Sampan Kitchen

my so wanted to come here a while ago when she noticed an article in sing tao newspaper praising sampan kitchen. i researched it on Unilocal,noted the menu and realized it was typical asian fusion trickey: fancy prices in a fancy restaurant for typical chinatown fare.
glad i didn’t come here though i was tempted.
i also don’t trust any restaurant reviews in sing tao. seems shills or people with creative writing skills write them.

Seriously? I can’t fathom what people would find attractive about this place other than the setting. The food is a far cry from any promise of «fusion cuisine» and it just wasn’t all that good! Granted, I did try this place a while ago — when they first opened — and maybe some improvements have been made since, but it was such a ho-​hum first experience that I’ve never thought of trying it again since. Portions are tiny, the dishes were Americanized-​tasting almost, and you definitely foot the bill in the end. I will say, though, that the service was very friendly and they had a free caramelized onion appetizer thing that was probably the best part of the entire meal. Try if you must, but take it from me: you won’t be missing anything of you pass this place on by.

My in laws took me here, a fairly new restaurant in the bay area, while I was in town for a work meeting. I love crab, so I had a good feeling about this place.
We ordered the pan fried crab in black pepper & duck egg yolk. I was gnawing on the crab shell to get the flavor bits off. NOM NOM NOM! My other favorite of the evening was steamed oysters with shells in black bean sauce– DELICIOUS! The sauce was very tasty, not to salty, and the oysters were very tender.
We also got duck cilantro soup, soy sauce chow mein, broth simmered clams, spinach with garlic, and sole filet in «3 cup» sauce. The sole filet was in a clay pot– when it just came out it was super crispy on the outside and still very flavorful. But the longer the dish sat, the less crispy the fried exterior became. It was still tasty though…
The other dishes were ok– nothing spectacular, but not terrible (average fare you’d expect in any Chinese restaurant in this area). The crab & the oyster blew the dinner though. I think my hubs & I will be back next time we’re in the Bay area.

Food is expensive for what you get. Service is lacking. Yet, the modern details inside this restaurant make me give this place 3 stars…
Tip: get $ 25 off $ 35 dinner… read below for details!
Without going into specific dishes (I’ve tried maybe eight from here), the overall food portions are small for the price you pay. Many meat dishes are around $ 10 and vegetable dishes $ 8. That said, the food is cooked well and everything tastes good. The best value I’ve found on the menu is the creamy prawn & crab noodles for $ 13. Contrary to some of their other noodle dishes, this casserole is filled with soft, thin, chow-​mein style noodles baked with a rich creamy sauce and topped with several pieces of shrimp and pre-​cracked crab.
The only thing that keeps me coming back here is the
$ 25 off $ 35 coupons. You pretty much «buy» a «gift certificate» on this company’s website and redeem at Sampan.
During my last visit, we tried the dimsum. Ha gow (shrimp) and Siu Mai (pork) dumpings were very bad. I would hope they were not frozen or bought elsewhere, however, these puny dimsum dishes reminded me of stuff found at a Chinese buffet.
Service has been strange here. I found it very hard to waive down a waiter to get more water and the food took way too long to come out…
All in all, this place is a nice surprise in Hayward. The bathrooms (yes, the lavatories) are FUN (if I can say that). The décor is FUN. The stainless steel chopsticks, which I find hard to use, are FUN. So… if you’ve got the $, or the
coupon, it’s worth giving Sampan a shot!

My mother is an avid Sampan eater and so is my grandmother. These two filipina women are the stingiest (yet classy) women in the world. Yet they come home once every couple weeks saying they don’t know how they wound up spending over $ 30 on just themselves at this place (they definitely NEVER regret it). This was enough for me to try it. I’ve been here a couple times and I admit I am a fan of the spot. It’s incredibly close to my house, they have a killer WEEKDAY lunch special and the restaurant in itself is really modern looking. I love how this spot can be a chill place to take your family with or a nice dinner spot for you and your honey. I just recently took my man over here and he was sold. Prices are not too expensive, but this is not a «cheap» restaurant. I would definitely recommend trying this place out and try to catch them on a weekday before 2pm (I think?) so you can get that $ 6.99 lunch special which is really worth it.
Let’s keep this place in business and running I’d be sad for it to be gone.

