Asia Cafe — Restaurant in Austin

We were loyal customers of this restaurant for at least 3 years. We love their food. We came to this restaurant at least one time a week for every single week for the past 3 months. Sadly, we decided that tonight was the very last time we came there and eat. The food is still good, but the service is just terrible.

Our job schedule does not allow us to leave before 8pm and we often arrived at the restaurant at around 8.20pm-8.30pm to dine-in (30-40min before close). There are two women who work as cashier over there: although the woman with short hair (usually works at lunch time) are very nice, the other one with long hair and glasses are not at all. Every time we came after 8.20pm, that woman was not very happy and took our order like she wanted us to go as soon as possible. Because of the good food and the other nice cashier, we still came back. But tonight we just could not stand anymore.

As usual, we arrived there at 8.20pm to order food and as usual, the long-hair-and-glasses woman took our order with an unhappy voice and unhappy face. We got our food after around 10min. We almost finished our meal when there were one more 3-people table. At 9.02pm, when my boyfriend was done with his meal and I had 2 pieces of fish and a spoon of rice to finish, the woman came to our table and then the other one, saying to us the shortest sentence I have ever heard in this restaurant industry: "We closed!". After the two words, she turned her back on us and went away, not willing to have any more conversation. We got to-go boxes by ourselves and packed our remaining food with a Mexican guy standing behind us, ready to bus the last two tables.

As we work in service industry for years, we know that what happened to us all the time in this restaurant tells us that we are not welcomed. A message to Chinese food lovers in Austin: If you want to be treated as a customer, please consider going any other Chinese restaurant except...

I've been going to Asia Cafe for years now after having it recommended so many times when I was new to Austin. It's one of my favorite restaurants in Austin. Asia Cafe should be treated as a place with top quality authentic chinese food. The only poor reviews I ever see are people expecting run of the mill neighborhood sweet and sour chicken. If that's what you're ordering at Asia Cafe you're missing out.

The place itself is really low key but we LOVE eating in. It's not newly renovated, but that's a perk not a drawback here. The dishes are huge so order family style, then sit at a table with a built in rotating center to share food. They've had the same friendly guy bussing tables every time I've been. The portion sizes are large, family style, so some of the prices may seem high but you're getting a lot of food for your order. I like to over order and have leftovers.

Here are my favorite dishes:

Stewed Fish Filet in Spicy Vine Pepper Oil (Green peppercorn fish) - this is on the special's menu and not the paper one. I order it every time I go. It's a HUGE pot of soup with delicious fish and sprouts. The key is the broth. It's got a lovely flavor and in true peppercorn fashion will give your mouth a tingly numbing sensation. It's unique, but it's a must try! Amazing!!

House Special Green Beans - garlicky green beans pan fried in oil to a perfect level of crunch.

Chong Chin Chicken - fried chicken bits with peppercorn and peppers. Not to spicy or peppercorny. I don't know what they fry the chicken in but it has a really unique almost sweet flavor. Only drawback is this doesn't do well as leftovers.

Stir-Fried Lamb w/ Chili - Chunks of lamb with stir fried veggies. This is slightly on the spicy side. If you like spicy food you'll barely notice but it's enough for those less inclined to heat to feel it. This is a wonderful oily fried dish that pairs well with a...

I cant believe I just found this place! I go to the market thats literally right next door all the time. Someone bragged about how Asia Cafe has the best Gen Tsao's chicken. The best? Okay now I am curious. Walking into this place I already knew it was legit. The rawness of a hustling and bustling of a packed restaurant is usually a good giveaway that the food is good. With my non-asian boyfriend and friends, I decided to order up front for us, in Chinese :) So like others have said, you walk up to the front to order, the menus are up front so if you are standing in line, just send someone in your party to grab menus to figure out what you want while you are in line. There is hot tea and water to the right of the register. After we sat ourselves, probably within 5-8 minutes our food was ready. For the 3 of us, we ordered the GenTsao's chicken, hollow stem veggies stir fry in garlic, and beef flat noodles. We did it family style and shared all three plates, with 3 bowls of white rice, this was plenty of food for us. We cleaned all of our plates and was left very happy with the taste and portions. I had a boba milk tea and as we were sitting down just chatting, the waitstaff started cleaning our table. Not just removing our plates, but taking everything off the table, and then the last straw was when she started wiping our table. That is the reason why I am removing 1 star for it. I like the food and I know how service is at at typical Chinese joints, but that was just plain rude.

All in all, I will definitely still come back if I am in the neighborhood as there are plenty of other plates I want to try. But that did leave a bad taste...