Yum Cha Cafe

I really like coming to this place to get something quick. The price is really reasonable and you literally pay for what you get. I love their buns and different types of noodles they offer. I usually come and get a bowl of wonton noodle soup with some BBQ pork. It’s a really great place to stop by and order some food if you’re in a hurry or just in the neighborhood.

One of my favorite to-​go dim sum spots! If you love dim sum, but don’t like waiting an hour for a table or paying the tea charge, then this spot is definitely for you. Yum Cha Café is located inside the Supermarket, so its extra handy if you’re shopping for groceries but don’t feel like making lunch or dinner. I always drop by after I finish my grocery shopping.
I love ordering the shumai, shrimp dumpling, egg tart, cha siu bao, and especially the lai wong bao! The portion of filling that they put with the cha siu and lai wong is plentiful. My favorite thing is actually eating it right after I order. I’ve ordered the cha siu and the wonton noodle soup a couple of times and the bowl of noodles is huge. Last time my little sister and I had to share it, since we couldn’t finish it. Theres also this tofu wrap that I really like, but I’m not sure what its called, but thats one of my all time favorites.
The prices of the orders are extra affordable. I usually order about 6 – 7 orders and the total comes out to about $ 10. They have a good amount of tables and chairs there too, so its perfect for a quick lunch, bite, or to go order in the area.
Overall, super delicious food, excellent location, and affordable prices, I highly recommend this place if you haven’t been!

It’s been over 5 years since I’ve visited this place, so I decided relive a moment of my past life. Who can turn down an inexpensive dim sum adventure, right?! Well, in retrospect, I wish I’s never did, but then I’m glad I did because I can DEFINITELY take this place OFF my list PERMANENTLY!

I ordered steamed custard bun, shu mai, shrimp dumplings, fried fish patties, fried jalapeño stuffed with fish paste, and ½ of their lemon chicken that was hanging next to the roast pork.
Here’s the verdict:
— Steamed Custard Bun: the bun was good, but the custard filling was dry and tasted NOTHING like egg custard. Very GROSS.
— Shu Mai: Over cooked, the skin was falling away from the meat, the meat was GROSS, and everything resembled the shu mai you find in the frozen section MADE IN CHINA.
— Shrimp Dumplings: The skin was good and al dente, but the filling SUCKED! Hard to describe that tingling sensation I had on my tongue after eating just one.
— Fried Fish Patties: Best suited for people who had lost all their teeth. It was mushy.
— Fried Jalapeño Stuffed with Fish Paste: Jalapeño was over-​cooked and mush, and the fish paste was the same as the fish patties.
— Fried Lemon Chicken: More like lemon grass chicken jerky. This was the very first time I’ve ever had CHICKEN JERKY. OMG! What an experience that was!
Finally — MSG GALORE!!!

Yum Cha Café is pretty good and I really enjoyed exploring their options. When you get there the location is not very clean to most grocery store chains I have been to but compared to most Asian locations it is not too bad. As soon as I walked into the grocery store I noticed the Peking duck hanging in the display counter. It caught my attention and got me interest, so by the time I was done shopping I was not determined to dine at this location. My family and I discussed it and we are already to explore the menu. We got a variety of different items from chicken feet that is varying gelatins like chicken jelly, but it had tons of flavors. Then we had some of the buns that were meaty but too sweet for my liking. Then to play it safe I got a combination plate with the duck, chicken, and B.B.Q. pork that were hanging from the window. My whole family loved that option and devoured it completely. All in all it is a cheap way to explore another cultures food options and for a decent price. I am almost certain that the things we tried could have been better from another location because the flavors kind of muddled together. Also the cleanliness of the location made you wonder how well they prepped their work station in order to prepare the next item. I guess I am glad that they introduced me to some new items and left me wanting more.

I’ve been to other Yum Cha Café in the area and they were good but I was disappointed with this one. We came yesterday morning thinking the dim sum would be freshly made. When we got the har gow and shu mai, they looked like they were re-​heated from the day before or its cooked from frozen. The other stuff was okay but won’t be coming back. The price per dim sum is actually not that cheap. Around $ 1.80 which is on par with most dim sum houses in the area.

The best place to get super cheap chinese dim sum and random noodle/​rice with meat combo on the go. $ 5 gives u a huge portion of 3 meat combo with veggie and rice, nothing can beat that!

