Li Wah — Restaurant in Cleveland

We were visiting family in Ohio for a family event; decided we wanted dim sum. So we checked this place out thinking well it has great reviews. Why not? When we got inside no one was there in the front. We stood there and waited 15 mins before someone noticed us and other customers. We had a family of 17 so we knew it’ll be a minute for them to get a table ready. They weren’t in a rush to get us seated. When they did it took another 20 mins to come back to take our order and the waitress never asked if we wanted water or anything to drink? Nope! Nothing, instead they assumed that we wanted tea and brought it out to us. We were finally ready to place an order and asked for dim sum… they stated they didn’t have any and they ran out of it. It was only 10 am and just before then we saw cats full of dim sums being carted back into the back. We kept pressing; irritated the waitress said rudely that they only had a “few selection left.” We said that was fine we’ll take the rest, which wasn’t much to divide between two tables but we were going to add more entrees to the order( fried rice, stir fry mustard greens, and noodles). Simple orders. We waited for a very long time for all of the food to come out. While waiting we had to ask for water 4 different times and still didn’t bring any out to any of us. We picked at the food and it wasn’t even that great. Food wasn’t hot, it was warm. When it was time to pay we get a tab that was charged over $300 for this “meal”, to add to that they charged us for water that we never got and each tea cup that was used and demanded that we pay not just one ticket worth of tips but two separate ones of $15 each because we had two tables. LIKE SERIOUSLY?!!! $30 effing bucks in tips for a brunch that wasn’t even filling. Needless to say… we won’t be coming here again. If I could give zero stars I totally would. What we thought was going to be a great family gathering at this restaurant since we are from out of state, turned out to be the worst...

Grew up going to li wah since they opened in the early 90’s. Its hold such a special place in my heart so writing this review saddens me. I try to take my family or friends there at least once a month. And over the past 6 months the service has gone so bad down the drain i can no longer make excuses for them. And i have been going there for a little over 20 years. So believe me when i write this review. Its not just a bad day or a bad season the operations of this place has tanked. The food quality as well has tanked. Im in the food bussiness my self i understand the hardship it is these days to maintain staff and food quality. So i am not oblivious To operations and real world problems and scenarios in the food bussiness. This issue with staff quality and food quality is management. Waiters dont even serve the tables no assigned waiters to tables. Do you have to talk to three people before somebody comes to the table to take an order. Me, my family and others around us have waited over 20-30 minutes Before we had to flag down a couple different people just to get a waiter. And we are not talking on one or two Occasions and not on holiday weekends just standard weekdays holiday weekends were even worse. And the Quality of the food Has also tanked it’s sloppier greasier and the ingredients are just lacking. And I’ve been eating here for 20 years. Again as a bussiness owner in the food industry i do not like writing this review my only hope is for owners to see this and make real changes before they loose the legacy that the original owners i believe the parents had worked so hard to build. And only way to make people look hard into the problem is by writing reviews. So unless management makes real changes me my family and friends refuse to go back. And this review has been 6 months in the making. One disappointment after another time and time...

I've had this on my list of restaurants to visit for over a year, but I was really disappointed.

First, let's talk about the service. We arrived around 2:0pm so the place wasn't busy. We waited a good 5 mins for a server to come to our table to take our drink order even though there were plenty of servers standing around. It took another 5-8 mins for the server to come back to take our order after waving someone over.

Now on to the food, we ordered wonton soup and pork spring rolls for an appetizer and the spring rolls were not edible. They were so greasy and mushy not like a spring roll should be and it had no flavor. For our entrees we ordered the salt and pepper shrimp and Kung Pao chicken. I didn't realize the shrimp is going to come out whole with their head and tails attached and that was my fault. They were okay but I wasn't expecting that so I didn't really enjoy my food. I ate my daughter's Kung Pao chicken she ordered but that was disappointing too as it had zero spice and lacked any flavor.

On top of the service not being great and the food not being great the prices are pretty outrageous plus they automatically add gratuity to your bill without letting you know! We were not a large party it was only two of us. I don't like when restaurants are sneaky like that.

The final straw was watching a worker leave the restroom without washing their hands. 🤮 To be honest the place didn't seem that clean to begin with and after seeing the worker not wash their hands that solidified it for me!

I'm never going back but that doesn't mean you shouldn't check it out and come up with your own opinion.

I did not take any pictures of the food because nothing looked that good to take a...