LA Bistro

1) Does Unilocal have 0 star rating?
2)If you hate someone or want someone to hate you, ask them to go to LA bistro today.
3)I highly recommend their most famous «THROW UP» dish, 1 pound salmon.
4)Worst nightmare ever.

Closed Down.

Tried this place several times, thinking the experience would improve. On the first time we went here, nearly every supposedly hot dish we ordered came out lukewarm to cool. We struggled thru whatever we could, but we ended up having to send one of the dishes back for them to reheat because it was too cold for our taste. When the dish came back, they almost brought it to some other table and we had to wave them down to bring it back to us. Even after the «reheat,» the food was surprisingly not even warm. Maybe they just took it to the back and brought it back without doing anything.
The waiters here are slow and seem confused about which table ordered what. The times we’ve come, we had to wait at least 30 – 40 minutes from the time of order to the time our food arrived. Then we had waiters dropping by with dishes we didn’t order and they had to track down the correct table. One of the dishes a member of our party ordered was not available, and it took them at least 10 minutes to figure that out and tell us. So the individual had to order something different and so her meal came extra late. We asked for some straws for our drinks and it took forever before they remembered to bring it.

Bad service, bad food and poor management. They finally close this place down for good. I wonder if the owner has learned his lessons.

I don’t really have anything good to say about LA Bistro. I split about 5 different dishes with my group, and nothing stood out as being that good. Everything had a strange, somewhat generic taste. My first bite of the Hong Kong style pork chops was almost entirely bone. The service was pretty poor as well. My small glass of water was soon empty and I had to ask two different waiters before I finally got a refill. I definitely left unsatisfied, and I didn’t even get a fortune cookie!

Came here with my family for mothers day dinner. This place has been opened for quite awhile but has gone through a lot of managerial changes as well as their name. A lot of the reviews rate this place down, but it wasn’t that bad too us.
TASTE
We ordered hella food for four people. The walnut shrimp was definitly delicious. It was pricy for the amount, but the shrimp were a good big size, crispy on the exterior, and the sauce wasn’t overly creamy. The first fried oyster I bit into appeared to be very sandy, but every consequent oyster was cleaned well. However, it was really heavy even with the lemon juice over it eating a large meal. My dad got the lamb shanks. They were good, but just my luck, the first one I tried tasted off because it was undercooked. The other ones were just fine. I got chicken steak cutlet. My pasta side was good but I was suprised that my side vegies were just diced peas and carrots with cabbage. My mom got the baked salmon in cream sauce. To me it seemed that the cream wasn’t finished cooking, but my mother justified that more time in the oven would probably overcook the fish. My sister had the 12oz filet migon special. It also came with a green salad with fried salmon. The fish here was cooked beautifully and went well with the simple salad, it was even arranged playfully in the shape of a fish. Now back to the meat… When I looked at the size of that meat and the price we were paying, I thought something was out of place. The meat was tender and soft, but to my memory I don’t think it tasted like filet migon.
SERVICE
The service was prompt and professional. They refilled our lemon iced teas wihout needed us to ask. It may help I you speak chinese; I believe we conversed with them in mandarin, but I’m sure they speak cantonese also. One downside was that there wasn’t a hostess when we came in, so it was a bit awkward, but someone addressed us not too long later.
AMBIANCE
The exterior is slightly bland and the neighborhood itself isn’t a real looker. When you step inside it’s a drastic change in mood. The lighting is very comfortable. The seating is quite roomy and comfortable. It looks like a large banquet hall and is large enough to pass as one, I’d say.
I’ll definitly come back here, but since their menu is so vast, I’ll use caution as to the dishes that I order because not everything there is great.

Yet another restaurant that has many name changes… it was first New Capital Seafood Restaurant — they moved and it became The King’s Palace restaurant, and now it’s LA Bistro.
All I can really say about this café is the food is hardly eatable… it’s not that it’s too salty or greasy or bland but it tastes wrong and funky. I’ve been here several times and I ordered different entrees each time.
First time here I had Wonton Noodle Soup… the first bite I thought I tasted soap… then I asked my mom to try it… she also tasted soap… instead of asking them to take my order back and give me something else (I don’t want spit in my food) I ordered the Chicken Steak and that came with a super crispy and burnt skin. I tried the Pork Cutlet my mom ordered and it was really dry.=/
The steak was really bad… the whole thing was wasted because it was so tough and chewy and half of it was just the fat. I even tried their special… Baked Tiger Shrimp «Portuguese Style» — it was no Tiger more like Kitty Shrimp… so small and there was only 4 – 5 shrimps and there wasn’t much flavor –_​-​«
The service, on the other hand, was really good… each time I came here the waiters were really friendly and helpful… but that’s not enough to keep me going here.
They also have a super small parking lot… usually if it’s busy you would have to find street parking.
I don’t think I’ll be coming back here anytime soon… they might change again though… I’ll give it a year or two. –_–

Had this place for a second time because the grannies thought it was close. So I gave it a second change to improve
In my stomach: Salmon Special, Fried Chicken Steak and Singapore Fried Rice Noodles, Beef and Broccoli
In my mind: how is it possible to serve this food? The salmon gone bad? It tasted like it’s expired! The singapore rice noodles was bland and the noodles were wet and soggy? I might even do a better job cooking it myself. I had to eat it with siracha to cover the taste. The chicken steak is acceptable but the spaghetti and veggies tasted frozen. Beef was overcooked but the broccoli was good.

