Alex G.
Yelp
I want to start by saying we had a wonderful server, who truly tried her best. This experience was spoiled by the food and the management.
Our first impression was odd. We were seated and given water, which started to leak over the table as the plastic glasses were cracked on the bottom. One of our table ordered what was listed as a Cocktail and was given a can of a premade alcoholic drink--which admittedly was good, but wasn't worth 10$ for a canned drink.
The food itself was atrocious. We got several dishes, each came out with around five-ten minutes between them. We started with appetizers--an egg roll dish which was filled with terribly over cooked vegetables (paste) and a pork bun dish that came out near 10 minutes after the egg rolls (those were good).
The first entree to come out was a shredded garlic pork dish--I attached a picture. It was sweeter than expected, but that was no issue. What was is that it was lukewarm and drenched in oil. At first glance we thought it was a broth, due to how much was there. It was pure oil.
The second entree to come out was Sizzling Beef. It also came out swimming in oil, and lukewarm. It was also sweeter than expected but that can be dismissed under a palate difference.
The third entree was the Dongpo Sliced pork belly. It originally came out as a different dish, but the server (again, wonderful) quickly entered the correct dish and got it fixed. The dish immediately had a strange odor the whole table noticed--musty like a sealed room. We think it was the preserved vegetables it was served over, but we aren't sure--they were cooked to a mush and unidentifiable. The pork itself was buttery soft and steamed wonderfully, with an oddly smoky flavor. Unfortunately the smell was too off putting to me and I wasn't able to eat it. Oddly enough, despite being made moments before, it was also lukewarm?
All of this was off putting and unfortunate, and so we asked for the check and informed them we did not enjoy the meal when asked. The manager came over and that's where the service became equally unpleasant.
We asked the manager for our check and that we would not like boxes to take our leftovers. She asked why, and we explained our experience with the food. She then explained that the issue was with us and that it was unfortunate that we did not like the style of the food. The most outspoken of the party began to try and explain that we weren't trying to not pay or get a free meal, but that we didn't like the food. She reiterated that we were wrong, and that it was us not liking the style of food. It definitely smacked some of the party wrong, having Chinese, Korean, and Filipino heritage. Honestly, the whole interaction was really insulting, as was implying that the style of the restaurant was room temperature, oil soaked food, and that we were in the wrong for not enjoying it.
Finally, after other patrons began looking over at our continuing conversation--and it was a conversation, neither the manager or our party were yelling or being unruly--the manager gave us our check and a discount. Fairly certain it was not because we could not eat the food but to get us to leave. When we did leave, I spotted other dishes from other tables, one of which I know had ordered the Sizzling Beef. It looked nothing like ours.
Quite frankly, I'm really surprised. We saw a large amount of reviews in which the food was praised but this is some of the worst I've had in a long time. I want to believe this was a simple, one-off bad experience. Unfortunately, I won't be back to try again. I encourage people to make their own impressions, as I really do want to believe this was just a bad experience, and not representative.