Pagoda Bamboo Lounge

Very nice place, excellent service, ambiance fun music etcetera. Only problem need to get more cocktails
(bad drinks) only few selections. Other than that. Very nice.

I have never been treated so poorly at a «reputable» night club. My friend brought her entire wedding party to Padoga and while there was told she could not be served a drink on her wedding night because the way she was holding her dress made her seem «intoxicated». The man who said this, Joe, turned out to be an errand boy for the promoter and didn’t even have the authority to make such decisions. Really poor ownership at this place. I live in LA and one would think I would have encountered more I incompetency and jerks but this place takes the cake!

Intimate venue. Perfect for a concert or shindig in the evening. Just saw Hiatus Kaiyote there on Halloween night. Good times and the bartenders pour with a heavy hand. Thank you!

What night did we come out?
Thursday
How was the line?
Short
What did we have?
2 Greygoose and Redbull
How was the crowd?
Bay Hip
Hip Hop Goers
How was the scene?
Social
What’s the demographic?
Equal number of men and women
What’s the ambience?
Underground Hip Hop Performance
What kind of music was playing at Pagoda Restaurant?
Underground Hip Hop
What’s the noise level?
Loud
Will we hang out at Pagoda Restaurant in the future?
Maybe: Drinks are extremely overpriced considering the drinks we ordered didn’t require mixology skills. Unless you whip me up a complex cocktail, you shouldn’t be charging me $ 13 for simple Top Shelf Mix Drinks.

I attended a spring clothing line event here. This is a cool hidden spot within the Fairmount Hotel. The bartender was very cool and made my drink strong.
The setup for the evening was intimate and relaxed. There was a DJ playing chilled out instrumentals. A very nice place to kick back and lounge!

I was here for a dinner party on a Saturday, so before we sat down to eat properly, a lot of us were at the bar. We ordered a couple of drinks, and some drinks that were offered by the bartender. The guy definitely knew what he was suggesting, and it was a pleasant surprise.
Then we sat down an hour later and ate. I don’t remember what I ordered (blame the alcohol on that), but it just felt like drunk food. And for drunk food, I didn’t really appreciate it at all. Maybe it was something that I could find a strip mall somewhere for half the price, but it just wasn’t good.
But I did enjoy the drinks.

Didn’t go here for the food, just for the afterhours scene last night. My friends and I were definitely surprised to find that they had an epic funk and hip-​hop DJ from Belgium visiting. Probably the best DJ I’ve heard in San Jose since moving here in January.
The drinks were priced fairly ($ 5 for any beer I think) and I was given free shots by a hostess walking around. Pretty sweet!
The service was great, and we actually spent a good deal of time joking around with the bartenders, hostesses and bouncers inbetween the DJ’s sick beats.
I’ll be back again.

Really really bad. Bad service, really bad food, not worth your time. For Fairmont standards, or really any standards. This business must be wholly surviving on foot traffic from hotel guests who will probably eat here once in a lifetime.
When we walked in, there was no one there to welcome us. We literally did not know if we were in the front entrance or back entrance. When someone did come, we told them we had a reservation and they were like who are you and why are you here basically. Something about how we were late so our reservation deletes from the system. No need to make us feel bad about being 7 mins late when there are like 17 tables open.
Food was not good at all. Esp for bay area when we have such good chinese food, This was worse than panda express. Came here only because we had a groupon.

My Ratings:
Quantity: 2 — Enough
Quality: 1 — Yuck
Price: 1 — Even with coupon, I wasted my money
Location: 3 — Nice restaurant and table setting
Parking: 2 — Parking lot or street parking
Service: 1 — Cranky old servers
Speed: 1 — Slow
Overall: I would not recommend this place!
My Opinion/​Story:
I got a Travelzoo coupon for a three course meal. First course was soup, which was bland and sad. Second course was the entrée, which lacks flavor and not enough to share, and the last was dessert which was pleasant enough but not memorable. This place should change management, chef and cooks… throw in some newer servers as well. I would not come back here even if they give us the food for free.

