LA Cafe

I have only written 2 restaurant reviews all my life, with this being the 2^nd one. Unless I feel SO STRONGLY about a restaurant, I wouldn’t write a review.
First of all, I moved to Seattle from San Francisco in April of 2012. Being spoiled in a world class city with world class food, I can immediately tell if something is going to be mediocre, good, or great. I am picky and unforgiving. Think about it, there are 300 Chinese restaurants in San Francisco Chinatown in the similar sized space as your international district.
I have seen all the negative reviews here but I’m an adventurous person who likes to try something new. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, is my philosophy.
LA Café is the biggest GOOD SURPRISE for me since I arrived in Seattle!
The food was so good, I ate most of it before I realized I wanted to take a picture for future memories. The last thing on my mind was to write a review because I enjoyed myself so much.
The waitress named Sunny made everyone feel welcome and was quick and considerate with her services.
I SAT IN THAT RESTAURANT WONDERING WHY THERE ARE NOT MORE CUSTOMERS?
The soup that came with $ 6.99 lunch special blew me away. I haven’t tasted that soup since my grandma died decades ago. A slightly sweet flavor of carrots, lotus root, red beans, pork bones.
I tried the coconut chicken fried rice and I was amazed at the mellow coconut flavor that worked superbly well with the chicken and fried rice. I WILL BE HONEST, I CAN NOT EAT NORMAL CHICKEN FRIED RICE. it’s just too bland and unimaginative. The coconut flavor ELEVATED this entire fried rice dish! I have never tasted anything like this in the 15 years i lived in San Francisco.
The second day I had the fish and tofu with rice. Fish is not cheap in any market! I was surprised at the generous portions of the fresh tasting fish in this lunch special. The fish pieces was light and had a pleasant shiny appearance that lets you know they were not overcooked. It was not deep fried and therefore a very healthy option for lunch.
*I APOLLOGIZE IF ANY WORDING DOESN’T SOUND RIGHT BECAUSE i’M A VERY BUSY GUY AND DID NOT PLAN ON WRITING A REVIEW. JUST A LAST MINUTE IMPULSE TO GET THESE FEELINGS OFF MY CHEST.
Well, my only regret is that I did not discover this restaurant any earlier. They have made me a believer in good food again.

Check out pics 12 and 13. Cockroach. NOT NO, BUT HELL NO! ain’t eating here.

My relationship with LA Café resembles a passionate love story that dies as quickly and dramatically as it flares up. Or maybe that’s my temper after dealing with their manager/​owner/​representative. I can’t tell anymore.
I’ve never been to the actual restaurant but have ordered takeout a few times as it’s one of the few Asian restaurants that delivers to the Capitol Hill area. Free delivery + online ordering = awesome! Or so we thought. Lured in by convenience and the first few good encounters, LA Café managed to trick us into a false sense of security. Then things started to go downhill.
Some of the food we’ve ordered has been good, some just okay. They have a wildly extensive menu ranging from baked macaroni (huh?) to steak & eggs to Hong Kong style Chinese food. My friends have tried the steak & eggs and enjoyed it, and I’ve ordered the vermicelli with chicken & salt fish and really liked it. However, their hot pot is bland as is their egg foo young. Comments and special requests on the online ordering form go unacknowledged. I tried to ask for spicy sauce with my noodles a couple of times and the noodles stubbornly remained un-​spicy.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was our most recent, and likely last, encounter. My friend decided to be brave and try something new, so he ordered the pork belly & cabbage hot pot. What arrived was not pork belly, cabbage, or hot pot. There were some onion slices, some starchy, slimy broth and strips of something vaguely resembling fake soy meat, chewy and oddly smooth. It was absolutely flavorless, and I have a sneaking suspicion the ‘pork belly’ was actually more like pork intestine (which I’ve never had so I can neither confirm or deny). It may have been something that came from the belly region of a pig but it was not pork belly as anyone knows it.
Not only was the dish not as advertised, but it made my friend instantly, violently ill. He managed to choke down a small bowl before deciding it wasn’t fit for human consumption, and a half hour later he was ensconced in the bathroom, silently weeping. My vermicelli was palatable, and luckily I emerged unscathed, but his ordeal was horrific.
What ensued was a game of back-​and-​forth between LA Café,
and us trying to get a refund for food that made someone horrifically ill. LA Café referred us to their third party online ordering company
who sent us back to LA Café, who stalwartly refused to understand any of our requests. Not only did LA Café serve us potentially fatal questionable pork parts, but they offered no apology, no compensation and no sort of customer service entirely, and their partner in crime was equally unhelpful. Won’t be using either of these services ever, ever again.
Dine at your own risk.