Brought a friend here for dinner and I was disappointed. The décor was surprisingly modern, however the food was a big disappointment.
We ordered two noodle dishes… one was a sort of chow fun with beef, which lacked in flavor, and a thai noodle some sort of thing… and that was the better dish of the two.
The mongolian beef was good, probably the only good dish that I had of the five ordered. The honey walnut shrimp was too breaded which really took away from the flavor of the shrimp. When bit into, all you taste is the breaded part of the shrimp. I ordered another beef dish that wasn’t memorable at all…
I wouldn’t come here again.

Probably one of the nicer restaurants in Hayward. However, considering the lack of dining options that aren’t franchised (i.e. Olive Garden, Elephant Bar, Chilis) this may not mean much. Nonetheless, I’ve bookmarked this place in my head as a place I’d probably come to regularly. The interior is nice and service is prompt. My gf and I came during lunch and they have a lunch special menu in addition to their regular menu. They also serve Dim Sum here daily as well.
We ordered from the lunch special which was a real value because for just $ 6.99 you get soup, salad, 1 appetizer, rice, and 1 main side. We also ordered some dim sum. It was average, not the best or worst I’ve had in my life… a lil on the pricey side though. Behind us was a wine cellar. They offer a lot of special happy hour deals so I can imagine this place packed during those times. The place was pretty empty when we went though. Good place to enjoy a quiet lunch for a reasonable price.

I have to admit, I’m a Chinese food whore. Something about it is comforting. I don’t know… perhaps it the MSG and the inevitable migraine that appeals to me.
Joking aside, I have to say that this place is pretty damn good. Some of us grabbed a quick bite to eat here since it was in the area, and to our surprise, it was delicious! I mean, come on! They had all day dim sum! You really can’t beat all day everyday dim sum. I always judge a place by their Siu Mai, and it was very tasty. They also had this Shrimp Ball that you must order. It’s not the typical shrimp ball that you usually get (you know which one I’m talking about with those little annoying ribbons on the side). These shrimp balls were almost panko-​like. I’d go there just for that.
The entrees where also very good. We ordered their Shanghai Noodles, which were tasty and not greasy at all. Also, the Steak Cube dish was really good with or without rice. The only thing that was a miss for me what the Kung Pao chicken, which was too spicy… but I am sensitive to spice though. Everyone else thought it was great.
The prices weren’t the cheapest. It wasn’t a hole in the wall, mom & pop restaurant. It was a sit-​down type of place with a very modern décor. Hell, even the chopsticks were stainless steel.
Since I’ll be living a few minutes from this place, I foresee being a regular at this joint.

Surprisingly, the décor was very modern contemporary. The exterior didn’t match the interior AT ALL. If they can snazz up the outside to match the inside, perhaps more people will come. But then again, they would come if the food was to die for. And unfortunately, I wouldn’t die for their food.
The menu was humongous and here’s what we ended up with:
1) Garlic and pepper crab — deep fried with loads of minced garlic flakes
2) Garlic noodles
3) Wine sauce beef stew
4) Fungus soup served with rice vinegar
5) Thai style beef — this was thinly sliced cevice style marinated in a vinegar
6) Chinese veggies
7) Mince chicken romaine lettuce cups
8) Bowl of white rice
9) Tofu cheesecake — it tasted like tofu cheesecake, uh huh…
10) Ginger milk custard — the ginger gives the custard a bit of a kick
The only dish that was good was the crab and it’s because tis’ the season for crab. My main complaint is the soup, it was served semi-​luke warm. This is totally unacceptable coming from a Chinese type of restaurant. Soup should ALWAYS be served piping hot but not hot enough to burn your tongue. It was also too thick to be called soup, it was like eating a bowl of fungus gravy instead of drinking soup — bleh! The minced chicken lettuce wrap was served with old room temperature romaine lettuce, it was soggy and blah. It needs to be served with chilled iceberg lettuce, which gives it the crunchy freshness that it was missing. Everything else didn’t come close to knocking my socks off, so, I don’t think I would go back for dinner.
They serve dim sum daily, do I dare test it out!!!

