Ho Kee Cafe — Restaurant in Arcadia

Second location of the very popular Hong Kong style Cantonese cafe is now opened in Arcadia. This location is slightly bigger than the SG location but got a few private rooms set up for private parties. Some rooms come equipped with premium sound system for some karaoke sesh. Over the weekend, friends and I got one of those room, great food and a great time! Very surprised the room was superbly soundproofed! Also the table inside that room could seat 14 adults comfortably. Menu is essentially the same as the SG location. Many off menu dishes are available too. Some seafood or delicacies may require advance reservation. We had roasted squabs, roasted duck (of course, I still think Ho Kee’s roasted duck is best in LA. They only do a few ducks at a time and continue to roast more through out the day to ensure your duck never sit out for too long. I also love their seasonal seafood (market price & supplies limited, check first). Love the giant prawns! We tried the boiled cod in a mildly peppery sauce, tasty & not fiery like Szechuan cousin. There was also lobster in different styles of cooking. The orange pork chop was simple and yummy! Not as oily as the far cousin Panda’s ;) & much tastier. Had some offals too. Really liked their braised tripes with turnips, and a cold appetizers with thinly julienned beef stomach with cucumber, green onion, & bell pepper. Steamed oysters were yummy according to my friends (I only eat raw oysters :)) oh almost forget, foie gras chow e mein! So good! & the crispy pork belly stir-fries with a type of romanesco broccoli... just talking about this made me crave for some now! This place just makes me feel like home. One could order simple tasty noodles dishes & simple family style Cantonese food for 1 or a few. One could also host a fancy banquet dinner with ordering fancy seafood dishes and rare Cantonese delicacies. Love this place! Side note, their water system is entirely filtered. No worries about funky tap water. I highly recommended this restaurant. Even tho their name is a cafe, they offer so many culinary lost art in Cantonese delicacies that one could totally host a banquet there fit for an emperor. Gotta ask the ahead what could be available though. Reservation is recommended...

Came here for the first time tonight. TLDR: very poor service and unprofessional staffs. No rating for food because I did not even get my food. I ordered a drink and a dish, with only one other party of guests in the restaurant, which means the restaurant is not busy at all, I was left alone for half an hour— not even getting water(nor did I get my drink). Half an hour after I told the staff what I want, they came to me and ask if I ordered this dish(which is different from what I ordered) and they have not even placed my order! Look at what all your staffs were doing. They were talking on their phones, idling chit chatting very loudly across the whole restaurant. Doing everything except for what they need to do on their jobs. How professional. If you don’t want to operate just close for good please? Please don’t come to this place , I had a very very bad experience. As a guest, you are not treated like you should be, they value their phone more than you, and you don’t even deserve to get a...

Not gonna lie--the food was pretty good. Now that that's out of the way, onto my complaints:

Server said they had fresh (live, swimming) red grouper, but what they served was what I'm 95% sure was a red snapper (but at red grouper price, of course). Gai Lan was all stem, very bitter and fibrous. They took it back and replaced it with some choy sum that was on the saltier side. Their service was great until we paid for the meal, then it was all, "We need to turn this table around, so you need to leave." I paid for our meal and the server came back and took the itemized receipt out of my hands while I was reviewing it. I cannot emphasize how ABSOLUTELY SHADY this is. Whatever they're trying to hide (probably ended up charging us for the disgusting gai lan that they took back and the replacement vegetable dish), I hope it's worth the damage to their reputation.

TL;DR pretty tasty food, but eating here left a bad taste...