Garden Cafe — Restaurant in Castro Valley

My friends enjoyed it more than I did. We came at an extreme busy time so I'll give it another shot. The only reason it wasn't a 1, I think is because we had a Chinese language speaker at our table.

The wait list was not long, but they weren't signing people in, people were signing themselves in. They had no regard for going in the order of the list, so when I saw they were going to seat a party of 4, 3 down the list from ours, I asked. Our name on the list was obviously not Chinese. She looked at the list and said.. OK. Then we were seated pretty quickly.

The menu is massive which is good and bad, we had a guide so selection wasn't bad. We just did family style.

One of our party couldn't have egg, so we ordered Shanghai something without egg. Big mistake. Food wait wasn't bad. Salt pepper wings were good, green beans with black bean sauce was good, the beef on the spaghetti dish was good, just not a lot. I thought the noodles were overly greasy. They never refilled my tea or waters until we were about to leave and then only 2 waters.

They never brought the Shanghai, didn't think anything of it, when we finally finished all our other food we finally got the attention of a waitress and it took a few minutes and a few people to confirm, yep they hadn't made it yet. No indication they would get it right out.... They didn't. It took a solid 20 min. When it came out it was OK. The noodles were very dry which would have gone well with our other food, but that was all gone.

My son liked all the protein in it, they only thing I liked was the pork which was very minimal.

Maybe part of the problem is we didn't order any of the dishes listed below. I'm sure I will try other dishes next time.

As I said, tough day for first impressions, two of 4 of us had been there before and things were better, we will give it...

The interior is very clean and organized. Service is not bad. It could use a bit more improvement by having at least 1 or 2 staff check with customers in the back a bit more often.

Now, the to the actual problem I have is with the food I ordered. I had a Baked Porkchop over Rice with Tomato sauce. Being my favorite dish at Hong Kong style cafes since I was very young, I was left very disappointed, which was unexpected.

First, the sauce lacks a lot of tomato flavor and thickness to the sauce. Most of the tomato flavor was from a single tomato slice in the dish.

Second, the rice is just as off-putting, but with the taste and feel of old rice made with too much water? That's the best I can describe it, at least.

Third, the Porkchop meat cuts are way too thick with a weirdly strong pork taste. This made it very hard to finish the dish, so I tried to eat as much as I could just to be polite...

Lastly, the cheese was the one component of the dish I could enjoy

For the rest of my families orders, the rice was the same as mine and more. My father's curry was much to salty, quote, "Like salt over already salty curry." My sibling said his chow mein lacked flavor, and the meat was rough and hard to chew. I also ordered a Hong Kong Milk Tea. The taste was almost there, but there was more tea than milk. I would have excused the fact that black tea was used instead of red tea if there was more milk to tea. It kinda helped wash down the feeling from the baked porkchop for a couple of minutes, so I'll give it that.

All in all, I have been left with the feeling of an upset stomach and a slightly forced smile or more of a smirk if anyone looked at my face. I really do hope the menu items can be improved, but I have to disagree with anyone and everyone who says the dishes...

I was excited to try this restaurant because Castro Valley doesn't have many good Chinese restaurants. Unfortunetely I was let down by the quality of the food. We ordered crab rangoon, shrimp scrambled egg chow fun, and the steak curry sizzling plate. The crab rangoon was greasy and didn't have any noticeable cream cheese filling, just imitation crab chunks. The shrimp chow fun wasn't bad but it definitely wasn't impressive. It had no vegetables, just thick noodles, some type of savory sauce, egg, and shrimp. Finally the strangest dish we received was the sizzling steak...It was a thin piece piece of beef served with crinkle cut fries, broccoli, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, a side rice, and a side spicy curry sauce to pour over. Half of the meat was fat and the french fries were just completely out of place. It honestly felt like we were at a cheap steak house vs a Chinese restaurant. Additionally the curry sauce tasted like it wasn't fresh made and was made of curry cubes you can buy at the grocery store, just like S&B golden curry sauce.

I'd be willing to give this place another shot, but I would have to try other dishes. The service/atmosphere was good and they have a large menu, even milk tea. Parking is limited so you'll likely need to park on the street. I hope this place does well, but my first try was most...