Local Cafe

The food itself was pretty good and arrived very quickly, I would say a solid ⁴⁄₅. I ordered the five spice beef ramen and the ramen was nothing special at all but the beef was great. After several bites, I noticed something that looked like a hair in my bowl. It turned out to be worse: a large silver bug. We informed the waiter who was completely unapologetic and just said «Oh.» Tldr; food was good, service and cleanliness were poor.

Cheapest meal I’ve had in a while…$ 6.95 for a bowl of beef noodle soup? Count me in! Unfortunately, I can’t say that the food is REALLY good, but it’s alright. Lots of variety, service is quick, prices are cheap (cash only though), you can’t really ask more more! The beef noodle soup I got was ok. Portion size was decent. The meat was ok, but the veggies were a little undercooked. The soup was on the bland side, but not bad, and thankfully, not salty! It’s a pretty clear/​light broth. The noodles that they use in this dish aren’t really the noodles that come to mind when you think of beef noodle soup… they’re the super thin rice noodles. Not bad, just not my personal preference. So would I come back here? Probably. There are so many options and the prices are great, so I’m definitely willing to give some of their other dishes a try.

Below-​average food!!! Ok-​price for a quick lunch. Too much rice with little food.

Looking for the traditional «pork spareribs in black bean sauce». I ended up with a heavy dose of onions and cut up fatty bacon strips. Nothing close to resembling a sparerib.

The pork belly and preserved vegetables was almost exclusively pork belly. The pork was tender, fatty, and nicely seasoned. Although there was some cooked lettuce underneath I did not encounter any preserved vegetables. The shredded chicken dish looked much lighter, healthier, and delicious.

Great for late night dinner. Expect service you actually get from Hong Kong traditional café but do make sure bring cash because no matter how much customer complaint, they just don’t care. Food quality just ok but they are pretty much one of those few hk food open late.

Nice Hong Kong Style Café — Their milk teas are highlights — both hot and cold. They even sell hot tea with condense milk (茶走). Very HKish. Food is fair with great variety. Staff is nice and efficient too. Enjoyed the place.

My wife and I have lunch here three times a week and my family dine here at least twice a week.
We live next to Top Café, another Hong Kong style café in Cupertino, but we wouldn’t mind driving out of the way to come to this place. The food is very Hong Kong style and the milk tea has the right octane of favor. One warning though: For those of you who are watch his/​her calorie intake, salt, fat, etc., you have to choose from the menu wisely. The Big Brother bake rice sounds good: Egg sunny side up, pork chop, spam, hot dog, fried rice, toped with bake cheese sauce. There is enough calorie for a marathon and back! The only thing I wish they can do better is more healthier choices on the menu. Until then, three stars it is.

Note that this restaurant has 5 stars for this type of restaurant. Don’t expect high-​end dining etc. Good food, very friendly waiter, and cheap prices. What more can you ask?
they do very fast service and the food came out in 10 minutes. We ordered noodle soup, calamari, pork chop, and rolled kway tiao (thick rice noodle). The soup is good, it doesn’t taste like water cooked in noodle. It really taste like real soup. Calamari is a bit salty, but okay. Pork chop’s portion is really a lot, and was shared between 3 people and still had leftovers.
For this type of restaurant, this one is really great.

You can’t not love this place once you get to know the waiters and the owner! They’re super nice and would definitely recommend to you some awesome dishes.
They’re food definitely pass as «delicious,» and a personal favourite would be the salt and pepper pork chop!

Oh I love this place.
Very convenient for me as it’s on the way from college and their food is very much Hong Kong style.
I love their black bean pork, their beef chow fun and chicken mushroom with white rice. It’s good comfort food and the staff is very friendly. I know the owner and he’s very nice.
I love how the price is so affordable! It’s really cheap for the quantity they gave and they are open until late night as well. Very convenient and very good food.

They take CASH ONLY so be prepared to bring some if you’re going to eat here.
Came here after a nice hangout with some of my friends. Ordered the M34. which is the XO sauce & chicken stir fried ramen noodles. The portions are well worth it as it nearly filled up the bowl. The dish had a nice spice kick to it and it was a tolerable kind of spice.
They spoke mainly Cantonese and service was very prompt and decent for a Chinese restaurant. You can just show them the letter and number if you don’t know how to say the dish in Cantonese to them and they’ll get what you want.
Lots of parking in the lot, they only have one bathroom per gender. Lots of Chingrish signs surrounding the main register and surrounding areas, really wondering if a lot of things are lost in translation as they don’t make any sense when you read them in the English words they provide.
Definitely coming back here if I’m in the area!

Came here after playing volleyball with friends.
Pro: cheap prices. Fast service.
Con: salty and grease. My stomach felt pretty heavy afterwards.

I am a fan of the variety that they offer here. The menu is very extensive but most of it is rice/​noodle/​macaroni. I ordered the corn and chicken with cream sauce and rice yesterday and it was just A-​OK. I’ve definitely had better dishes here like the baked clam and mushroom rice one is really good! The most popular thing to order seems to be the porkchop of course. The portions are pretty big for the price! They sometimes offer you free soup as well and the service is always fast and friendly. Definitely one of my favorite bistros to go to in the area. and don’t forget to stop by Tea Era afterwards for some boba!

