Yin Yin Restaurant — Restaurant in Livermore

Over the last couple of months, Yin Yin has supplanted China Garden as my go-to for Livermore Chinese food. The quality of the food ranges from mediocre to fantastic. Our standard order typically includes the Yin Yin Chow Fun, Chicken and Corn Soup, some form of fried rice (either Yang Zhou or Fu Zhou), and a random fourth item.

The Chicken and Corn Soup is pretty standard - it's on par to China Garden. The Yang Zhou Fried Rice is also pretty standard - the reason why it stands out is because I can't recall eating it at any East-Bay Chinese restaurants (it's something I would have ordered years ago from Fortune House in Sacramento or random South Bay Chinese Restaurants). I was pleasantly surprised by the Fu Zhou Fried Rice - there wasn't a description on their menu system, but Googling it returns a description of gravy on fried rice; the "gravy" ended up being saucy-seafood mixture, which is absolutely delicious. The Yin Yin Chow Fun is executed well - the noodles are neither mushy nor undercooked, flavors are right, and the ingredients (chicken, shrimp, BBQ pork, and broccoli) are spot-on.

The mediocre items are the deep-fried foods. I've tried their eggrolls and salt and pepper tofu - in both cases, it's more fried batter than anything else.

We typically order through GrubHub, but it looks like Yin Yin uses their own internal delivery person. He's great! GrubHub usually reports a 55-65 minute wait, but the food has always been delivered within 30 minutes. He's always masked up, and waits (6+ feet away) at the porch until someone gathers...

Waiter / manager watches customer choke on rice while pouring water and walks away with customer turning blue. I called out to him as he kept looking back while still walking away. I jumped and gave himlick and cleared the rice. Requested manager for reasons he observed the chocking and ignored. He stated he didn't care. Alarmed then we don't care to pay. Manager yelled and yelled. He told us that no one here knows himlick. So again, Now twice he stated he didn't care, just pay, and get out. So a customer chokes in front of manager who then walks away yelling at customer and forced to emediately leave an pay while still catching breath. And kicked out. Terrible restaurant. Terrible terrible manager. ...

Best Chinese food. Ever. Their dishes have so much sauce and flavor!

I don't eat meat, and they were kind enough to make me a tomato chow mein with no beef! (Thank you!) Also: Their shitake mushroom tofu is AMAZING. I didn't think anything could top the chow mein (I tried both the tomato and the vegetarian one), but the shitake mushroom tofu was so good, my family and I were practically fighting for the last pieces. 😆 I have never tasted a more flavorful tofu ever in my entire life, and I eat tofu almost every day, so that's saying something! Yin Yin deserves all the stars; would eat there all the time if I...