Cool Island Cafe

gross gross gross.
— Vietnamese sandwich only comes in the cold meat variety and they also have a bbq chicken sandwich that has slimy cucumbers thrown in. There were none of the Vietnamese sandwich yumminess that usually comes with… no carrots, jalapeño, or cilantro… very sad.
— ordered a fresh strawberry boba drink and threw it away.
I read the bad reviews and still gave it a shot, but now I can verify that this place is def skipable.

Since I was running out of places to eat in the area, I asked for recommendations from co-​workers and asked about this place.
I took my co-​workers’ words commenting that this place is «pretty good» and considered to give it a try. I bought the lunch special with fried rice, garlic noodles (chow mein?), sweet & sour pork, and some veggies.
+: Fried rice IS a bit dry, but it’s in my liking. Sweet & sour pork — not bad, but not good either.
—: For some reason, the chow mein is TOO SPICY. Lay off the pepper a little bit, would ya? The veggies seem as if they’re uncooked or boiled; it just seems as if they took it right out of their garden and washed some dirt off. DISGUSTING.
To be completely honest, I didn’t even finish my lunch. There’s too much flavor, and one or the other just either 1) kills my taste buds or 2) numbs the taste buds. There’s too much going around, being salty, spicy, sour, sweet, and EWYUCK.
I’m definitely NEVER going back.

i heard decent things about this place… however these things were said by an authentic Ethiopian guy who is unknowing of asian foods.
the spicy bbq vietnamese sandwich was actually decent, although they microwaved the chicken and shoved it in the french roll. what’s up with the goodness of a french roll? the vietnamese know how to choose them some great rolls! every vietnamese sandwich i’ve had always comes in the most airy and soft yet crusty rolls. you could put anything in them and it’d be good!
a thai iced tea and tapioca accompanied the sandwich. no thanks. i threw that away. the balls were of mush and slime.

$ 5.99 lunch specials? count me in! which I wouldn’t say for all the cheap lunch specials I’ve ever encountered. but cool island café is endearing ’cause it’s tiny but clearly family owned and I have a soft spot when i see fellow asians run a place like a well oiled machine. i got prawns and eggplant with tofu over rice. they served it to me on a big plate and I washed that down with bubble thai iced tea. the only complaint i would have is that the prawns were cold but otherwise, everything was fine. conveniently located across UCSF mt. zion, so it’s good to check out if you or someone you love might be using the medical facility.

A couple of 5 star reviews «smelled» fake as both posters had only reviewed this café and an auto shop in Oakland! It looks like the Unilocal moderators have removed the reviews.
I was planning on taking the wife for lunch before visiting the doctor across the street, but Unilocaled the place first. I would have gone after reading average reviews. But the fake reviews really turned me off.

I appear to be one of a precious few that actually like this place.
It forms one of the cornerstones of my workday lunch options, along with Café Murano and Yum Yum Hunan.
Their $ 5.99 lunch special is the thing to go for, and features your choice of a couple different curries, chicken wings, eggplant stirfry, green beans, or salty shrimp along with rice and/​or noodles.
The vietnamese sandwiches aren’t all that great, but it seems to me like opinions on those things are wildly inconsistent and unpredictable anyway.
Can’t think of anything to really complain about with this place.

This place is screaming for a makeover. I think the name of this place doesn’t match the food they serve. Went here after a doctor’s appt and was super hungry. I came in around 2:00 pm and saw slim pickings of a cafeteria style set up. I still wanted a hot lunch to cure my hunger and settled on their chicken curry and rice. I was surprised that the chicken was tender and the curry sauce was tasty. Unfortunately the fried rice was a bit dry so I drowned that with the curry sauce.

