Northern Cafe — Restaurant in Cerritos

Care for some Northern Exposure? I expose myself all the time! ;p

Northern Cafe, located in the busy 85 Degrees plaza & specializing in North Chinese cuisine, is another fine addition to the Cerritos food scene.

On a quite Monday evening, we arrived ready & willing for some xiao long bao action!

Complimentary tea greeted us at our table.

Green onion pancake- The pancake was nice & crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Not too greasy at all.

Beef roll- An order includes two large burrito-size rolls. The slices of beef reminded me of shawerma. Cilantro lovers will love this dish, with a healthy serving of cilantro & green onions interspersed throughout the doughy wrap. Good portions & delicious, too!

Pork & crab XLB- Mini little bon-bon's of goodness! Inside had flavorful pork & crab swimming in a tiny moat of soup. Is Northern Cafe's XLB just as good or better than Din Tai Fung's? I dunno, I haven't been ot Din Tai Fung, yet. I can say that I enjoyed these dumplings dipped into ginger, soy sauce & vinegar. I kept popping these bad boys in my mouth like candy.

Service was good. It wasn't too busy while we were dining here, and the staff was accommodating with their hospitality. Ample seating, with booths & tables for small & large parties. 2 flatscreen TV's for your viewing pleasure. 1 had the MLB playoffs on, while the other had Chinese viewing.

Parking is located at the 85 degrees plaza. Northern Cafe is located between Gen & Yuzu.

Northern Cafe is another great food option in Cerritos. Good food, reasonable prices & friendly service will have me coming back for more.

Pro-Tip - Don't forget to pick-up a frequent diner card, where on your 5th visit, you can earn a free designated dish on your next visit.

Highly...

Ordered fresh noodles, got reused slop. Staff didn’t seem to care.

We ordered three bowls of noodles and a side of dumplings. Two of the noodle dishes were supposed to come with flat noodles. What arrived looked off, but we assumed it was just overcooked. Looking at it again, looked like it came out of someone's mouth.

I tried eating it, but with every bite, it looked and tasted worse. My wife’s bowl was the same with noodles falling apart into small mushy pieces every time we picked them up with chopsticks.

Then I noticed a long noodle in my bowl, white on one end, dark and discolored on the other. That’s when it hit me: these were reused noodles, boiled twice, possibly from another table or even the night before.

We didn’t want to make a scene. I quietly showed the waitress what was wrong and the pieces that had soaked up soy sauce unevenly. She didn’t apologize. Instead, she started taking photos of the bowl and said very little.

Eventually, she said she’d take my dish off the bill, but not my wife’s, even though her bowl had the exact same issue. I even pointed out a big clump of stuck-together noodles, but can't loose too much money right?

It felt like she knew what happened, but didn’t want to admit it. No apology. Just silence and a partial refund.

I didn't even argue. I felt disgusted by the food and staff and just wanted to leave. hope I don’t get sick from eating leftover food.

Don’t let bad decisions ruin...

The Dan Dan noodle (C5) was bomb. What was served to me was extra thick what looked like biang biang noodle. There was a modest amount of sauce at the bottom of the bowl which flavored my bowl.

We also had Shanghai (soup) dumplings which was a big order. There were 9 dumplings and they were pretty hefty. The beef roll was also super good. Really thin and crispy wrap and loaded with beef. These were a little pricey, $10+ per the appetizer, but so good!

Honestly the C5 sauce was so good, I dipped both the dumplings and beef roll in it and polished it off by the end of the meal

Got here at 11:30am on Sunday with no line. When we left after 12:20, there's quite a few people waiting for a table. It's a pretty busy lot, so we had to take a right in front of the restaurant to find an extension to...