Green Elephant Gourmet — Restaurant in Palo Alto

First of all, I have not been posting about restaurant reviews often but what I experienced today at Green Elephant restaurant in Palo Alto prompted me that I must share with more people. Though food and most of the service staff are OK, the lady owner's attitude is most demeaning and very cheap. When I go there during the weekdays, I don't run into her as often. But I recall once she was the one taking orders from me and my business guests and my guests asked a few more questions, her demeanor became impatient and frankly quite rude. This weekend, I ordered a take out that consisted of 4 orders of fried rice and dishes for 4 of my colleagues working during the weekend. When I picked up, I asked for 4 chili sauce as all 4 of them want to get their own fried rice and chili sauce and share other dishes. The lady owner told the owner in a commanding tone in Chinese (she thought I could not understand Chinese) that he could only give me two chili sauce and I needed to pay if I need more. I could not believe how cheap she is when she said that to the male owner in such a tone. Firstly, I can understand if I ordered four fried rice and I asked for more than four chili sauce, I may need to pay as I could be ordering just one fried rice and I could ask for one chili sauce. Secondly, the plastic container they use for chili sauce is the smallest type you could ever find. The amount of chili sauce the container can hold is probably equivalent to one tea spoon. I have ordered from many other restaurants. Not only they give you chili sauce in a much bigger container, some even ask you to take what your need yourself. Thirdly, I am a frequent customer as I bring my business guests there quite often. I cannot believe how she treated a frequent customer with such cheap attitude. This weekend's incident will permanently make me place their restaurant on the very bottom of my list due to the lady owner's demeaning and cheap attitude. Regardless what a smiley face she puts up in front of you, she showed her true color and how cheap she is this weekend when she thought I could not understand how she commanded the male owner in Chinese. Just think about this - the male owner is not someone new there. He is the part owner of the restaurant for years. Doesn't he already know what is the policy in how much chili sauce they can give out for takeout orders? I actually just recommended her restaurant to a friend for a 10-people dinner gathering this coming Wednesday. She can be sure that we won't be going to her restaurant now. She does not deserve a customer to be...

We came here by accident because the close-by 4th of July celebrations did not have sufficient eating possibilities. What started out of an emergency situation will become something permanent. We really like this place and will drop by more often.

It starts already with the tissue box at the door such that you don't have to touch the handle. It shows you that they take COVID and the health of their customers serious. Both waiters are very friendly and attentive.

The food is very delicious. The mango salad was exceptional, especially due to the peanut "dressing". The appetizer sampler consists of fried food, which we did not realize when ordering. It was nevertheless very delicious. A specialty that comes with the appetizers are the dipping sauces. They say one is spicy but it's actually not that spicy and very flavorful instead. It's more the kind of Wasabi spicy. The sweet sauce was good, too. We had chicken with broccoli and rice. It tasted very good. The veggis where just steamed right and in contrast to other places there was not too much oil or salt used.

A true...

Their food was generally good. The Hot and Sour Soup was too salty. The Lemon Chicken was good. The Pork Fried rice was very good. The Mongolian Beef was good. Service was poor to bad. Maybe they were tired but this visit was not even as good as my previous visit. We called ahead 2 days to let them know we had a group of 15 for a birthday celebration and showed up with 11. They actively argued with us over wanting to move two tables closer to each other so we could all sit together. After we got them to move a small table next to the large table and we're all seated another group was seated at the other large table. The other table got served first and left before us. Mostly because we were neglected. For instance we were not offered tea at all. For the Birthday we had brought a cake. We asked if they had a knife to cut the cake. "No we don't!" was the firm answer. Bottom line is there are better and even worse restaurants but for this level of service we don't...