The food was good. I wasn’t too worried about the customer service since I got mine delivered but my delivery lady couldn’t figure out how to use my call box. She called me on her cell phone and wouldn’t let me talk. She just kept talking about how my call box didn’t work. I was cut off many times on the phone and I was expecting her to try the call box again. Finally, I just asked, «so you’re not going to try again? Awesome I’ll come down.» Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem but I really didn’t feel like leaving my place at all today and I felt she didn’t even try to call again, I mean she didn’t even listen to my instructions! I was just really annoyed, no one likes to be interrupted. But I really did like the food!

They serve very good Chinese food Hong Kong style. The milk tea was fresh and good.
Daily specials offered before noon. My favorite was the congee with punkin and fish.
Good place for quick lunch. No need to worry about parking, there are plenty in the garage.

I’ve been here twice and during both times the customer service is just as adequate as any other restaurant down in Chinatown. Both times, I got their lunch special: order a main entrée from a selective menu with soup, drink and dessert included. I like their Hong Kong Iced Tea and mango jello.
The main entrée options range from steak and eggs to typical café Hong Kong style like spare ribs with rice cooked in a stone pot. The food is average and affordable, and you definitely get your money’s worth.
So, if you’re indecisive or just too lazy to cook, LA Café has a wide range of Chinese food to choose from whether it is lunch or dinner.

I got fed up by their customer service skill and the servers who are lack of common sense in all those famous Hong Kong Café style small dishes.
My girlfriends used to love this place because the price was reasonable and food is acceptable and good parking when we eat in the ID area.
One of my girlfriends love the spam+Egg sandwich and she understands not too many places serves spam all the time, and she was so excited when she saw that in the menu. My girlfriend confirmed with the waitress and they said they do have SPAM but not ham. Well, it still turned out a «ham+egg sandwich» and my girlfriend asked the same waitress what’s going on and she just basically talked us into that was a «SPAM»
That’s fine! If they insisted to point to a piece of ham and name it as spam, we could really forgive the waitress that may be she really never saw spam in her life before. However, she refused to refund the sandwich that no one touched. We were suggested to talk to the kitchen and the waitress said there is none of her business that now the spam is not a spam. That was the moment we started to think this place is RIDICULOUS.
well… this place tried to brain wash us about the image between the spam and ham and then push all the responsibility to customers and said there was nothing they can do!!! I refused to go back to this place but my friends were still being nice to give them another chances for business, but soon enough there was another ridiculous incident similar to the «spam and ham» (i don’ t even want to waste my time to type the other story out since one ridiculous was enough to kill my hope to this restaurant) and my girlfriends finally said that’s it !!!
Oh and last week, my other group of friends just experienced something similar that the server tried to «educate» them a real «condensed milk and butter toast» is actually a french toast with condense milk on top!!! ha ha ha
I would vote this restaurant as TOP 5 worst customer services ever in Seattle, they just never admit their mistakes and push them to their customers.

I came into LA Café on a weekday night and didn’t leave too disappointed.
The place itself is quite large, clean, and spacious. The lady at the front greeted me with a huge smile and sat us down in a booth.
The menu is so large and elaborate I had NO idea what to order. There was absolutely no sense of order with the menu either. It would jump from breakfast to hot dishes to entrees to food combos and back to appetizers. The menu was so confusing I just decided to order typical things I would order at another Chinese restaurant.
The food was cheap and came out at a steady pace. I ordered the salt and pepper squid and that was amazing! I also ordered wonton noodle soup without the bokchoy or other greens and when it came out, unfortunately it was still in it. I mentioned the mistake and the lady apologized and took it back. She decided not to bring it back to the kitchen and have them make me another though, because I watched her bring it to the counter, proceed to scoop out the greens, and bring the same bowl back to me. I have really sensitive taste buds, so the greens already affected the flavor of the broth and I just had to deal with it.
I think the sweetest thing I experienced there was that the older gentleman thought I was some sort of star from California he recognized.
All in all, the food was tasty and cheap. The menu is incredibly confusing and the service decent. I’m not so sure I would be coming back to this one any time soon.

