Ho Kee Cafe — Restaurant in San Gabriel

I've always see lines out the door for this small Cafe and decided to check it out. The seating area is quite small do you'll end up waiting for awhile.

Food:

Our group ordered the house special fish porridge. At first thought, I imagined it to have big chunks of fish meat in it but in reality, they're very small chunks of tilapia meat. What I didn't think was that they'd include peanuts in it as well. There was also a whole lots of ginger slices, which I'm not a fan of. Be careful though because you may come across bones and scales in the porridge.

Wonton and dumpling noodle soup. The noodles were hard and didn't seem fresh to taste. The wonton and dumplings were great and was flavorful.

Char Siu Pork and duck noodle soup. The pork was ordinary like any other Chinese restaurant that serves it. I particularly thought the duck was moist but I'm sure it would've been even better when it wasn't soaked in the soup.

Crispy Beef Brisket. It was truly crispy and I've never thought of a dish like this. However, the meat isn't as tender as you'd hope but still good. It also comes with a sweet sauce and that's what makes it a good dish. Eating it without the sauce, it's bland and doesn't taste like anything.

Chinese donut. This was crispy and has a little salt in it. A bit oily in my opinion but at least they fry it right then and there and doesn't seem like they microwave it.

Hong Kong Milk Tea..as good as it tastes in Hong Kong.

Service:

Better than most Chinese restaurants but there was one lady who tells at other workers and it scares the hell out of me. I'm sure that's just her personality but still, the restaurant is small so...

I hate to give a low rated review but the service in this place is non existent. Let me go into the details of my experience. I visited this bookmarked restaurant with high hopes. On a triple-digit weather day, I brought my baby there, and they were not busy. The server seated us in a 4-person table right by the corner of the glass window next to the wall. My baby was sweating and I have to use their menu to fan her down. The server saw me cooling off my baby and said, "this is actually the warmest table of all" and walked away. I wanted to switch tables but the baby fell asleep and the next table was taken. The server dragged the table next to us creating a loud screeching noise and startled the baby. That was really inconsiderate.

Shortly after our food came. The server has not brought us any water when the food was served. Mind you it was a scorching hot day. I begged for the second server to help us. There were only two servers. We also ordered a bowl of white rice but it was also forgotten. We had to asked for everything twice. She brought the check before we even finished. I had to feed my baby and she was hovering over our table for $. Yes she actually hovered! I cooperated and paid and I told myself to...

The service in this place is terrible. We were served by a lady with short dyed hair. When we were seated, she stood at our table and hurried us to place our orders when we have not even looked through the menu. After our orders were placed, she passed us the check before our food was even served. While we were preparing our payment, she stood at a corner of the restaurant with 2 other servers talking and looking at our direction. When she collected the payment from us (we tipped her), she came back with the change and rudely said that the tipping should be at least 10% and expected us to topped it up, which we did. Despite her attitude and poor service she even expected to be tipped!! She doesn’t deserve any tip at all.

After our meals, when we were leaving the restaurant, her other colleagues said ‘bye’ to us and we waved back. But the rude server said, ‘ don’t bother thanking them’.

That particular server does not deserve any tipping. Her service sucks!

The food is quite tasty, it’s a shame that the service...