It is NOT worth coming here even if you have some sort of Groupon or other type of deal. The worst part about this place was the service. I’m not sure if it was because they had already assumed we were using a Groupon (which they were right about), but it was bad.
It started out on the wrong foot from the moment I stepped into the restaurant. I’d made reservations through OpenTable for 6:30. I admit I was definitely late bc I hit more traffic than I thought I would, got there at 6:45 before the rest of my party. Stood around for a while and was totally ignored for a few minutes. Finally a guy (maitre’d?) asked me if I needed help and I told him about my reservation. He made a horrified expression and said they basically «gave up» my reservation since they only hold on to them for 20 min. I was a little confused by that because I arrived before the 20 minute mark and because the restaurant was half empty (and actually never filled up the whole time we were there). :op But he told me I’d need to wait about 10 minutes before I could be seated.
When we finally got a table, service was super slow. They did say they were short people, but it was still a pretty abysmal rate. They brought out the dishes slowly one by one so we could at least eat them hot. When our first dish came out, though, they didn’t bring out the rice we’d ordered with it, so we had to flag one of the waitresses down to request it and then wait a few minutes to get it. So our first dish did wind up getting cooled down anyway. We understood the wait for the other dishes, but come on, rice? It’s gotta be just sitting in a rice cooker waiting to get put into a bowl. :op
Foodwise, the only reason I’m giving this place 2 stars instead of 1 is because I thought our honey walnut shrimp dish was pretty good and our kung pao scallops were also decent. Both dishes were way overpriced for their portion size though. And the roast duck we ordered was terrible, way too salty. You can definitely get way better Chinese food at other places for way cheaper.
I understand higher prices because the restaurant is located in the Fairmont hotel, but for that same reason, I would think the service should be way better for being in a hotel. I expect semi-​crappy service from some Chinese dive restaurant, but in a hotel? Bah.

My reason for even setting foot into this restaurant is because of a Groupon that was given to me from a friend. Like any true Unilocaler, I looked up reviews for the restaurant before going and was prepared for the absolute worst while noting the poor ratings. I can sum up this place in two words: Rip Off.
The food was only okay (I would say a 3 star rating based solely on food), but at steep, steep prices. Entrees averaged at about $ 16 or higher, which is extremely overpriced for Chinese food. Not only that, but the servings were rather small. Not to mention that they charged $ 3 for each bowl of rice, which is absolutely ridiculous. I guess it’s because of the location of this restaurant… it’s located inside the Fairmont Hotel, so of course, you should expect to be ripped off with Americanized Chinese food.
What was super notable was that the first hostess that we had spoken to told us that we would have to wait 20 – 30 minutes. Upon glancing around the restaurant and noting that there were plenty of open tables, we were extremely skeptical. He said that it was because there was a large volume of online reservations that had been made and that they were expecting it to be a busy night. Luckily, a second hostess spoke to us and seated us right away. Our wait time was about 10 minutes thanks to her. during our meal there, we noticed that there were still plenty of open tables and were gravely annoyed at the first hostess for telling us that it was going to be a busy night. What a noob.
The restaurant itself had nice ambiance. Dim lighting, nice chairs, and silverware. I feel like that is pretty much what you’re paying for. Maintenance for a fancy looking place because food is only mediocre. Did I mention that they don’t validate for parking? This makes me a little sad.

If you are studying for the SATs, this review might help (as it has verbal and math lessons). And if the SATs are a distant memory, this review can still be educational (if you want to know why you should avoid this place like a childcare facility ran by Casey Anthony).
Anyway, class is in session. The word of the day is «pagoda.»
pagoda [puh-​goh-​duh]:
–noun
1. A religious building of the Far East, especially a multistory Buddhist tower, erected as a memorial or shrine.
2. A structure, such as a garden pavilion, built in imitation of a multistory Buddhist tower.
3. A total f***in’ rip off.
Okay, so I made up the third definition. But that’s how I feel about Pagoda, especially after I got suckered in by «false advertisement» and took La Novia here for the «Dinner and a Movie» deal.
The offer (as falsely advertised at the entrance of Pagoda) is 2 appetizers, 2 main courses, 2 glasses of wine, and 2 movie tickets (redeemable at the nearby Camera 12 Cinema) for just $ 50. Deep down, I had a hunch that getting all of this food, booze, and movie tickets at an «upscale» Chinese restaurant was too good to be true. And well, I was right.
It’s not $ 50. According to the receipt in front of me, It’s actually $ 72.19. How the hell did this happen?
Please read exhibit A, B, and C.
A. Got rice, b**ch? — This «deal» doesn’t include any rice. So each person at the table is charged $ 3.00 for a small bowl steamed rice. This takes the total up to $ 56. Okay, I am getting mad now.
B. Insanely (and illegally) high sales tax? — This is California, so you need to add sales tax, which was $ 6.11. If you do the math, or I do the math for you, you’ll realize that the sales tax rate here is about 10.9%. At the time that La Novia and I had dinner here, the sales tax rate in San Jose was 8.25%. So my sales tax should have been $ 4.62. Okay, I am getting madder.
C. La Novia and Archie are a large party? — You also need to include the 18% «large party gratuity» that is automatically added to your bill. Look, I know I have put on a little weight, so La Novia and I tip the scales at a total combined weight of 305 pounds. But by no means are we a «large party.» That’s ridiculous. Okay, I am now officially pissed off.
Anyway, that’s pretty much how this place robbed me of $ 72.19.
As for the food, it was mediocre. Our appetizers were barely edible. The «Salt and Pepper Prawns» did not make me smile like the silly rap group from the ‘80s. They were way too salty. I «pushed it» away. The «Mu Shu Pork» looked and tasted as if I bit into a baby’s diaper. Gross.
The main courses were okay, but were super small portions and highly overpriced. The «Honey Walnut Prawns» were good. But you only receive maybe 8 small prawns for $ 16. The «Almond Chicken» was bland and at $ 14 it was really overpriced for such a small portion. And as mentioned before, the steamed rice was $ 3 for each person. Even at $ 1.50 at your average Chinese restaurant it’s kind of a rip off, so charging $ 3 is pretty much highway robbery. Ugh.
In the end, you should avoid this place. I highly suggest you take the $ 72.19 (or more depending if they raise their fake sales tax rate) and take it Camera 12 Cinema. Drop $ 60 on a movie card that has 10 movie tickets on it. That’s $ 120 worth of tickets for half the price. Now that’s a deal.
Then take the remaining $ 12.19 and spend it Panda Express, as it tastes a lot better than this place. Ugh.
Basura!