The food was «somewhat» edible. Some dishes were on the saltier side… and then, we found a cockroach lodged inside our rice dish. (Please see photo.) We lost our appetites immediately.
Not coming back anytime soon!
—
In case you still wanted to take a chance with their food:
Baked Chicken over Fried Rice with Taro Cream Sauce — this was where they incorporated the cockroach into the rice. The chicken used here was the red thigh meat, so it was tender and juicy. The skin was a little crispy, but I’m trying not to think about the other ingredients that may have contributed to its crispiness… when we brought this to their attention, the server offered to give us another one, but we politely declined. She later told us that they didn’t charge us for this dish. 3 stars minus 7 stars for the cockroach = negative 4 stars.
(And yes, we still paid for the rest of the dishes.)
Preserved Egg with Pork Congee + Stir-​fried Rice Noodle Combo — only available until 12pm. The congee was watery, and the bland rice noodles had some onions in them (no meat.) They were glistening in oil though. 1 star.
Sauteed String Beans — too salty for me, but at least it wasn’t soggy. 2 stars.
Fish and Tofu in Clay Pot — this one was okay in terms of seasoning and texture. They first deep fry some tofu and fish, then they cook it with mushrooms and vegetables in a salty starch-​based sauce to bind it together. 3 stars.
Chinese Preserved Meats Fried Rice — the preserved meats were too tough in texture, and the rice was dry. It also had some bits of Chinese broccoli, but the dish was not mixed well nor properly prepared. At least it wasn’t too salty. 1 star.
Pork Chops (in «Peking Sauce») — these had a little crispiness to them from the deep-​frying, and then they were cooked in a sweet and tangy sauce. The meat wasn’t too tough or dry because they had enough fattiness to them. Some pieces have bones, so be careful not to lose any teeth when biting into them. Not bad. 3 stars.
Mushroom Omelette — they dumped a ton of salt on the top… 1 star.
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Other note: the elevator from the parking garage down to the retail level is incredibly slow. So, be patient… very patient.

Found these guys on GrubHub. Their name always threw me off, I didn’t realize they were Asian food and just skipped over it. But, they were rated high and had cheap order minimums so I went ahead and gave them a shot.
Admittedly, I wouldn’t eat about 80% of what’s on their menu. Some of it just isn’t my thing, and other things I just don’t know what it is. But, I ended up getting the sweet and sour chicken, some egg roles, a box of white rice, and one of their ice teas. All four things were REALLY yummy!
The chicken was the only chicken I’d ever gotten delivered that was still crunchy when it arrived. Mostly because they included the sauce separately, which I think should always be the case.
Rice was standard and good.
The egg rolls were fresh and crispy and came with an awesome sauce of some kind that I couldn’t get enough of.
I had enough for leftovers the next day, which I also enjoyed.
I would highly recommend this place if you’re looking for a great, authentic Asian food experience!

«Honey, what do you want to do for dinner?»
«Well, I just got this deal for LA Café on Tippr because I’ve never had Hong Kong Style Cuisine.»
So off we went to explore the realm of Hong Kong style cuisine. The menu is HUGE, so many choices, and once you make a choice, there are still options. But if you state your option preference, it might not matter. I thought it was odd that the waiter did not write down our orders.
We got:
Deep Fried Bean Curd with salt and pepper
Baked *pork* or chicken steak with taro and coconut sauce and choice or rice/spaghetti/*macaroni*
Vegetable pan fried chow fun
*Item between *asterisks* is the choice that was made.
Instead of being served the pork and macaroni that I chose, I got strange bland chicken on spaghetti. It was not really baked but battered and fried like chicken fried chicken. The coconut sauce was not full of coconut flavor, it was more like the white gravy that they put on biscuits at breakfast places. The chicken had this strange lack of flavor and texture that makes me think it wasn’t very fresh to begin with.
The vegetable pan fried chow fun was a disgrace. The word «chow» means to stir fry in a wok. I’d be really surprised if this dish ever saw the inside of a wok. It was made of soggy limp rice noodles with some vegetables topped with a sauce that was most likely thickened egg drop soup. Bland and oily.
Service was not great. As soon as the food was dropped off, they never came by again refill water or tea. Just to drop off the check. There was $ 10 left on the Tipper deal so I suppose I could’ve ordered more food, but it was so terrible that I didn’t feel like bothering.
Blech. The only reason it got two stars is that it was hella cheap for the amount of food you get and the the deep fried bean curd.

