Bamboo Garden Restaurant — Restaurant in Corpus Christi

I went with a group to the restaurant for dinner around 4 p.m. yesterday. I had high hopes because I heard scuttlebutt that they are connected with the 8TE Restaurant which has extraordinary food and service.

Boy, was I disappointed. SUPER Pricey, over the top money charged per plate, and I settled on the Mango Avocado Salad after being assured clearly that the $10 priced (for a salad!) would consist of MOSTLY avocado & mango & not a bunch of lettuce. I do not pay $10 for salads consisting mostly of lettuce.

Added to that was a shiny picture on the menu of huge chunks and slices of avocado & mango ... and so I specifically asked the waitress what the salad MOSTLY was made of .. and why I was asking. I was assured that it was primarily avocado & mango.

Wrong. Disappointingly wrong. SLIVERS of avocado and mango (the mango being under-ripe & hard and way too sour) and mushy avocado --both the size of quarters.... a couple slices of cucumbers, one slice of carrot, and several slivers of red onion which I picked out... I was literally able to count the cashews on top too -- only 8, and the grilled chicken? Only four bits.

But ya know how it goes in a big group... one doesn't want to upset the "group vibe" .. so I pushed the MOUNTAINS of lettuce around as I searched and searched and searched for the mango, avocado, and chicken.

I also asked for water no ice. Water with ice appeared but I politely stated I could wait for the water no ice. Waitress COMPLETELY forgot and 3/4 through the meal, I reminded her.

My table mate ordered Moo Goo Gai Pan with almond chicken ... she got the Moo GOO Gai Pan and no almonds or no chicken either! Her neighbor, who is a regular there got TONS of the same.

I don't know. I went in there ready to be bowled over like the other family business. It just didn't happen. I was so hungry when I left I had to stop somewhere else for fast food...another extra $5 on top of the $10 spent on a lettuce with...

Hi everyone. Bamboo Garden has the worst Pho in town, I do not recommend order Pho from this place, unless they learn to separate oil from the broth before serving to customers. This place got my friend and I very sick after eating at this place. This place used to have one of the best Pho in town. I was so excited to invite my friend to come here for lunch. Things were looking great, the server was nice. I ordered Pho and my friend had lunch special with fried rice. The pho that I ordered didn't look like the usual pho you would Normally get from other pho places in town. The pho they served here has very dark broth up to the point you can't see what you're getting in the broth, on top of that it has very thick layer of oil just floating on top of the broth, I'm taking like good 2-3 mm layer of just oil. I started mixing and decided to give it a try this odd looking pho. After 2 bites my stomach didn't settle well, I stopped eating it. After a while, I noticed even more oil on the broth! It was a lot of oil! My friend tasted the fried rice, it tasted like the rice had gone spoiled. We felt very sick and nauseated. We notify the server, and she told us that oil is sesame oil, we just laughed! Because we know what sesame oil taste like. 😏 We both used sesame oil in our Asian cooking very often! Anyway, it is obvious the cook didn't separate the oil from the broth after they cooked it or they used the left over broth from yesterday and didn't bother to remove the oil from it. Who knows! Anything is possible. The fact of the matter is that we spent $40, ate oil and spoiled food that got us sick. I hope someone will be checking the quality of food before serving it to customers and I pray that no one else got...

I was drawn in by advertising for tonkatsu ramen so that is what I ordered. The dinning room was dim, but very clean. After a trip to the bathroom, however I worried a bit about the cleanliness in the rest of the place. There was grime on the closures for the bathroom doors, and hair and dust collecting in the corners. I actually saw a used bandaid in one corner! Also, there were at least 3 flies in the bathroom and this always makes me think, "where did they come from." The question just brings unpleasant things to mind. The food was pleasant enough though, and the service was excellent. The tonkatsu ramen was rice noodles in a slightly oily broth. I say broth, in general, because I assume it was supposed to be pork broth, but the pervasive flavor of it was the mushrooms in it. It also included green onion, a small piece of sea weed wrap, a half an egg (hard boiled), and a small round of pork. All topped with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. I'm not crazy about fungus. If you enjoy shelf fungus I am sure the experience would be wonderful. It did taste as if all ingredients were fresh. The pork was excellent, the noodles were firm, and the egg gave it a nice creamy texture, but I just couldn't get past the strong mushroom flavor. I do believe I will have to go back, and try something else. Perhaps after I take a peek in...