Northern Cafe Long Beach — Restaurant in Long Beach

I cant fathom how this place has such high reviews. Its remarkably mediocre; nothing terrible nothing good. Its edible but is the weakest Chinese food Ive head in years. The positive: our server was quite good. The negatives: all of the food was mediocre at best. We ordered the Pork Soup Dumplings, Green Scallion Pancakes, Shrimp Fried Rice, and Szechuan Beef. I would say every one of these dishes was below average. The dumplings tasted fine but arrived lukewarm to the table. They were just OK at best and dont compare to dumplings at any other place Ive had them. The Shrimp Fried Rice lacked flavor it was rice, shrimp, carrots, peas and a little egg, not much. (The cooks should just go to Benihana and watch the chefs there to learn to make the fired rice portion and it would improve significantly). You can tell by the light color its not going to be great. The big disappointment was the beef. The meat was very tough and the pieces were very large. The cuts of beef were too large to eat in one bite which is a problem when eating with shop sticks. In sum, how mediocre is this place? Its the first time I can ever remember that we didnt take leftovers home. Finally the hostess seemed untrained. We walked up and they didnt greet us but instead looked down for about 5 minutes. We figured out that they were calling their reservations to see if they had room for us--thats nice but a "hello, please give me a minute to see if we can accommodate your party of two" would have taken...

Took this kids here on a Tuesday and we were pleasantly surprised that kids eat free on Tuesdays. We ordered the Kung Pao Chicken to split, the Shrimp and Pork Dumplings, and the Pork Soup Dumplings. Ordered the Thai iced tea with Boba and my son got the Chocolate Milk with Boba (which should be on every boba restaurant’s menu.)

Everything was delicious and worth it. If we lived around here we would go every Tuesday for the Kids special. Even the chicken in my daughter’s soup was marinated with a subtle five spice flavor. They really go above and beyond with the flavor and the presentation on the dumpling folds was absolutely gorgeous.

The only issue with the service was that the kids meals came out after the main course, so the kids were getting fidgety by the time their...

It can be a hit or a miss with Chinese food. Our friends introduced this place to us and I am very glad to say that this place was a hit with us. Delicious food and not overly greasy (as in other places). The place is very big and very spacious. Cool staff, they were very busy. This place has vegetarian\vegan options. We ordered Sautéed Mushroom, Vegetarian Eggplant W Garlic Sauce, Vegetarian Mapo Tofu, Steamed Vegetarian Dumplings and Red Bean buns. Absolutely loved all the dishes. The Red Bean buns took forever to come, so order in advance as it takes a while to be cooked. But it was a delightful, very soft bun with yummy filling. Their portions are not very generous as other Chinese places but the food is just so delicious. Would we visit this place again?...