Okay — do not get delivery.
I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but I should’ve listened to the reviews on eat24hours. My pork chop with rice was covered in this weird white, flavorless gravy, which I definitely did not order. Just thinking about it makes me wanna cringe.
We also got the fried rice with XO sauce. Driest, most flavorless fried rice ever. I wish I was exaggerating even the slightest. You could douse this with Sriracha and it still won’t save it. Unfortunate.
Oh and delivery took over an hour and a half, after being quoted 45 – 60 minutes. Sorry LA Café, never again!

Sometimes I just wish I’d lean more away against trying things I’m not feelin’. Such was the case with the Hainan style Chicken… it’s good and tasty with that special sauce (looks like garlic and olive oil together) but I don’t chopped chicken along with it’s bits and pieces of bone scattered throughout. Meh. And the rice reminded me of the yellow-​ish spanish rice growing up. Also got the salt and pepper fried bean curd (tofu). Tasty and nicely plated with the toppings and a bed of dried rice noodle (?). The inside seemed just a bit too soft to me. If I come back, I’d definitely try more solid items I’d trust. :) Service was super spacey, yet rather friendly when she did come by. When she asked if I’d like something to drink, she was like:
«Take a look at that — *points to the drinks on menu, then takes off*»…
« — Um, hey — „
“…»
So, yeah.

Pro: price is cheap
Con: food quality is what you paid for.

I been here more than I should… the food is not bad, the staff is friendly, but most of all I guess we/​I went there for the free parking oh and the TVB drama playing there. I used the
coupon before and the place is good for groups, because the size is bigger than other restaurant in Chinatown and quiet… really quiet most of the time.
I went with friends in the summer when they have oysters (his was the largest, cause he knwos the owner very well). They come with cheese or ginger and scallion. Really GOOD.
But other time, I went there it is merely okay… so I guess you can say they are not consistant. Take a chance to spin the wheel and remember to eat their free dessert (jelly)

I’ve been twice, neither by my choice.
The first time I ordered a baked spaghetti with fish fillet. It wasn’t baked. It was like, tossed in a saucepan and plopped on the plate. I missed the crispiness, the cheesiness and the flavor.
The second time, I ordered the curry. I don’t know if this place has a different definition of baked spaghetti and curry or what, but it didn’t even taste like curry. I swear, it was lacking any curry flavors. There was no heat at all.
Two trips here was two trips too many!

L.A. Café has a got many things going for it!
Its in the Pacific Rim building so you get free ample parking in the garage! Yay! They’ve got all sorts of harder to find animals and animal parts that many places don’t have like ox tails, ox tongues, little quails etc…
They also have a ton of asian style beverages like milk teas and even Ovaltine! Where else can you get a club sandwich and fries and an order of ox tongue? My last visit, I went with the salt and pepper squid and Hainan style chicken rice. The squid was great! I can feel the MSG pulsating through my arteries! The Hainan Chicken rice was an odd rendition. Instead of rice cooked in chicken broth you get a generous scoop of something that looked like egg fried rice. The ginger dipping sauce was nice but no chili dipping sauce. Also no broth on the side. Anyhow, the chicken had good flavor. Maybe its a regional difference. The service is always very friendly and the place is rarely every busy. It is also pretty cheap. With two dishes topping out at $ 12.50. Probably the better of the two food options if at the Pacific Rim building!

My good friend Liz displayed several photos in an exhibition at the Pacific Rim Center this past weekend. The exhibition’s theme was photography that captures the feel of the International District.
Afterwards, we along with three other friends, chose to have dinner inside the Pacific Rim Center rather than brave the wet and raging Pineapple Express outside.
It is at LA Café where I found a new love — milk tea. Oh boy, I love milk tea’s potent and astringent, though still smooth, flavor.
Our friend knew the restaurant and ordered in Cantonese for us. She picked some great dishes. The shrimp and calamari udon noodles were my favorite. I also enjoyed the eggplant, though Liz thought it was a bit sweet. Though tasty, I found it interesting that the hot pots we ordered were almost entirely rice, with only a tiny little bit of meat on top. Our waitress excitedly indicated that their dessert specialty that night was «Jello». We passed.
Five people sated for under $ 60. Not bad. Service was good, though the staff seemed to come back to the table an overabundant number of times to confirm what we had ordered.
Ample free covered parking in the building.

