Local Bistro — Restaurant in Fremont

This place was an absolute disappointment. My family was attracted to Local Cafe from its interior decoration. It loooked neat and clean, and there was a wide variety of food at reasonable prices (not really, after I tried). Once we entered, no one was there to serve the table! We kept waiting for around 3 min till we were assign a table. Furniture was ok except all those weird signs on the wall. Come on, you think it is a tea cafe just because you put a bunch of signs relatiNG TO HK? Took us forever to wait for a waiter/waitress to take our order. My family ordered a sizzling plate with black pepper sauce with a combination of chicken and ham, another sizzling plate with cream sauce, and a HN chicken rice plate. Each one ordered an iced lemon tea. Everyone was disappointed about the food, especially the fact they were all very bland and unseasoned. Sizzling plate was not at all sizzling, the food was cooked outside. The sauce was horrible, it did not enhance the flavor or the food. HN chicken came. Chicken was awful. It came with a side: peanuts, but they were way too salty. There was a giant lump of salt in there. How is that possible, that’s disgusting. The meat was not fresh, it was either too rough or too mushy. Iced lemon tea should just be called “brown water” because there was NO LEMON FLAVOR! Overall, food and service sucked, so I would not recommend this place unless you enjoy eating dishes that taste like nothing.

Rating: Interior: 3/5 not bad Service: 1/5 no service Food: 1/5 terrible Overall: 1/5 do not recommend Also there were no images of their dishes on their menu. Kind...

This restaurant has a big menu with lots of selections, and it seems they do the more Chinese-style dishes better than their HK-bistro-style dishes (which is fitting to their Chinese name "Cha-Chan-Teng" 茶餐廳).

Although lacking "smoothness" the hot milk tea is still acceptable, but I wouldn't order the cold one again.

The Seafood Fried Rice with XO Sauce was good, with variety of seafood--even fish!--and sufficient "wok aroma" 鑊氣, but as with the dish from any other places, one would want bigger pieces of seafood and more xo sauce.

The two Baked Rice--Baked Pork Chop and Portuguese Chicken--both lacked flavor in The sauce, left my friends and I a lot more to desire (we only finished half of each).

Service is what one gets in a typical Chinese restaurant, so you wouldn't expect much, but the restaurant itself is spacious and open, and when my friends and I stayed for a long lunch (reunion), we didn't feel...

Food: The Hainan Chicken is pretty good with portion of chicken (black meat), rice and chicken soup. I’d say the black meat’s meat and skin ratio is not too ideal but acceptable. The Beef in Egg Drop Sauce is very much recommended! It’s a big portion, it’s enough for 2 or even 3 to share! The Hot and Sour Soup is not the traditional flavor, so I wouldn’t recommend to people who are looking for the light texture or Taiwanese style. Service: the staff is nice though they are very busy. We were lucky enough to sit by the service station, so we grabbed our own chopsticks and takeout boxes instead. Ambiance, casual but viby at the same time. It’s very comfortable. We see family and friends groups dining here at the time we were there and they have high chair with round...