Smile House Cafe — Restaurant in San Francisco

Updated Review: We had the Taiwan braised noodles $14.25, pan fried chili prawn noodles $15 and spicy wontons $10. Everything tasted great.

Updated review 12/12/2021: Smile House Cafe has an impressive Hong Kong style menu. I'm amazed at the variety of dishes that little kitchen can produce. There weren't that many dining indoors tonight. Lucky for me, there was no wait on a rainy Sunday evening. Usually, there's about an hour wait. The beef brisket toss noodles $14.25 were excellent as usual. I asked for no tendons and there were so many pieces of meat. The spicy wontons $10 were also excellent. The only drawback about this cafe is that, they don't do a refill of the milk tea. They did refill my regular tea. Great job everyone at Smile House Cafe. Thank you for always making me feel welcomed.

Updated review 11/15/2021: Smile House Cafe is like one of your old friends opened a restaurant. The young waiter guy is always welcoming and chatty. The guy is knowledgeable about his menu. If you get in before 6pm for the evening meal service, there should be no wait. After 6:30pm, the place fills up until closing. Tonight I had the baked seafood cheese curry spaghetti $14.25 w/milk tea. It tastes better than it sounds. It had carrots, fish, imitation crab, mussels and shrimps. What made it great was the curry sauce. It was topped with baked cheese. Great job everyone at Smile House Cafe!

Updated review 8/11/2021: Wear your fat stretch pants my Yelp friends, the portions here are generous. I started off with a wonton soup $10. The flavor of the soup is different than what I'm used to from a HK cafe. They have their own distinct soup. It came with nine wontons filled with shrimp and other meats. Very good wontons. Next, I had the baked pork chop spaghetti. It had a light tomato sauce topped with a layer of cheese. I liked how they put fresh slices of tomato under the pork chops. It was a nice surprise. There was no wait when I arrived at 6pm but there was a line when I left at 6:45pm. Smile House Cafe is not at 100% capacity yet. They left some tables empty for Covid distancing. Good job Smile House Cafe for keeping us safe. The service was excellent as usual.

Updated review 7/16/2021: Smile House, you did it again. I'm still thoroughly impressed. This evening, I was privileged enough to sneak in before closing time after waiting for about 15 minutes for a table. They are still enforcing the 50% dining room capacity restrictions to keep us safe. Getting a table can be a challenge. Some other Hong Kong style tea cafes like S&E cafe on 19th and Taraval are still closed for indoor dining. Tonight, I had the teppan chicken steak $14. It no longer comes with soup. The waiter was super nice about it and was apologetic. The teppan chicken steak arrived sizzling. I love how it makes a grand entrance every time I order this. It is a head turner. The black pepper sauce mixed with the cabbage and chicken is certainly satisfying. The finale of the meal is when you get to the bottom pieces and they are slightly burn from the cast iron plate. Amazzzzzing. It is almost like crispy jerk chicken. Great job everyone at Smile House. Especially the knowledgeable waiter.

Original review: Indoor dining 5/25/2021. Best sizzling beef with rice in San Francisco! Smile House Cafe is a Hong Kong style tea cafe. The staff was super friendly and I was only customer when I walked in at around 6pm tonight. There were plenty of seats. The waitstaff can speak both Cantonese and Mandarin. The kitchen staff only spoke Mandarin. My sizzling beef came smoky with that attention grabbing cooking sound. The beef was thinly sliced and hint of Korean style sweet marinate. Your supposed to mix it all up and not wait too long depending on how rare you like your beef. Great job everyone at Smile House Cafe. My meal...

There is one tall waiter wearing glasses that has no etiquette in food service at all. He is rude, arrogant, would answer back rudely, and very bad service, he even would slam food on the table as he is delivering, had to ask 5 times for ice water. This did not happen once but 3 times, finally I spoke to the owner of the place and mentioned things he had done, she spoke to him while we were there and did not try to serve us that day anymore. We came back 2 nights later and he was there and another waiter served us he was ok but this guy (with the glasses) gave us our bill and it didn't feel right when he brought it over so I gave a $5.00 tip just to see what he would do. As we were walking out the door he confronts me asking why am I not giving 10% tip or more for their services was there something wrong with the service? The nerve of this guy! It really irritated me having this guy trying to dictate what I think is fair for their service! I answered back saying maybe if you change your attitude or you just quit completely I may have given more than 10%. Anyways food is good we would swing by by the window to see if he was there or not and he is not we would come in and eat otherwise we leave. This guy really grossed me out. He should not be in that nice restaurant at all! Sorry bit it's the truth. I will get his name and post it here and even get a picture just for you to know who not to deal with in this restaurant. Thanks...

I was really excited that a place that served sizzling beef with rice was opening near me. However, I was taken aback by the low reviews of bad food and service. I still wanted to try the food since it looked good. I came in around 12:30 pm on a Saturday and got seated immediately. I never saw a long line waiting, but definitely saw a consistent amount of people coming in.

I actually have no idea why service was considered so bad. The main waiter/host was so bubbly and super friendly. He was constantly running around and helping everyone. We ordered one beef sizzling plate with rice, string beans, pork pan fried noodles, toast with peanut butter and condensed milk, and a sesame dessert (a lot i know). The beef plate came out super fast. The quality of the beef and rice was actually really good. It was a little saltier than I liked, but still tasted really good! The plate was pretty big; I could only eat half of it. The pork pan fried noodles came in a kinda small plate, but had a lot of pork and sauce with it. The string beans were also really good. My grandma really liked the toast and sesame dessert and said it was good quality.

I definitely want to come back again since they have such an extensive menu. I saw a lot of other people eating their soup noodles, beef brisket, and ginger chicken. I also saw a lot of people getting their drinks. I thought the food here was really tasty and service was amazing. I can't wait...