N and I went here for a pre theater dinner. Many reviewers have commented on the décor. I think it would work better if they took out the counter. It isn’t really a bar; they only serve beer and wine. It made the restaurant look like a remodeled Denny’s the night we were there. I did notice the pictures posted do look good, maybe it was an off night. The rest of the resturant is lovely
I liked that we had the choice of ordering small plates or regular orders it gave us the opportunity to try a few extra dishes, so we ordered.
Sampan Spare Ribs with garlic and peppers. It was very good
Fried Rice with Salted Pork and Pine Nuts: I like salt pork and this dish was good.
Honey Walnut Prawns with Fruit. Other than the fruit this was the basic dish served in most restaurants
Oysters; The picture on the menu was deceiving it showed a plate of small oysters. When the server said that the small plate was 4 oysters and the entrée had 8 we went with the entrée when it came to the table the plate had 8 very large oysters, perfectly prepared with out a bit of grittiness. They were hit of the evening for me
From 3.5 to 4 for the service and the small plates

Sampan Kitchen is more about presentation than everything else. The interior décor is designed in a contemporary manner. It’s by far one of the most thought out interiors in Hayward. Everything from the chopsticks on the table and the dishes even the wine shelf are very nice. As for functional it’s subjective, I’m not a fan of metal chopstick which may be the easiest thing to clean out of any other type of chopsticks. The dishware has a certain style to it, such as the soup bowl has a slight.
I have went there with my sister to try out their lunch special since I had a coupon send out to us while we were at work. The coupon was an awesome deal so we couldn’t pass it up.
For the lunch specials, Entrees I gotten beef cubes while my sister had Mongolian beef, appetizers I went with a fried spring roll and my sister had gotten the chicken wings. My beef cubes were quite bland and needs more flavor. Spring roll was quite was okay. Our special came with the soup of the day which was a hot and sour soup of some sort. I’m never a fan of the sour soups so I’ll let other reviewers speak upon that. While the salad was either a love it or hate it, I finished up all my salad while my sister didn’t even touch hers.
Food was a is an a-​okay three stars while I would say the service and interior gave them a bonus half star.
3.5 STARS

Well, the décor and ambiance is definitely 5-​stars (for Hayward), but the food is about a 3.5, so I’ll round up my rating to a 4. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but once you step in, you almost feel like you stepped into a restaurant in SF. Nice and neat décor, and a great bar and wine cellar. But I agree with the others that the food is hit and miss. We had the fish filet with ham, the string beans, har gow and the fried rice, which were good. But their steak cube dish was underseasoned, and their sweet and sour scallop wasn’t that great.
However, they do serve dimsum all day, and they have good deals during their happy hour. Plus the service was fast, friendly and professional. They also participate in the
discount program, so that’s definitely brownie points!

I will definitely be coming back.
I wasn’t impressed with the lunch specials, although they were a great deal. I also sampled the dimsum, which wasn’t all that great either. I was more impressed with the «tapas» on the large dining menu. Pickled bitter melon, YUMMY, singapore noodles, good, string beans, delicious. I can’t wait to try all the chef specials, like cold pork belly, chinese cabbage claypot, chestnut chicken, the list goes on and on.
I always do a bathroom check before leaving a new restaurant. and Sampan passes the test. I loved the «communal» bathrooms. Clean & nice. Everything a bathroom should be.
They also have happy hour M-​F from 3 – 7. $ 3-​$ 4 small plates, like sampan chicken wings, spring rolls, dimsum, etc. Keep in mind, they only serve beer and wine.