Very small hole in the wall restaurant inside Shun Fat Market.
Serves dim sum and noodle dishes all day. Cash only!
Dim sum is not special but hits the spot if you want cheap dim sum and do not want to go to an actual restaurant. Dishes are $ 1.49 or $ 1.79 depending on what you get.
Beef Noodle Soup — $ 3.99 — Beef is cooked nicely and you get a ton. Broth is clean and beefy. I got it with rice noodles.
Pretty good quick cheap Chinese food. Good if you need a quick bite to eat.

This review is for the deli section in the Huy Than supermarket called Yum Cha Café. It is not really a café. Rather, it is fast food for dim sum lovers.
Disorganized, dirty, greasy, and nobody speaks English. The perfect makings of an epic Chinese meal! All the dishes are sitting out on the steam table. Pick what you want and enjoy. I had some chicken feet, stuffed eggplant, egg tarts and lotus wraps. It cost me about $ 7 and filled me up. This is a great place to grab a quick meal when you are on the run.

My family always comes here to get dim sum to go. Not the best dim sum place but they’re convenient. Located inside the Rosemead market and they have a variety of different ones. Although it seems like their Monterey Park location has more items than here which is lame.

This place is quite possibly the grimiest, ghettoest place to get dim sum I’ve been to. Actually I take that back… it’s not that much worse than some spots in Chinatown. Take note, they sell food other than the dim sum, but this review doesn’t include those dishes.
Pros:
~Dirt cheap! Each plate, which typically contains 3 pieces, will run you about $ 2 each.
~ok tasting for the price
~lots of seating and large parking lot
Cons:
~Good god is it oily! (The food)
~seating area is dirty and tables aren’t wiped on a regular basis
~I can feel my blood pressure rising just while waiting in «line.» Less of a line, more like survival of the most aggressive.
~if you can’t speak Chinese, you’re going to have a bad time. Hard to communicate with the workers.
~the only water they have is boiling water… wtf? Buy a teabag for $ 0.25
~CASH ONLY
I only eat here because my parents like shopping at the grocery market it’s inside of, and they like it because its cheap. If you come here, I hope you’re not too picky.

Quick and Easy Dim Sum. Get here at 11 – 1130 and you’ll get the freshest Dim sum cause they are getting ready for the lunch rush. Its nothing you would really want to have every day but if you are hungry and don’t want to wait for a restaurant setting this will do. The soups and Chow Fun dishes in my opinion are better than the dim sum.

Yes it is cheap, but don’t think I’ll ever want to come here again. First of all, it is in a very scary (dirty) market. As soon as I got into the parking lot I knew I made a big mistake…
Second, there’s no such thing as a «line». People just pop up to the counter and order, and it was funny that the staff would just help anyone who approach. That day I had been waiting for 5 minutes because there was only one lady working. Finally another lady came out from the back, a guy just cut in front of me and the lady went ahead and order for him. WHAT!!! I went up to the lady and told her (angrily) that I was before that guy, she only made a gesture to ask me to stop complaining. WHAT? It does not matter how cheap it is (plus the food was barely acceptable), I won’t come back. The one in West Covina is better if I really want cheap dim sum.

I’m not chinese, so maybe thats why my review is so high. I don’t have expectations of «taste the way grandma used to make it». (I know, you’re looking at my profile pic saying, huh? Los ojiots solamente son chinitos. Por culpa de mi mama… ella tiene los ojos asi.) I’ve had better tasting dim sum before, but that was in an actual sit-​down waiter-​service dim sum place. The food here is a little greasy, but isn’t most chinese food that way? order something steamed then… I’ve never had problems ordering at this place. Yeah, it gets hectic and people try to cut, but I am loud and can throw an elbow when I have to. Despite the appearance, some of these cashiers/​servers do speak english. Missing star is for CASH ONLY. But if I do have cash, and its not much, this is the place to spend it. I can get full for less than $ 5 (3 – 4 items)

cheap food, cheap quality.
Everytime, my mom want baked bbq pork buns (3 for $ 1.50).
I would come get it here.
The dim sum are okay too, for the price.
I tried the noodle long ago, it wasn’t good.
one time, I saw a lady blew her nose and didn’t wash her hands =X
so i don’t eat here anymore.

This is inside a large supermarket.
Dimsum is ok. Not bad for the cheap price. I can taste the MSG. Stay away from the wrapped sticky rice because it does not much meat in the middle.
I would prefer to get my food togo. The seating area is like a food court style.
Parking is plenty.

