Luck Gai Cafe — Restaurant in Anaheim

I’ve been here twice now. Their speciality is their Thai style Hainan chicken, which I got my first time here. Objectively it was fine, but just not to my taste because I’m too used to regular Hainan chicken. I also didn’t like the cream cheese rangoons - I think the flour was undercooked or something because it has a strange texture and kept getting stuck in the crevices of my teeth (not like between my teeth, but like the indent part on top). I did like the Thai tea though.

Anyways, I decided to withhold judgment and give them another visit since maybe they were just having a bad day. This time, I decided to get Pad Thai instead since I didn’t like the chicken rice last time. It started off better - the chicken satay was very good. The egg rolls were ok, but they did come out piping hot. I just wasn’t too big of a fan of the filling.

My entree did take longer to come out than it should’ve. I thought service was slow on my first visit as well. Maybe it’s because the restaurant is a bit small - it definitely does lean on the cozier side. Our server (who I also think is the general manager) took full responsibility and gave us a generous discount for our troubles - which I appreciated. I could’ve maybe done with maybe like 75% less dad jokes since I was already getting kinda irritated that my food was taking long. Like 1 dad joke I can awkwardly chuckle and fake smile at, but it just gets to a point where it’s too much.

When the Pad Thai finally did come out, it was pretty good though. A little on the sweet side, which might turn some people off, but I liked it. All in all, my experience here has been kinda iffy so far. But the prices are very fair and they have weekday specials. Mondays in particular have pretty good deals. I personally wouldn’t come back by choice, but my coworker likes it here so I feel like I’m going to keep getting...

No need to roll the dice if you dine at Luck Gai Cafe!

Setting: Cute fox-themed decorations with cool wood furniture. Though the inside is not huge (maybe 8 to 10 small tables), there is additional outdoor seating.

Note: The restaurant is not visible from the street. It's tucked away at the end of a weird-shaped strip mall beside some train tracks. GPS will be your friend.

Food: We ordered the Hainan chicken combo and the khao soi. My wife got the latter dish, a yellow curry coconut noodle soup. It's not too common in most Thai restaurants in the USA, so we haven't had it a ton. But the Luck Gai Cafe version was fantastic. It was not quite a soup but not really a dry noodle -- a sort of wet, creamy in-between -- and totally worth it.

I was hesitant to get the Hainan chicken because my grandfather was from Hainan and I grew up eating his amazing Hainanese chicken and rice dish (hard to beat homemade!). But since this was a signature dish, I had to try it to compare. So glad I did! Obviously this is the Thai interpretation, so it didn't quite taste the same, but it was still yummy in its own right. I got the combo, which has both the fried chicken (nice crispy Asian batter) and the poached chicken (tender and juicy). The only knock against it was that the rice was a little bland -- authentic Hainanese rice packs a punch of garlic, ginger, and chicken broth. Still, I enjoyed the whole combo.

Service: This is probably the best part of Luck Gai Cafe. The staff here is so attentive and efficient. Plus they're so kind and friendly -- as an Asian growing up eating at Asian restaurants, I know that's a rarity.

Overall: Aside from some minor quibbles, I thoroughly enjoyed my time and food at Luck Gai Cafe. While my true rating is 4.5 out of 5, since I can't give half stars, I'm happy to round up to 5 out of 5. I'm looking forward...

Short review = If you like good flavorful food, fair prices. good portion sizes and friendly service, give Luck Gai a try.

Ambiance: It is a smaller place w. about equal indoor and outdoor seating. I estimate maybe 40-50 patrons total. All open spaces (no dividers btwn. tables) and it feels very casual, would be kid friendly.

Service: I have so many compliments, but ill try to keep this short. Went for lunch with a few co-workers / friends of mine @ about 1:15 pm on a Wednesday. We were very quickly greeted and told to grab a seat wherever we would like, which I personally liked. I would say between outside and inside patrons they were @ about 50% capacity. We only have a 1 hr. lunch and she (owner / server) was able to take our orders, feed us and she even was willing to separate our checks for us and got us back to work on-time. And she did so happily, made me feel comfortable as though I was a regular even though this was my first and their second visits there.

Food: They all got some form of the Pad Thai and I got the Chicken "Foxy Kiss". They seemed to like their food as they all ate it all despite the large amount of food for a lunch serving. My meal was better than I expected. Ordered "mild" and it was perfect for me, just a touch of heat and moderate garlic flavor. It reminded me of a dish I used to get at another Thai place called "spicy garlic chicken" which is exactly what this tasted like, but this was more savory and I the way the chicken was finely chopped allowing the flavors to really pop. The food looks exactly as pictured in the menu and online. They provide an iced water carafe @ the table and some cool little metal insulated metal tumblers which I thought was nice. I look forward to trying other menu items...