. And only to my mother. RUDE! I usually don’t expect good service from any Chinese place, but this waitress went out of her way to directly offend us. I will not go into details here as I do not wish for this personal encounter to mar this FOOD review.

I usually dine at their other location. this one is not as busy at the rest.
* wonton soup: I have had a lot of wonton soup and this was not one of the best I’ve had.
* service: hit or miss. I think some of them are hired to be decoration. They make eye contact with you but once they do they turn and walk the other direction. This really put me in a bad mood which is probably why I didn’t really enjoy my meal. Just saying.

This place serves the most disgusting food one can imagine! My dad and his friend didnt want to go far and so they stopped by the Sunday Café just around the corner from our house. My dad came home looking really crappy. He was complaining that the lemon slices in his ice tea had black moldy spots all over. Call the health inspectors immediately!!!
This is not the first incident of disgusting food being served at this location. The Alhambra branch is just as disgusting and unappetizing. I remembered ordering steak and that Sh*t tastes just like beef jerky. Dry like the desert and stiff like concrete. I paid 12 dollars for food that my dog would not even wag its tail at. Ate 2 bites and walked out. In general, food here is just garbage. Sour tasting curry, rotten lemons in your tea, prime rib steak like beef jerky. on top of horrendous food. the service also sucks. No refills, they act like they dont see you and nothing you comes to you as it should.
Never am i stepping my foot in there again. Stay Away!

My first time here and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Their coffee was great and they gave me free refills all the time but I waited for over 40 minutes for my food. I already drank 3 cups of coffee before my food appeared in front of me. Their food quality was mediocre too.

I’ve only been here during lunch hours and though this place lacks a few things on the item compared to the one in Alhambra, this Sunday Café still isn’t too bad going to for lunch. I always and usually just order either a Baked Chicken Steak w/​pasta or a Grilled Chicken Steak w/​Pasta. Next time you order sauce though, don’t order their Garlic Sauce if you get anything grilled. For some reason, it doesn’t taste as great and always seems to taste moldy or something. 3 times I’ve thought maybe it’s just that day but all three times it doesn’t taste as good as other places. Place is a bit smaller here but still has a bar and couple of televisions for entertainment even though it’s all Chinese shows. Service isn’t too bad but could be a bit better here. Good thing about lunch is they always give you a Chinese herb soup and is refillable. Parking is plenty since it’s in a big plaza so you shouldn’t have problems finding parking here.

Talk about sanitary issues… this place doesn’t even deserve a C rating! Came here cause the phở place in the plaza is closed. The other Sunday café is decent, so I thought this one would be the same and boy was I wrong!
1^st of all, the floor is sticky, the tables are sticky and wheni looked over, the chairs backing of other tables are stained and looked sticky. Wait. there’s more the vertical blinds are stained and sticky, even the creamer packets they serve on the table are stained and looked sticky! GROSS! How old are the creamer?!
Got the hot milk tea with my meal. The milk tea already had cream or milk in it so i took a sip without adding anymore condense milk. It was not smooth and very bitter. I had to put lots of condense milk later to make it bearable.
My tuna croissant looked ok but it when down hill after i tried to pick it up. The fish didn’t have a weird taste so that’s a relief. But the croissant is probably very old, they microwaved it to heat it up, cause it tasted soggy and it kept falling apart whenever i try to pick it up. Then i discovered the cabbage is overnight, cause where they cut the cabbage, it turned brown and shriveled… again GROSS!
and i think the waitress only speaks numbers… cause i tried to order in english, cantonese and mandarin but she didn’t understand me… i tried pointing at the picture and she still doesn’t know so i said # whatever… and then she say ok… WTF?!
I wish i had my phone, so i can take picture of what i witnessed, but then again if i had my phone i wouldn’t walked in here…

We wanted to try something new so stopped at this restaurant. It wasn’t until we sat down that we realized that this was the same chain as Sunday Café in Alhambra (which is also nasty). The food at this location is actually better than the Alhambra location but it is still not good. We tried the filet mignon cubes and the beef udon. The filet cubes were not bad and had a decent flavor to it. The beef udon took awhile to come out and was greasy and had no flavor to it.
The restaurant was practically empty when we were there and service was fine. We weren’t crazy about the food so we wouldn’t go back.

I only come to this place because it is close by. Not exactly any good food, but just convenient. Service here is mediocre. The waiters/​waitresses don’t really seem like they are happy working there. They never smile or anything. Just take your order really quick and leave. I find that most of the HK Café’s around this area are not that good. Probably one of the better ones would be Garden Café in Arcadia, but you know, I haven’t really found one that is super amazing yet.
Price is average. They do give a lot of meat though, but it’s comparable to a lot of other places.