My fiancée brought this deal from travelzoo hoping to treat me a nice dinner.
First time, he called to make an appointment for Saturday evening. The waiter over the phone told him that they were busy and don’t have any opening till 9PM. OK so we took the 9PM reservation. We arrived, but there were not busy at all. When we told the waiter that we have a reservation at 9PM, he said, «hmmm. sorry I think the chef just cleaned out the kitchen and left…» WHAT??? Why would the kitchen shut down when you know you are expecting guests???
So second time, we made reservation for a weekday evening. The restaurant was not busy, and the waitress immediately explained to us how would the travelzoo deal work.
The place was not very clean. The wall paper had stains all over. The plating set I have in front of me had a piece of dried rice…
We wanted to order the Roasted Duck, however the waitress said they are out. (Early in the evening and you are out? You are not that even busy.) As we try to pick out another entrée in replace of our first choice, the waitress became impatient. giving us looks.
We ordered:
— 2 wonton soups — bland, taste like canned chicken broth
— 1 salt and pepper prawns (6pcs) & 1 sweet and sour prawns (4pcs) — both are very salty and greasy, the crispy noodle holding the prawns was not cooking thoroughly; with comparison, I was joking that that sweet & sour sauce there worth 2 prawns.
— 1 prawns scallops with broccoli — very salty
— 1 steamed salmon — very bland
They are extremely small portion. My fiancée walked around the restaurant to look at what others have on table. For people who didn’t use the travelzoo deal, they get at least 2x the portion. OMG my fiancée was so angry knowing that and the rest of the dinner was not quite pleasant.
Because of that tiny entrée portion, we had to order rice ($ 3 a bowl). The rice was not high quality. While consuming it, we found a piece of plastic strip in the rice. It is coming from the plastic packaging for the rice bag. If one washes their rice before cooking, those pieces of plastic were supposed to flow on the top of water… so most likely they didn’t wash the rice prior cooking.
At the end, we got 1 dessert to share. How is it a 2-​person 4-​course meal if we only get total 7 courses?
Bad service. The waitresses disappear most of the time. They were rude anyway. (there is a difference between rude and inability to speak fluent English). Seriously, giving us smaller portion is not going to save your restaurant alot of money, but doing so leaving yourself a very bad reputation.
We will not ever come back here again and would not recommend this place.

Overpriced-​bad-​tasting chinese food. Even worst than Sino.
Bought a travelzoo $ 35 voucher for a 4 course dinner for 2 (2 soups, 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, and dessert), supposedly worth $ 80. I can see why it adds up to around $ 80…everything on the menu is overpriced!
–Won ton soup: $ 6 for a small bowl of soup
–Salt & Pepper Prawns: $ 12 for FOUR small pieces of shrimp, not «prawns». Extremely salty, yuck
–Minced Chicken mint rolls: $ 8. I don’t know why they call it «rolls», its minced chicken on a few lettuce pieces.
–Half roast duck: $ 16. Too oily and not enough meat on the duck pieces
–Prawn & Scallop with Broccoli: $ 18. They need to stop calling these «prawns» when you can find the same size of shrimp at Panda Express, for ¼ of the price
–Dessert: looks so pretty, unfortunately taste like it’s been sitting in the fridge for a few days
I gave it 2 stars because at least the ambiance was nice. Nice decorations, good lighting, clean & decorated plates, and professional looking waiters.