Having been to many Chinese Café’s in the San Gabriel area, I would rate this place pretty good and is quite reasonably priced. I have tried 3 of the 4 $ 4.99 specials and I think they are a very good value. The Portugese style Shrimp actually tastes very good and has a generous serving of shrimp. Notwithstanding one of the reviewer’s comments, it is not curry shrimp! My wife especially likes the Salmon special because it has a generous portion and done quite well. I have also tried the Chinese style dishes and they are suprising good. Try the fried toufu with mixed vegetables.
Having been to LA Bistro quite a few times, I find the services also quite good. For the cafes on Garvey, KT has the worst service, the waiters are sully and rude. City café is overpriced and the food is nothing special. The same goes for JJ Café. ABC café is not as good, despite the fact that it has the same owners. The breakfast is also good. It is at least as good as Face café on Valley which usually has lines waiting outside on weekends.
Overall, it has pretty good food for the price. The only criticism is that the place’s cleanliness is subpar. If the restrooms and the place can be cleaner, the place would be more appealing.

So we decided to try this place out based on a recommendation from my Auntie Roma. It’s a Saturday night around 6 and the place is about 20% full. We walk in and were seated right away but no one bothered to get us menus.
I was not in the best of moods anyway so I’m actually getting pissed as I see the Asian wannabe hipster waiters stand around doing nothing and not worrying about customer service. We finally flagged down a waiter and he finally got us our menus except we were a party of 5 and he brought 4. It just gets worse from here. We order from the menu and I’ll admit the specials are pretty generous…$ 4.99 for either Kalbi (stay away from this), Chicken steak (average), or Salmon (tasty and good portions). My wife was going to order the Chicken and decided to change to Salmon. I ordered the Kalbi but when my wife switched up, the waiter scratched out my order and they brought me chicken. I would’ve been cool about it but F them, they screwed up so I made them take it back and bring out the right order.
Food is average… On Garvey, KT and Citi Café rank higher and marginally better service.
I can’t believe that this place is so poorly managed with the hosts in their child-​molester hipster glasses standing around while a few of the waiters are working their asses off. Good décor with flat screens mounted on the perimeter walls and well lit. I do hope their management reads these reviews and rectifies their customer service or this location will be changing names again and very soon.

you get what you pay for.
the food is okay. the quantity good for the price. the quality: its chinese food. cleaniness is always a issue as the amount of MSG as well
overall:
good price
good quantity
left full and with a MSG headache, but hey, it tasted good.

The name of the restaurant was enticing, but that ‘s all.
The place LOOKED all right, when you first walk in, although a bit claustrophobic with that big wall thing when you first enter, but no biggy.
Anyway, the food was just NOT enjoyable whatsoever. I had expected to sit down for a nice calming dinner and enjoy my food. I can’t even remember what I ordered, but it was chicken over rice of sorts.
Calming was the LAST thing about my dinner. The more I ate the more agitated I got. The chicken was just… disappointing to say the least. Picture this. You’re at home, cooking chicken legs for, say, a dinner party or something, and you chop off excess pieces here and there to make the presentation nicer, and you skin off the chicken for health reasons. Take those excess pieces you chopped off (which have random pieces of fat or skin hanging off) and cook it over your rice. THAT’S what I had. I’m not exaggerating the least bit. The reason I got more and more agitated was because there wasn’t a least ONE bit of food where I could just happily savor the food. I have to wait, pause, pause, pause, search, search in my mouth for random crushed pieces of chicken bones. Like WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? I don’t mind picking out chicken bones, but they honestly used left over chicken from something, so all the bones were crushed you you CANNOT just ENJOY the food whatsoever. VERY disappointing. And might I add, I deliberately DIDN’T choose something from their «specials» menu, so it wasn’t CHEAP either, so I expected more from that. But others of my party had a few of the «specials» and they probably were able to enjoy their food more than I did.
Oh and another thing, the day I went, they weren’t all that busy, plenty of empty tables… so what does that mean? They can at least sweep up and keep the place tidy right? WRONG. We get seated at the table, and the floor is just speckled with vegetable chunks packets of sugar, food bits and pieces. That was able to kill my appetite right off the bat, and to be further disappointed with their food… it was just a bad experience.
I might give this place another try, say give it a few more months or years to get settled, this place needs LOTS of polishing.

Salmon with pasta was ok. Eel over rice was ok. Steamed tofu with seafood wasn’t bad. I just wouldn’t recommend the watercress with fish balls. I couldn’t taste the fish meat at all because there was so much flour and cornstarch; processed too much.