Cool Island has a «99 (cents) special» on Bubble Drinks. I walked by this spot after work and got a bit excited. But what do you make of a 99 cent bubble drink?! Hrm…
I think: O K… Is it REALLY ninety-​nine cents? Well, sort of. If you would like to add the tapioca pearls, it’s an additional 50 cents. Tricky tricky, I say.
They have a menu on the wall to your right when you walk in of all of the different flavors, under the name of «Tapioca Drinks».
To me, Tapioca and Bubble have been used interchangeably. Anyway…
I started to order the Tapioca Drink and realized the $ 2.95 price. Stopped myself (being the cheap-​o I am) and asked what the difference is between the bubble milk tea and the tapioca drink. Somewhere in between the explanation, I zoned out and opted for the $ 0.99 + $ 0.50 option.
My review of the drink:
PLUS:
+ They smother you with tapioca balls/​boba. Mmm. Give me all the balls you can give me so that I may swish them around in my lovely mouth.
MINUSES:
— My straw could not get to most of the sort-​of squishy balls because of the abundance of ICE inside.
— The balls were al dente but not to (my opinion of) perfection. They were still a bit too hard.
…back to Tapioca Express it is…

I didn’t even know you could order off a menu! I tried ordering off the menu once and they told me that they didn’t have the items I wanted (even though they were posted on the menu) and that they were in the process of changing their menu. Anyways, I thought that the only way you could get food here was to get the 1-​, 2-​, or 3-​item lunch combos (like at Panda Express) so that’s what I end up doing everytime I come here. The basil chicken is OK (flavor is somewhat tasty but a bit salty), although I have a feeling that the quality of the chicken isn’t the best. Yeah, as everyone says, the portions are generous but I really only want a lot of food if it’s good food. This place is lucky that it gets most of its business from people working in the nearby medical buildings.

Who are these people raving? This place took the spot of my beloved local Ethiopian joint and has been an ongoing joke ever since.
They sent out «grand opening» menus months ago — advertising their lunch and dinner specials. Specials that I never tried since they were never open for dinner that I could tell. Not once.
Then, a new sign — «Now serving breakfast!» Oh, okay great, but when? Not in the morning as I’m headed to work (7:30 ish), and not on weekends. Is breakfast served at some other time on the Islands?
Okay, lunch maybe? Surely they must be open at SOME point, I see fresh fruit in there!
A day at home mid-​week finally yielded a shot to put this long running joke to bed. What it really yielded was wasted money and a trip to King of Falafel on the next corner. What a horribly built up disappointment.
I guess if you’re never open, you may be able to trick people into thinking they’re getting some sort of treat if they manage to catch you. You should open up a magic shop here instead with that sleight of hand act.

My girlfriend is out picking up falafel right now. At Cool Island Café? No, because of Cool Island Café!
Excited by the Vietnamese sandwich special advertised in the window, I picked up one of those and since they only offer one variety, I got a BBQ Chicken sandwich that I assumed would be similarly prepared.
She chose the chicken and we each took one bite of our respective sandwiches, and put them down in disgust. Mine was a cold pile of the lowest quality meat I have ever bitten into, including a chunk of bone in my very first bite, with pâté that was more likely pan drippings and the thickest glob of gray, cafeteria-​quality mayo I have ever seen. The cucumbers and carrots taste like they were pickled in urine and the old bread wasn’t even toasted.
I tried a bite of the chicken and it was nearly as bad, just a pile of the poorest quality meat fried in a sticky teriyaki-​esque sauce. Nothing like any barbecue I’ve ever eaten.
The worst part is that I’ve been waiting months to try this place, because they aren’t open for breakfast or dinner (despite advertising a breakfast lunch and dinner menu) and they are totally closed on the weekends, so on my day off, I went out of my way to go to Cool Island.
They throw in a free soda with each of the sandwiches, but the Diet Coke was out of syrup and when I mentioned it to the guy, while he was sitting around twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the other guy to take forever to make my sandwiches, he didn’t fix the problem, but did diligently go put an out of order sign on the wrong flavor.
This place is a pit. STAY AWAY.

Huge portions and a great value. The lady who dished out my food was so sweet and gave me little samples just because. The curries are wonderful and the garlic noodles were very good. I also iiked the lemon chicken. The food is fairly greasy but all in all, I’ll probably be back if I was in the area.

