Well Season Davis — Restaurant in Davis

Was super excited to try this place as dim sum is one of our family favorites.

Off the bat, they do not serve dim sum on weekends. Not a deal breaker, but disappointing.

Second, the phone numbers listed do not work.

Third, when we finally got the chance to try their food, they were out of some items and do not make certain items at night. Again, not a deal breaker, but it is always disappointing when you can't get your favorites.

As this was our first time trying Well Season, we took a dim sum menu and regular menu and picked items that are favorites and a couple items we have not tried, just to see what was good. We spent $50 on enough food to feed three people. Overall, the experience was disappointing and the food was nothing special. Nothing was very hot, barely even warm, and to quote one of the others eating with me, "Nothing tastes like it was made today".

We ordered:

Green Onion Pancake: A family favorite, but this one was not crispy, had little to no green onion flavor, and was excessively oily.

Baked BBQ Pork Buns: Another staple, this is the one they said they do not make at night, but they made it for us anyways. The pork was good and tender, the bun was cooked perfectly. I would eat this again.

BBQ Pork Rice Noodle: Another favorite, but they were out of it. They recommended the House Special Pan Fried Pork Bun. It was reminiscent of a potsticker, but the filling was bland and the bun tasted like it was cooked in a pan in which the oil had burned.

Deep Fried Shrimp Balls: A recent favorite at our go to dim sum restautrant, but these were small and chewy. Like everything else, it had little flavor, which I usually find shrimp a little overpowering, but I could barely even taste the shrimp, it was so bland.

Soy Sauce Bean Sprout Chow Mein: Something new, but not something we would order again. The noodles were dry and had little flavor other than a hint of soy sauce.

Stir Fry Mixed Vegetables: This was the item off the regular menu as we like to have vegetables with our meal. It consisted of carrot, bok choy (a pleasant surprise and one of my favorites), broccoli, a white broccoli looking thing, but it was not traditional cauliflower, snow peas, garlic, and celery. This was the warmest thing of them all, and it was still not quite hot. It was something we could make at home and definitely not worth $10. It was mostly celery, bok choy, broccoli, and miscellaneously sized garlic pieces.

Mango Pudding: Another staple in our group. It was set well, and very smooth, but the more we ate, we realized it tasted artificial. It was sweet, but in a sugary sweet, not a ripe mango sweet. It tasted like it was made with mango extract and overall was disappointing.

Steamed Custard Buns: The same bun recipe as the pan fried pork buns, not bad, but overall bland. The custard inside was vanilla, but it tasted extremely artificial. None of us...

I’m not one to write reviews or be picky but this is the first and only absolutely HORRIBLE restaurant experience I’ve ever had. The customer service was the worst I’ve ever experienced. No one came to check on me and I was left sitting ready to leave but no waiter around to even wave down for quite some time. All the meat appeared to be RAW. It was disgusting to just look at let alone eat. I’ve been to other amazing dim sum locations and never had a problem with the meat being raw so I don’t understand why this place struggled with that. I considered asking them to take the food back but I didn’t want to appear rude so I paid (I hate to admit but I considered telling them that I didn’t even want to pay for the meal considering everything tasted horrible.) Trust me I’ve NEVER been the type to be difficult at restaurants. I try to my best to go out of my way to not make any customer service people’s jobs difficult. The tip situation. As I stated I considered to either send the food back or not pay for it (but I didn’t and I still paid). Because of this, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving a tip. Again, I always leave a tip but this was an exception to that because of how I struggled to even stomach the food. When the woman took my card, she noticed I didn’t leave a tip and walked back to question me not leaving a tip. I’m sorry but I don’t think it’s normal or okay to intimidate/question a customer like that. BUG WARNING. I ordered a drink to go to wash the taste down and when I got to my home I noticed some type of winged bug inside my drink. I have considered the possibility that the woman purposely put a bug into my drink after she saw and question me over the lack of tip. What are the odds that a bug ended up in my drink otherwise? To conclude : I dont recommend this place to anyone. The experience from beginning to end was horrible...

I ordered to go. Service was friendly. I didn't eat there, but atmosphere looks fine.

The dishes I got were bad.

I got chicken and broccoli. I know Chinese food is heavily salted, but this was way over salted. The broccoli was cooked properly, but like I said way over salted in the sauce. The chicken was of poor quality. If it was just for this dish alone, I would have given the place two stars maybe even three if I felt generous. The reason I'm giving it one is because of the other dish I got.

The dish named Empress chicken salad was the worst dish I've ever had at a restaurant. Besides being incredibly over salted, all of the pieces of chicken were with the bone and skin stuck to it, and in no way easily removed from it. There were no pieces of just plain chicken flesh. Don't get me wrong. I like chicken skin in a crispy context, but this was wet gooey chicken skin. Every piece of chicken was connected to a bone that was not easily removed from the bone. Clearly not Chinese American food. Perhaps authentic Chinese food, I don't know. But not at all Chinese American food, which is what the average American expects when they order from a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. Furthermore, the description of the Empress chicken salad said it had greens. The only greens it had was cilantro. I like cilantro, but if you are describing the dish as having greens and calling it a salad, I was expecting some other greens....