SGD Tofu House — Restaurant in San Jose

7/11/25 afternoon: I never write reviews, but my frustrating experience with this restaurant made me have to leave this comment. I've been to SGD Tofu House numerous times over the years, but when introducing my friend to this restaurant, we were treated poorly and I've never been this embarrassed and shameful when leaving a restaurant before. Service was slow and something just felt off from the last time I came (I came with my family last time, for context: I am a college student) (less care from the waitress compared to the other families/customers). Many other families received faster service than my friend and I. This was probably since my friend and I are college students and the waitress with glasses had preexisting judgments and bias against us (not willing to spend lots of money and therefore not worth the effort to give proper service, etc.). The more I think about it, I really gaslighted myself, thinking everything was ok even when it wasn't. We ordered one cold noodle dish to share and it took around 15 minutes to come out. We ordered our food the same time as another customer next to us, but his food came out a sum amount of minutes before ours. We only received two banchans /side dishes (some kimchi and spicy cucumber) at the same time as our food because, apparently (I asked the waitress), that's how many you receive if you only order a $21.40 cold noodle dish. People around us got all the included banchans like fish cake, japchae, etc. I was really looking forward to the other banchans that I expected would have been served, so I wish we had been informed in advance that the dish ordered would only come with two. The lack of communication in this made my expectations for the food fall flat. The cold noodle dish portion was a lot smaller portioned compared to previous years. I found a picture of a review of cold noodles, and our dish was a lot smaller and had a lot less toppings on it (two thin slices of tomatoes, daikon, cucumber, and small handful of noodles; half of our dish was just the broth and ice), I will attach pictures to show evidence of how much they skimped on their portions. The first picture was of a review of the same cold noodles from two years ago, and the other two pictures were what we received (you can see how sloppy the presentation was compared to in the past). What made this experience especially terrible was when we were given our final receipt for tipping. From my peripheral vision, I could see the waitress (lady with glasses) was staring at me while I was signing the receipt and writing my final total amount (no tip, $24 total). Therefore, I put the receipt back in so it wasn't distinctly visible to her and was getting up to leave. She immediately took the receipt and asked something along the lines of, "Why didn't you write anything in the tip section?" with a lot of yabber. This was my first time I've ever been asked this, so I was just so flabbergasted about her audacity to asked I wrote in two dollars (spending a total of $26 on that amount of food and its quality is insane to me). I also work in the food industry, and giving tips is customary (I don't demand for tips in front of my customers' faces, that is just greedy in my opinion). I understand that some people have different expectations over tipping and its culture, but I wish this business had more empathy over the fact that every customer's situation is different. If your service was exceptional and I had the financial ability to tip, I would. But in this case, neither was true. I was already hesitant to come to this restaurant myself since I knew it would be pricey (but I was with my friend so I wanted to treat her to something "nice"), I can't afford to give more than what I have already. If you overcharge for food and are so passive-aggressive about tipping, I don't believe you deserve anything. BTW: This review took me about an hour's worth of contemplation and typing, so I seriously am disappointed about...

I came in for my first time eating tofu soup when I first came in the service was good not towards the end I was casually talking to my girlfriend because we were almost done eating the food but we took a break just to talk and out of nowhere the servicer just brought us the check without us asking for it or not even asking us if we wanted something else just straight up brought us the check without saying nothing once i pay the bill i didn't tip since they didn't really do anything special while we were eating we ran out of water and we didn't think much at the moment until we got thirsty so then we asked them for some water and they gave us some water but even so the empty water bottle was empty for a quite of time and they clearly saw and yet didn't say anything or do anything just straight ignore it which was one but again didn't do anything special or the necessary they just did their job so when it came for the tip I didn't tip, tipping it optional not required after I gave them back the check they straight up made a whole sense in front of everyone in the restaurant exclusively asking for a tip I stand my ground and still didn't tip so she just gave us a dirty look for the rest of the time we were there and my girlfriend understand Korean and she told me that they started laughing at us and Calling us dumb like dude you didn't do anything special calm down we left after that and will not be coming here again so sad that they need tip or else their whole world...

In A Nutshell:

-I come here not only b/c the food is just spectacular, but it's a place that reminds me of my grandma before she recently passed away. One of the last meals I had w/ her was here :) -Now on to the review. The location is lovely. It's right off the 280, even though the Saratoga exit can be a nightmare, it's all worth the effort. -The go-to dish I order is the Al Jjigae (Fish Roe Stew) - it's served in the truest essence of Korean soups/stews, in a piping hot bowl. After you crack the egg you get and mix it up a little, make sure you break apart the fish roe so the broth becomes thicker. Writing this now just makes my mouth-water. I won't write about it anymore, just come here and try it yourself. -Their other dishes are also so so good. I would recommend everything on the menu here.

Overall, it's definitely a small mom/pop restaurant and space is limited, but the owners work very hard to make you happy and you can eat all the banchan (side dishes) you want while you wait for your food. Just don't eat too much of it so you can save your appetite for the main course(s). ...