Unless you have infinite patience, a very loud voice, and a high tolerance for bad food, save yourself the trouble and go somewhere else. There is no line to order; you just fight off other customers and scream at the people behind the counter to see if they notice you. If you don’t speak Chinese, good luck trying to order off of the poorly translated and transliterated menu. Sil myl, anyone? (That’s siumai/​shumai/​shaomai for you:
)
This frustrating ordering process wouldn’t be so bad if the food were actually good. But it’s not. The char siu buns seem to be filled with unidentifiable red animal product. The cheong fun are mushy and mealy when they should be soft and silky. The stewed chicken feet look like they’ve been sitting out in the sun for too long. And don’t touch the off-​brand sriracha on the table – it’s strangely grainy and has a funky sweet taste to it.
The only thing I’ve tried here that’s not absolutely horrible is the wonton noodles. The soup is just canned chicken broth with more MSG added, but the wontons are all shrimp and each bowl comes with quite a lot of them. Ordering the wonton noodles was even more difficult than just ordering dim sum. They forgot our order and we had to argue with a bored-​looking employee to get them to make it for us.
Verdict: Go somewhere else unless you’re at the supermarket and you’re very, very, very hungry.

I’m not sure why this place has a lot of negative reviews but I like it. It’s similar any other food togo place with a huge selection to pick from. I have to admit some items can be too oily but it’s chinese food so it isn’t a big surprise.
You can get a bowl of noodle for less than $ 4 and it has a lot more meat than what the regular chinese restaurant would give you.
There were a few times when I stopped by toward the end of the business day and their food are oily and soggy but they are usually pretty fresh if you come by before 2pm.
There is no line and people always cut in front of you so you would have to push them out of the way to place your order. lol Can be annoying at times but the cashiers won’t do anything about this problem.
They are not as great as the regular Chinese restaurants but they deserve a 4 stars as a fast food place.

Absolutely disgusting food and a total waste of time.
After hearing so much about this joint, decided to check it out for lunch.
Came just a little before 11 a.m. and managed to score some dim sum as well as their version of Hainan Chicken Rice.
99 cents for shrimp dumplings that I spat out almost immediately. The shrimp was stale and mushy. Gross! Definitely old seafood. As for the lotus wrapped rice and pork, it was only marginally better cos’ I managed to take two small bites. The turnip cake was a smidge better and I suspect that it was only better because it was vegetarian.
As for the chicken rice, be warned that this is the D version as far as ratings go. It’s the Cantonese take on Hainan chicken rice. It is NOT the same version of Hainan chicken rice found in Singapore and Malaysia.
I’ve eaten Cantonese versions of chicken rice and some are pretty decent. However, Yum Cha’s version is simply gross. Firstly, the chicken was day old and BROWN. Hainan chicken rice’s chicken is not brown. It is white. The chicken pieces were stone hard and had blood bruises on them. I’m not expecting air chilled chicken but Yum Cha’s chicken was low-​quality.
I wouldn’t go back again even if the dim sum was free.
Bought around $ 12 of food and trashed the whole lot.

I’ll give the cashier credit for recognizing I was about to blow a gasket.
She noticed my growing frustration over other people talking over and cutting in front of me. She stopped the others cold and took care of me.
I appreciated that.
I was thiiiiis close to leaving my orders (soup, Hainan Chicken & some dimsum) and stomping outta there.
(But I’m going to stick with the Yum Cha on Atlantic Blvd. in MPK from now on. It’s hectic there too at times, but I always walk in & out my usual cheery self)

Holy cow I heard so much about yum cha café but never got the chance to try it. This particular location is only 2 blocks from where I am. This is a recent take over previously it was a huge vietnamese supermarket with no business… I noticed the remodeling and decided to go in and found this treasure lying in the corner.
The food:
You have your every day dim sum variety. The food is not bad given the price. It’s was better than expected compare to other to-​go dim sum places. Heck I re-​heated the spring roll and it taste just as good 4 hours later. They also have noodle soups which I have yet to try but will sure drop by sometime!
Service:
There’s not much service involved… with this type of restaurant but the little service I did receive was fast and to the point.
Environment:
Not the best place to take your family or even friends for a group gathering. This is definitely a everyday location where you want quick cheap food. I would bring my roommate here to grab dinner but not if it’s a special occasion. Who wants to eat by a bunch of market shoppers?
Price:
$ 1 dim sum!!! The special items cost a tad more. What more can I say?
I’ll be dropping by at least once a week either for lunch or dinner.
Food: 3
Service: 4
Environment: 2
Price: 5