Orient Express — Restaurant in Seattle

I am really conflicted on whether to give 1 start or 5 stars!! The experience I had here was truly a roller coaster. My girlfriend and I had placed a to go order for pick up online, when we arrived we decided we would go into the bar while we waited for our food. There were two bartenders and not a single other customer. I told Ronna (I think that was her name?) the name for my order and she said she would go look for it. After she left, the other bartender, I can’t remember her name, but I do remember them saying she was training, started making us our drinks (which were AMAZING by the way). By the way, we had arrived at about 10:40pm, I guess they close at 11pm. Ronna ended up returning empty handed! She said she couldn’t find our order and that they were closing so she didn’t know what to tell us. I showed them my confirmation email and the transaction showing that over $100 was taken out for this order that Ronna supposedly “didn’t have”. That is when the other girl stepped in and asked for my name again and said she would find it, Ronna followed her out to “go look again”. Low and behold, she found our order! Since we had just ordered a drink, we figured we would eat some of our food there while we finished our drinks! The training bartender grabbed us some silverware. Ronna was not happy about this, she was huffing and puffing and saying “we are closed, we need to close, you can’t eat here”, she kept repeating those things. The other girl told her it would be fine, that they still weren’t closing for another 15-20 minutes and we still had to finish our drinks anyways. Exactly on the dot at 11pm, Ronna let us know we were closed and that we needed to cash out and leave. As we were getting our things together and leaving, two gentlemen from one of the karaoke rooms came into the bar and said they just wanted two vodka sodas real quick, it was maybe 11:02pm at this point. Ronna told them the bar had just closed. She then asked them “well how much is the tip? is it going to be worth it?” She then asked if they were going to pay with cash or card, when they said card, she tried to persuade them to pay in cash. I have been in the industry before and when a bartender/server tries that hard to get you to pay cash instead of card, it usually means the bartender never had any intention of ringing those drinks in and just pocketing the cash. The other bartender ended up making the guys their drinks and then they went back to their karaoke room. We left as well.

The food was pretty freaking good and the vibes and style were really unique and super cool!! My girlfriend and I absolutely loved it so much that we even talked about maybe getting one of the karaoke rooms and throwing a party there!

Thank goodness the bartender that was training was there, because who knows how differently the whole situation would have went if it was just Ronna there…

We really want to bring some of our family and friends back to check this little hidden gem out, but if Ronna is working, we will absolutely turn right around and go home. Not only should Ronna never be trusted to train a new employee again, I also feel she should face some disciplinary action, possibly even termination. Between the way she talked to and treated that poor girl that she was supposed to be training and the fact of how she also treated us as customers is astonishing and unbelievable..

I really hope this is taken care of swiftly so other customers don’t have this same experience, and hopefully when we come back, she...

Orient Express is a unique Chinese restaurant and lounge, with private karaoke rooms. They are conveniently located a 5-10 minute walk from the SODO Link light rail station, and they have a parking lot.

This is a review of their karaoke rooms.

Overall, I was impressed. As long as every member of your party spends a minimum $25 on food, there is no room fee and you can stay in the room as long as you want. (With tax and 20% gratuity fee, it came out to just under $35/person total.) It's a fantastic value for the money IF you really love karaoke and will sing for 3+ hours. We were there for 6+ hours and sung until our voices died.

I heard from some friends before that the food was "meh," but we all thought it was pretty decent family-style Chinese food. The karaoke menu is more limited than the main restaurant menu, but still had plenty of options. Some hits were the salt and pepper shrimp, garlic eggplant, and beef dishes. Most dishes on the karaoke menu are about $18-22, so when we all ordered at least $25/person we had so much food that no one left hungry.

It's a very quirky place! The building is composed of several train cars with a restaurant/kitchen smack dab in the middle, and walking around the hallways feels a bit like a maze. The room was clean, the bathrooms were small but tidy, and the staff were very polite and helpful even though we had a huge rowdy party.

(Note that I don't think this is ADA accessible: You have to walk up stairs to enter the building, and many of the hallways are too narrow with sharp turns for a wheelchair.)

We were in the VIP room with 25 people. (The staff said we could fit up to 35, but 25 was definitely the largest I'd go before you run out of space/seating.) There was still lots of space to get up and dance. But I'd go with a slightly smaller group (maybe 10-15 people) in a smaller room, so we don't need to hit the minimum 20 guests for the big room, and so everyone can sing more songs. You can call ahead of time to make reservations, or walk in.

The setup is good: dimmable lights, comfortable and flexible seating, two TV screens, strong mics, good sound quality. The karaoke system is a weird/quirky Chinese one but at least it has the capability to pull up YouTube videos (only 1 at a time with ads and no queue though) from the touch screen on the side, so you could sing any song that you could find online. It was a little annoying that the on-screen keyboard would only pop up if we went back to the menu, and the typing sound was super loud and couldn't be adjusted, but we got over it.

Overall, if you were just going for an hour or two or for the food, then it's not really worth it. But if you're hardcore into karaoke and want to sing in a private room until your lungs give out, the price is unbeatable! I would...

It was about 98° inside the restaurant. Very uncomfortable!There were 3 or 4 people sitting at the bar. It was kinda dark & dreary in there. They had tv's on, but you couldn't hear them. Then they had a digital jukebox or something of that nature playing garbage gangster rap and other ridiculous bullshit hella loud. Don't get me wrong, I love loud music at live concerts, I just don't particularly like hearing that shit while I'm trying to eat dinner, sweating my balls off in a trains box car that's 98°. I ordered the Mongolian Beef & Potstickers and a glass of water. Both were really, really good and tasty. Unfortunately, the environment, the heat, and the obnoxious music made the experience not good or enjoyable at all 👎🏼 My tab was $30 and change, not bad. I won't be a returning customer, though. Between the unbearable heat 🥵, loud obnoxious crude & vulgar music 🎶🔊, poor customer service, and an environment unwelcoming to someone that just wants to have dinner in peace after a long day at work, I'm a 1 and done. Never to repeat. If you're able to overcome everything that I've stated above, remember the food is very tasty and at a reasonable price. Enter at your own risk... Good...