Like so many people who have visited Cool Island Café, I was expecting Hawaiian lunch … I wanted to love this place, but I really was disappointed.
Since it calls itself a café, I expected a café … not a cafeteria. The food was moderately priced and generously portioned, but it was really way too salty to be delicious (I drank my entire soda and resorted to sucking my ice cubes for water before I was even halfway through my plate of chicken basil and jasmine rice).
My friend ordered the roti, lamb satay and the spring rolls and couldn’t finish her food. According to my friend, the roti was tasty, but the satay was too oily and the spring rolls too filled with miscellaneous «stuff» to be appetizing.
Two stars, but I’ll keep an open mind for a future visit when I am hoping for an improvement.

One word: Awesome.
I’ve been here several times already and I have to say that Cool Island serves up some of the most authentic Southeast Asian «Island» eats in SF… and for the lowest price! The décor is bright and the waitstaff helpful. They run Panda-​like in that most people get the 2 or 3 item combo, with rice or noodles and side dishes. However, the similarities to Panda end there.
I’m a fan of the garlic noodles. As for the sides, my faves include the basil chicken, lamb curry, green beans, ribs, and spicy tofu. They change their «sides» daily so the offerings today may differ slightly from tomorrow. Other dishes that I highly recommend are the satay (beef, chicken skewers grilled and served with peanut sauce) and the roti (Malaysian «pancakes» served with a curry dipping sauce). I’ve been to Singapore and Malaysia and I gotta say this is very close to the real deal! For those less adventurous, they have the classics like Mongolian Beef, Brocolli beef, and kung pao chicken.
This place has breakfast as well, but I’ve never tried it. They do serve up some good coffee from Café Trieste. A nice pick me up if you ask me, though it’s rare that you’ll find me out and about in the AMs.
Overall, 4.5 stars. They are pretty new to the area, but from the looks of it, here to stay. Great food, even better prices, and a focus on improving. I’ll definitely be going back. I might even wake up early just to try their breakfast…

a lot of food for your money! great tasting

I actually liked this place, even though when I 1^st saw it from the outside, I thought it was going to be a Hawaiian style of food similar to L&L Barbecue… It’s more like Thai or even Indonesian or Malaysian style… a lot of curries, grilled meats with peanut sauces and a few veggie items… everything seemed fresh… I tried a 3 item combo with chow mein… I ordered Yellow Salmon Curry, Fried Fish and Sweet & Sour Eggplant… for $ 7.00 it was very good and a lot better than the food at Panda Express

1) Not Panda Express!!! Tastier, with better flavors, and not so common. This is a welcome site to the typical Chinese restaurant.
2) Indonesian style restaurant a la Panda Express, it’s you 1, 2, or 3 combo (rice or noodles plus your entrees).
3) The name of the place is a misnomer. When I hear Cool Island, I’m thinking Hawaiian style eats or Caribbean. Not Indonesian food, with the curries, the coconut milk, the rendang flavors, and peanut sauces.
Food stuffs:
Island Basil and Chicken and the Spicy Green Beans.
— good and flavorful.
— dark meat instead of white meat. (Now I loves me the dark meat,
but chicken breast would have been better)
Spicy Green Beans
— tasty (stir fried in shallots and dried shrimp)
Veggie Dishes (which I didn’t eat)
— seem to have a variety (tofu, mixed veggies)
— they looked the most healthy and not swimming in the oils and
fats that make food like this taste good.
Minus one star — Some of the beans didn’t look so fresh (maybe from the night before?), they weren’t as bright green or as crispy. I think they mixed the stuff from the night before and tossed it with the fresh ones.
Now I’m okay with eating my leftovers from a restaurant… at my HOME. I just don’t want to eat leftovers at a restaurant, know what I mean?
Minus one star — no brown rice.
My recommendation– don’t have them weigh down your plate with extra sauce or gravy, keep it light.
Inexpensive, with good size portions, almost too much. Less than 6 bucks for a 2 item combo.

Cool Island Café rocks. It’s like Panda Express but better. More to come later. Stay tuned.