I found this restaurant in OpenTable and looked into their website first. The website is pretty good and contains lots of pretty pictures. Especially the fireplace really captures eyes.
I didn’t pay attention to the outside of the buliding; but I like the interior design. Simple, contemporary, seating is comfortable. The fireplace also functions as the barrier to seperate the bar and the dining area (but we didn’t have the fire on that night). however, the interior design should have designed the restrooms in a better way, as least put the paper towels next to the sink.
Ok back to the food. I really like the tapas option for most of the dishes that we could try more. the food is pretty good, not very traditional, but in a good way; much more authentic than Sino in San Jose. I would say the price is relatively cheap according to the setting, service and food quality. Crab soups is ~$ 12, tapas plate is ~$ 6, regular plate is ~$ 10, crab is $ 25 (same price as Asian Pearl). We ordered 1 bowl of soup, one rice in clay pot, 2 regular plates, and 4 tapas plates. Total is about $ 58 excluding alcohol and tips. It would be more expensive if it locates in S.F.

In a sentence: Wannabe fancy chic looking restaurant but the food just can’t keep up with their «mystic chinese cuisine» motto.
I was fooled by the nice looking interior of the restaurant. So contemporary looking, complete with their own see through wine room! If only I could say the same about the food. The portions were very small, and they were priced at about $ 10 each. The night I went, each dish was overly salted; my water glass was constantly being refilled, which I normally don’t even touch.
1. Sizzling Rice Melon Soup with Dried Scallop: To be frank, I could have made this. Open a can of chicken broth, add a cornstarch slurry, add like a cup of white pepper. Then add those crispy rice snacks that you get in Chinatown. O yea, don’t forget to add more salt to make it extra salty.
2. Beef Ribs in Port Wine Sauce: More like really chewy beef sauteed in some red wine with a load of onion. It really tasted like the filling of a bbq pork bun.
3. Duck a la Tai Shan: Way too salty.
4. Diced Vegetables with Pine Nuts and Corn: I actually liked this one, my favorite, if I had to pick one, of the night. It was simple and fresh sauté of zucchini, corn, carrots, and chestnuts topped off with pine nuts and raisins.
5. Steamed Tofu with Scallops/​Steamed Tofu with Bamboo Fungus: It wasn’t bad, but there was nothing special about it. The garnish was terrible though. Some overcooked chinese vegetables in a attempt to add some green to the plate. Nothing mystic there.
6. Crab Pan-​Fried in Plum Sauce: Not bad, but not great either. Since they have a whole section in the menu devoted to crab, why not use fresh crabs? It would taste so much better. It was basically a fried crab smothered in a can of plum sauce. Great if you’re like me and you love the sweet and sour.
The food was «mystic» alright. I’m not sure if was in a good way though.

This place is as fancy inside as the outside suggests. Glad to see Hayward is getting some culinary muscle! We came here to celebrate my friends birthday… Happy Birthday Kris!
Right off the bat, the atmosphere and ambiance comes together nicely with a very clean and fresh Asian feel. For a Wednesday night, it felt like we were the only one’s dining-​in surprisingly. I’ll blame that on the global economic meltdown. The service was quick and friendly and very accommodating for large parties. We ordered a variety of dishes, picking at a wide array of you’re commonly found Chinese dishes. All of which were good and served on fancy plates.
Navigating the menu was a little difficult because it was the size of a car manual with many pages to flip through. I guess I’ve grown used to the over-​sized menus you can hide your whole body behind. If you don’t have a book mark, it’s easy to forget what you’re eyeballs were attracted to. I’ll give them credit for the menu design, it looked nice enough to pass as wdding invitation.
Overall, good place, I’m sure I’ll visit again.