We needed a late night dinner so decided to head to Sundays, since its quick and easy.
We ordered the typical lemon and orange ice teas that asian cafes are known for. I ordered the spaghetti bolognase with garlic bread (which turned out to be under $ 1.00 cuz our bill was over $ 40.00), my friend ordered the indo fried rice, my boyfriend ordered the claypot, and her boyfriend ordered the mince meat noodle soup. We also orders the deep fried chicken wings and for dessert the vanilla soufflé.
The spaghetti bolognase was very good. It hit the spot. Perfect seasoning with melted cheese perfect with the garlic bread. The indo fried rice was also good. I can keep on eating it. The mince meat and noodle soup was also good. The soup was just enough flavor. And the claypot was a good mix with the indo fried rice. Chicken wings of course was always crispy. And the soufflé was ok. Tasted more like angel food cake. But we still finished it. It did tasted good with the whip cream.

For a café, this place is… lacking.
Service was slow. We went there around 10pm and it still took us a while to get the waiter’s attention. My boyfriend took me here to get some food because I was feeling under the weather. I ordered hot lemon tea and asked for some honey, and the waiter told us that they charge for that. Why? You give free condense milk free for milk tea, so why would you charge for a little squeeze of honey? I wasn’t going to douse the drink anyways.
We ordered wonton noodle soup and fish filet porridge. The wonton noodle wasn’t too fresh. The porridge was too gelatinous. I think they put too much corn starch in it.

I’ve gone to the other Sunday café numerous times enough to know how their food should taste like. especially the original one that sat on Atlantic ages ago.
FOOD QUALITY:
One thing that I’m displeased about this place is that it’s oily oily oily! Some dishes were poorly executed such that you couldn’t taste the flavors that are supposed to be there — ie the pan fried noodles weren’t seared enough to give it that wok flavor. Their soy sauce mixture for the clay pot was not flavorful at all either.
SERVICE:
Service was interesting, they’re not very there to check on you but they’ll swoop in to fill your water cups. pretty decent impression, but not very memorable in any other way.
ENVIRONMENT:
Sort of tiny, and I’m not a fan of all the tables itself nor some of the positioning of some. The tables in the front especially will get cramped and impossible to fully seat customers with the way they arrange it, unless they’re two separate parties taking 8 people each.
Overall. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here. Here is okay, but nothing really great, delicious, or convenient. This is an inferior branch.

Don’t think I will be coming back anymore. Their prices are really expensive compared to nearby cafes (~$ 9/​dish), and their baked dishes are not as good anymore.
I used to come here only because they have really good baked dishes. And this time around, I ordered baked salmon screw pasta, and it was disappointing!
First of all, the appearance/​presentation of it was somewhat messy. Salmons of varying size were tossed with the pasta. Then. taste-​wise, the salmons were deep fried and dry. And the pasta was slightly over cooked as well. The tomato sauce is still good though, but I think I can get a better version of this dish at a cheaper price in another café.

Turns out that I’ve confused this place with Sunday Bistro and been checking into the wrong place. Now I have it right after I read Cherie T.‘s review, the two places are owned within the same family…
I first heard of this place from a co-​worker of mine years ago, just took me this long to try it. It’s pretty much HK style comfort food, prices are reasonable, service is adequate but never extraordinary, bathrooms are barely clean but it wasn’t beyond what I expected, big free shared parking lot adding to my overall driving stigma…
I’ve been obsessing over their Baked Pork Chop over rice the last three times I visited. It is made up of strips of pork cutlet with bits of carrots, scrambled egg, and tomatoes, covered with a thick tomato sauce with embedded shredded cheddar cheese over rice, and finally baked until the cheese is all melted. The dish that they present this in is cool, but very very HOT, I forgot the nature of this dish once and tried to lift it from its plate underneath, I’ll never do that again. This dish is the epitome of a HK café’s baked casserole offering, I would order this dish over and over again and I have…
We tried the Fish Fillet over rice. It’s certainly a healthier choice of white meat fish with tender greens covered with a sauce over rice, but I thought the fish was a bit bland…
Their Beef Stew over rice is chock full of chunky, savory beef but it is the tendons that are the stars of this dish and they’re melt in your mouth tender and delicious. Crispy greens dress the plate over rice. This one is one worth repeating too although there wasn’t a whole lot of sauce with the rice, and I love rice and gravy…
You always get a complementary bowl of soup that is surprisingly good dispite looking murky like dish water. It’s a pork based stock with bits of carrot and lotus root in it, you may be even fortunate to get a little bit of meat…
The ice coffee is cheap and refreshing, you get quite a bit for the money, it’s just a touch on sweet side but at least it’s not watered down…
I would come back to Sunday Café although now I’m curious about Sunday Bistro…