Probably will give this place another try after things have settled down, but this just opened establishment has too many blemishes right now.
Party of 13, so I tried a little bit of everything on the menu. Let’s start with the positives: Food came out fast for it being super crowded. The beef stew over rice had good flavor. The portion sizes were generous. Some drinks are $ 1 with meal purchase. That’s about all folks.
Negatives: Waiter messed up 6 of our items. One person got a completely different item (lamb chops) instead of what he wanted (spareribs in black bean sauce). The chops were dry, btw. One order came with rice instead of pasta. One order came with chow fun instead of vermicelli. Two other orders, the waiter never asked if we wanted pasta or rice. My rib-​eye steak came with the wrong sauce and it was dry and flavorless. The first time in my life that a steak had no beef flavor. Other dishes I tried: the singapore style (curry) noodles were average. The baked portuguese chicken on rice was heavy and way too creamy. The sole filet was overdone and tough. The beef stew with curry was too spicy for my taste, but the beef stew was tender.
Finally when the bill came, they charged us the full price for drinks when they should have been a dollar each.
So why did I say that I would give it another try? I do see some potential here, and after some growing pains, maybe things will be better. I guess I would give them the benefit of the doubt and try again … maybe in a few months.

This place hasn’t opened for too long, but it was pretty jam packed on Christmas day! It’s your typical Hong Kong style café and doesn’t seem to offer anything out of the ordinary. The food is VERY cheap, but the quality is mehhh… I ordered the salmon with pasta and veggies for $ 4.99! I mean, who can honestly complain about that, right? Well, my salmon was over cooked, and the service wasn’t that great. It seems like the servers are all fairly new since I noticed a lot of them walking around with a confused look on their face holding a plate of food.
I’d probably come back on a less busy day to give it another try. I actually would like to try the porteguese shrimp dish for $ 4.99 which is basically an asian yellow curry dish.
Overall, the décor is pretty updated, and the food is relatively cheap. Just be warned, that as others might have said… the services sucks! GOod luck: D

This place definitely defines ehh café food in the 626. First off, the prices for lunch are probably the cheapest you’ll find, unless you go to ABC Café… But wait, this place is co-​owned by the same guy who runs ABC!!! Once I saw the owner and his son here, I immediately regretted coming here.
Food took forever to come out. Portions are reasonable for the price but come on, the food was barely warm (like food left out at the picnic table on a windy day). The hottest thing from both dishes we ordered was the sauce for my pork chop. I literally sank pieces in the sauce to heat up the food. Another common aspect of the two dishes we had were the oily plates. This just made the food taste phenomenal because we all know how good cold oil-​drenched noodles and pork chops taste. It’s like the chef didn’t even wait for the wok to burn off all the oil or heat up right before he started stir-​frying our noodles.
I guess the only two things I can say are good at this place are the lemon tea and the low prices/​good portion size. But honestly, I won’t come back to this place even if some1 invited me. Heck, I’d rather pay for some place better than to return here.
Side Note: Service has improved, in respect to what previous entries have written about. I got my refills w/​o having to ask and the bill came pretty quick but they looked like they hated being there (ZOMBIE WAITERS: P)
Score Break-​Down: Food 1.5; Service: 2

Came here for lunch.
Great deals for their dishes (ie. $ 4.99 specials); however, the SERVICE sucked so bad– it took like a year to get our drinks, and another decade to get our food. On top of that, the table next to us got their salmon dish partially raw. Yes, raw. Anddd the waiters/​waitresses there were pretty disrespectful when handling with the refills (which I didn’t get any) and paying for our bills.
The deals might seem amazing, but don’t be fooled cause when you order a drink, it’ll come out to the same price as any other café. So I suggest customers not to order drinks if they want that $ 5 deal.
Food was decent. It was just the horrible horrible service that killed my dine in experience here at LA Bistro.
I guess I’ll give it a few months til they organize their staff and work on their service until I return for seconds, or possible thirds.
But for now, I’ll pass.

Hong Kong style place, light crowd, still had the bamboo at the front door. Tried the chicken, Korean ribs, and tiger shrimp special plates. Good for what you pay. I’m not overly impressed with it (chicken was the best of the 3), but the wife likes it.

We decided to try this place out since it recently opened (meaning still clean inside) and they advertised some good «dine-​in» deals. Their menu is pretty extensive, so we had no problem choosing something. We ordered the Korean bbq ribs special and a chicken porriage. The ribs were ok, although it would have been better if it was marinated. The porriage was horrible. It was too watery and did not retain any flavor. The worse part of the night was the service. The place wasn’t that crowded when we went. At most, 5 – 6 tables filled. It took the waiters forever to take our order. It was also difficult to get thier attention. Only a soda arrived at our table and we had to ask for the water that we requested when we ordered the food. When it came time for the check, we had to ask three different people for it and ended up waiting another 15 minutes! Although it’s a given that if you dine at any Asian eatery, don’t expect excellent service. You’re lucky if you even get mediocre service. Would NOT recommend this place.