I CANNOT wait to bring my friends here! Beautiful setting– mod décor and it has a nice ambience! Has a different, intimate feel to it compared to other Chinese food joints yet the food excels way better than those Americanized restaurants like P.F. Chang’s. It definitely exceeded my expectations when I saw it from the street.
Loved that they have my basic dim sum favorites at night as well! The pork and shrimp dumplings were not the best I’ve tasted but they were well above average. The pork buns had more bun than pork but definitely fulfilled my cravings. I have to say that their honey walnut prawns are truly the BEST– they were crunchy on the outside and succulent on the inside, the flavor was phenomenal. My party and I were glad we got the large plate of this! It was very fresh, and we came to the consensus that it was all of our favorite!
Service was also good. Their wine cellar was breath taking! Can’t wait to have some after I give birth (am preggo). Hmmm, hope they’re open for lunch. I think I’ll be ordering some food for to-​go today…

Chinese food in a bistro setting. Modern décor with dim lighting & good ambiance. Almost feels like a «lounge». Good food presentation. I like the stainless steel chopstick rest (some are personalized with the restaurant’s name). Good place to take a date or for a birthday gathering. You get the Chinese food in a non-​Chinese restaurant setting.
We went on a sat around 7pm. Didn’t make reservation & asked the hostess if she could seat bf & myself at a table where we could sit side by side. It took her a few minutes but she was able to accommodate us. The waiter was attentive and courteous. He served 2 other large parties but still made us feel attended to. Our water glasses were never empty, thanks to the water lady.
Now onto the food. I like the small plate option since there were only 2 of us. We ordered the crab & prawns noodles in a buttery sauce, the entrée size of the string beans, & small plates of walnut shrimp & sizzling steak cubes. Everything was very good. I don’t think I can pick a favorite since I liked all 4 dishes. The waiter took his time to «present» the dishes every time he brought us a plate. BF especially liked that. We had a
certificate and the total came out to be $ 20 including tax & tip ($ 45 before the certificate was deducted).
Minus 1 star because it IS a bit on the pricy side & I would probably not go unless I had a dining certificate. We had no expectations going in, and were pleasantly surprised.

If you’re from SoCal, then Sampan is comparable to Pei Wei, give or take (since I haven’t actually set foot in Sampan).
My friend actually got a bunch of takeout from this place for a dinner we were having with a group of friends. Menu items included sauteed string beans, Mongolian beef, sampan fried rice, beef ho fun, dragon whisker fish filet, sole filet in 3-​cup sauce. Now I may be biased because we didn’t have the food when piping hot. Generally, everything was not bad but not outstanding. I did taste a couple big chunks of ginger and garlic in some of the dishes which I had to spit out. I love the flavors but despise eating the actual things. The dragon whisker fish filet is slightly strange because it’s served on a bed of shredded egg but the fish is almost as if it should have been cooked egg drop style.
Takeout presentation (is there such a thing?) was beautiful though. The boxes were standard and modern but oh, the packets of utensils! In a zip plastic bag, you get a napkin, wet nap, chopsticks, fork, spoon, and soy sauce. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal but it’s the little things that count. I should’ve taken a picture, dang it.
I don’t normally like to go out for Chinese food and I know a lot of people really hate on anything less than straight-​from-​China-​authentic, but sometimes having fusion-​ish Chinese food is refreshing. It’s almost in its own cuisine. Overall, this seems like a good place for a quick lunch. I noticed that you can make reservations on Open Table… which makes me curious to see how fancy this place actually is.

After our first disappointing go with Sampan we decided to give it another shot with to-​go dim sum.
With two small trays of dim sum it comes to a pricey $ 15. The packaging is nice reusable plastic lidded trays along with a thoughtfully packaged bag of utensils and condiments; however, there aren’t any fortune cookies.
The dim sum ranged from mediocre to poor. Most of the items had a slightly stiff consistency as if it were somewhat stale. The flavor wasn’t bad, but in my opinion, if you don’t nail the texture of fresh dim sum then you’ve loss the entire battle.
This is by far the worst dim sum I’ve had in recent memory. I can’t really even remember a time where I’ve disliked any dim sum. This was a great surprise.
I guess that whole Asian restaurant check is correct. If an Asian restaurant isn’t packed with Asians then it isn’t worth your time. If it’s packed with everyone else, it probably isn’t authentic but at least it’s tasty. Sampan is neither packed with Asians nor non-​Asians. I think you get my drift. More like 1.5 stars.
Note to self: It’s probable you lost to your sister on betting how long this place will last.