I’m from Hong Kong so I know this type of cuisine well. As far as Cantonese cafes go, this one is just alright.
SERVICE: got our food fast, but it was a little hard to get anyone’s attention at times even though the place wasn’t too busy. They’re definitely a lot friendlier if you’re able to speak Cantonese.
MENU: I was super indecisive after scanning the menu… They just have so many classics! Everything from afternoon tea items like condensed milk toast to skillet pan XO sauce udon and baked tomato pork chop on rice, you’ll be there deciding for a while and might utter the words, «I just can’t decide!». And of course there’s a drink menu of HK style milk tea and iced lemon tea too.
TASTE:
+ baked super pork chop over rice (B1) ($ 9.95): tender pork chop over rice. Half covered in a tomato sauce, the other in a creamy white sauce. It was all topped with a sunny side up egg and a hot dog sausage. I’m glad they made this classic right. The sauces were delicious and the egg yolk would melt over the already saucy rice and pork chop, making it even creamier.
— 3 combo stir fried lai fun in XO sauce (M23) ($ 8.95): the dish smelled really great when it first came — the XO sauce filled your nostrils. But it was somewhat bland in taste. The «3 combo» is small pieces of beef, ham, and dried shrimps. There’s also some soft yellow onion that it is stir fried with, but all of this STILL didn’t give it enough flavor… The lai fun noodle, which is suppose to be a round and pretty thick noodle, was too soft because it was too thin. Sadly didn’t live up to expectations.
Other things to note:
— cash only
— large portions (to be shared family style)
— good prices — one item will be between $ 8 – 12
— 3 item family combo for $ 23, everyday 5−9pm
Would come back again when I’m nostalgic for food from my childhood. But only because I can’t find this food anywhere else around here…

I am a regular at this place… 3 reasons…
1) super fast and friendly service.
2) free drink (HK stay milk tea, lemon tea, etc) with their lunch specials.
3) huge potion!
As with any restaurant, not everything is good on the menu but I do highly recommend their Portuguese porkchop baked rice or spaghetti. If you do decide to try it ask them to add cheese… Oh so Heavenly.

Pros
(+)Pork Chop over rice is the wunn
(+)Complimentary tea
(+)Funny Bathroom sign (Snap worthy I suppose)
(+)Decent service for an asian place
(+)Decent Price
(+)Open Late
(+)Near Homestead lanes (Bowling) as well as Pearl Milk Tea spots If you are looking for a food place and things to do after
Cons
(-)Limited seating, can be crowded
(-)Cash only
(-)If you can’t read the wall signs, look at Unilocal pics

Such a good deal. 3 items for $ 23 and they do not skimp on the food. Portion size is big and the food was so delicious. Food came out very fast. We tried the spareribs with bitter melon, egg plant with garlic sauce and a seafood tofu pot.
I like Local Café better than Venus now that they’ve changed ownership.

The food here is okay, not great. not terrible… reasonable prices and portion size but not memorable at all and lacks depth of flavor. What I would consider Hong Kong style fast food but really doesn’t have the same satisfaction level as Chinese junk food. There was always an element about each dish that prevented it from being truly enjoyable.
For example, the tomato meat sauce with egg over rice did have a nice sweet and sour (ketchup like) flavor to the sauce, but the egg didn’t do much to add any texture or richness to the dish. The beef chow fun had well seared beef but was excessively oily and salty instead of relying on wok-​hay for flavor. The fish filet and tofu rice had a very bland sauce to it without the typical assortment of Chinese green vegetables one would typically expect to see with the dish.
Not expensive and will get you full — but nothing special to make a trip for.

NOPE. Never again.
I love Hong Kong cafes and was really excited to be living close to an inexpensive one that opened late. I stopped by late night with a friend and we ordered fries to share, and two drinks — a Hong Kong milk tea and a milk tea with red bean.
The fries were mediocre at best, which is a wonder since it’s hard to mess up fries. They were soggy and sticking to each other when they came other, and reminded me of fries that had been left out for far too long.
The drinks were both TERRIBLE. My Hong Kong milk tea had a sour aftertaste to it (I’ve had plenty of Hong Kong milk teas, and therefore knew this was not normal) and my friend’s milk tea with red beans had an extremely sandy texture to it, that didn’t seem to be from the red beans. When we asked the servers about it, they just kind of shrugged and went «oh that’s just what the drinks are like» without offering any solutions.
All in all, I wouldn’t come back again. The food is mediocre, the drinks are bad, and the service is abysmal. Not many redeeming points here.

Another inexpensive Chinese restaurant in Cupertino. How would I differentiate this among the rest? I don’t.
But this place is located a mile from my house so it’s super convenient when I can’t decide on what to grab for a quick take-​out meal. The prices are okay — seems like pretty much everything is $ 9 each. So far I’ve had the house special fried rice and the pork/​preserved egg porridge. The rice was aite, nothing that special, and some meat parts were a bit too salty. The porridge was way better than I had expected. The consistency was good, not watered down, and I could taste the ginger. yum. It was the perfect 11:30pm bite. Glad this place is open late to satisfy my midnight cravings!
Cash only unless you spend more than $ 25!

I’ve been trying to find a Hong Kong café here in South Bay because I always use to go to ABC café in SF and now that I live in SJ, I need to find an alternative. I was getting tired of Top café cause I never have cash on me. This place accepts card only at a certain amount but they still want you to pay cash.
This place has big portions and the food was pretty good! Just a little oily but it’s okay. I got then I got the baked pork chop with the tomato sauce and the cream sauce. The cream cause was okay. I liked the tomato sauce more.
I would recommend this place. It’s not that expensive and they give you a lot of food! I will be coming back to try more things.