4.5. This was my kind of place: kept me busy, curious, not pressured, and entertained. I’m super turned-​on by places in the I.D. and would come down here every day if i could.
Luckily, Brian M. shares my fetish for 3 493 573-​item menus featuring dishes like tongues and quails and the like (but not at places that charge you a dollar per atom). So the two of us met up around 9 pm on Friday night at the Pacific Rim building on Jackson (parking is on the RIGHT SIDE of the building, be careful!) and i «held it» for an eternity just so i could get through the menu enough times to soak it all in.
I need to get to the food first because that is the most important part to me. I always order congee, but that night, i felt a change was in order. I really wanted frog legs. They had it two ways: in a hot pot, and fried with salt and pepper with some spicy seasoning. Brian and I chose that, and debated on a second dish to share.
Some of the menu items are meal deals that include rice or spaghetti and a choice of two soups, and a dessert at the end. We thought that ordering something with this feature would be best as a second share item, and we wanted something that has ox tail in it since we’d never sucked on an ox’s tail before. Ox tail came in several sauces, and we chose curry, along with rice and a seafood soup.
Ok, let’s roll!
The lady who served us was really great. There was only one other table — a family with a restless little kid — but either way, she was naturally hospitable and happy to see us curious and enjoying ourselves. Our frog legs were ordered first and came out fast. And OH MY GOD. I’ve made frog legs, and i’ve ordered them before, and they are always greasy… and these were like light, fluffy little morsels of popcorn chicken. They could have floated away. The breading… or light batter… left no residue on my fingers. The meat inside came out with no effort. Granted, the bones inside are tiny and there’s some picking to be done, but not much, and a great deal of the pieces are 100% meat. I ate my leftovers in the car and they weren’t even soggy. Spicy garnish was sprinkled on top and we ate that as well. I am probably going to come here regularly for this weekly.
The soups and curry came out promptly. Yes, TWO soups! One meal, but two soups… that was very gracious of the lady serving us. Brian and I enjoyed it. The curry wasn’t something you’d get at the best Indian joint, but I still really liked it. Big, fat crunchy onions, sweet yellow curry, and then the ox tails! They were funny little nuggets… i liked wrestling with the meat on them and sucking the fatty parts off, never really sure when i was completely done. Some people may not like getting that hands-​on and sloppy with their meal, but i love it… but just a warning that this is that kind of dish.
Oh, MAN… we were getting stuffed and still had a MOUNTAIN of frog’s legs and curry. The legs were about $ 9 which seemed steep… but JEBUS, they must have slaughtered a whole pond’s worth, so it was a great value. We still had our puddings, however. I went with the owner/hostess/server’s favorite, the black herb jello, and Brian got the mango (again, she generously brought us both a dessert even though we only ordered one full meal). She warned me that i might not enjoy the herb jelly but did it good-​naturedly out of concern for my good experience. I insisted!
It wasn’t bad. It kind of tasted like black tea. I tried Brian’s mango and it was delicious, but I was too full to care if a New York cheesecake were in front of us. I ate almost all of my black blob and threw in the towel.
I left feeling like i had dreamed it all. This is such a nice change of pace from the grouchy, rushed places i’m used to down here. I ate my leftovers in the car on the way home. Frog is now my favorite animal. I am flat broke now, but the minute my next paycheck comes, i am rushing my buttcheeks down to Jackson St. and ordering a pile of battered frog stems.
Thanks for coming with me, Brian!
*joy

I just returned from another visit… initially, I had to grab my own menu b/​c I was seated alone on one side of the restaurant. This café has certainly grown; a new pastry display at the front entry way. The dim place next door has changed owners and now is named «New Hong Kong Restaurant”-huh?
Unfortunately, I could not get on-​line. In addition to my usual beef, wonton, bokchoy soup, I tried a side of HK style spaghetti, and delicious HK style coffee. Spaghetti is lighter than expected. At one point, I was using all of my utensils at one time – fork for speg., chopstick for egg noodles, and flat bottom spoon to slurp! Coffee is as good as the vietnamese café sau da; but flavor is distinctly different. Service caught up and I left happy and satisfied; so full. The secret is out!
My bill:8.00−10% of your bill during the month ofJune (08)