If it weren’t the coupon «3-​Course Romantic Chinese Dinner for Two» for $ 39, I probably would never come here, there are so many great Chinese restaurant around with real Chinese food at much cheaper price.
The décor is nice, since it is located inside the Fairmont Hotel. Our waiter is really odd and not super friendly. Every dish we asked him was «excellent». Food was ok though very americanized. Won ton soup was actually decent. Our water glass was contantly empty, and we asked for more water, we were given a big attitude. This is inside Fairmont hotel, doesn’t the hotel care that it needs to provide great service to their guests, including those dine at the restaurants? It was a complete joke that our glasses were always empty and we were given attitude and looks when we asked for more water! Also, the waiter accidently dropped some fork and knife on to the floor but immediately walk over to another table and set them next to the plates! Neitherless to say, we will not be back.

Location: 5 stars
Staff: 4 stars
Food: 2 stars
Does this establishment read reviews about their food at all? There’s bunch of complaints about salty food before me. Last night’s was no different. I don’t even want to go with what we ordered. EVERYTHING was salty!
To top it all it was pricey! Without the coupon it would have been $ 100 plus! I don’t care if it was pricey if the food was good. But we joked that I could cook their food with my eyes closed in my kitchen and do a bangin’ job!
There’s not much to like or feel nicey nice about the place. They charge extra for rice and tea. If it was up to me I wouldn’t order it.
The staff was good. We liked the female one better. The male staff was very loud!
The restaurant itself was huge with booths surrounding the perimeter. We got seated right away for our 7 pm rezzie. The booth was very small and with two entrees and two glasses of wine it got pretty crowded. Although it’s cozy for a mini celebration. Someone is about to embark on a fast track journey to a great future:)
Pagoda: read the reviews and re-​think your fee for everything! Rewind that moment with your chef when the salt was about to join the food on the wok! Less is better with sodium! Really! Then maybe we will be back!

Let me say right of the bat, the service was so bad we walked out so this is not a review of the food. Like a lot of other reviewers for this place my husband and I were gifted with the romantic 4 course dinner for 2 Travelzoo coupon. We decided to go here before attending a play at the Rep on a Tuesday night. Since I knew we had someplace to be I arranged for an hour and a half to eat and get to the theater a block away. Because we were aware of time I asked my husband EXACTLY what time it was when we walked in. 6:30 on the dot. Like others, we stood in the bar area for several minutes before someone who looked like a valet at the Fairmont asked us if we would like to be seated.
After being seated I got up to go the bathroom and left hubby with my drink order. 10 minutes later (I couldn’t find the bathrooms at first as you have to go out into the hotel lobby) I get back to the table and nothing! No water, no drinks, NOTHING! About 5 minutes later a woman comes by and without a word just pours our water and then walks away. We wait again. Finally hubby flagged down a waitress who told us she would be «right back.» When she finally does come back we tell her that we are in a bit of a time crunch and did she think we could make it out of the restaurant by 10 till 8 since we have the 4 course coupon? She says «Well this is fine dining so we say an hour to an hour 30 minutes.» I look at my watch and tell her we have been sitting there for 20 minutes already and she laughs and says «I don’t think so.» EXCUSE ME???
#1 If this is so called fine dining then I expect better service. I expect water and a cocktail at my table in less than 10 minutes after I walk in the door.
#2 If this is fine dining I expect for the waitress to not talk back to me and to know the customer is always right, which I knew I was because I had been checking my watch as we sat there
#3 The restaurant was a quarter full and you can’t get out a soup, app, entrée, and dessert in an hour when the customer makes a request? This isn’t Manresa or the French Laundry.
We told her «fine, we will just leave.» She says «I already marked your coupon.» I told her «well you can just mark though what you wrote because we are not staying.»
Headed across the street to Johnny Rockets. Got a fabulous waitress who got us our food in the time it took to simply have water poured at Pagoda. At least it gave hubby and me a fun catch phrase for the night, «I don’t think so.»

I only went because a friend had a Travelzoo local deal that offered dinner for two (appetizer, soup, entrée and shared dessert) for only $ 35. The premise here is upscale Chinese food, but I am really not sure there is such a thing. I mean, there is fancy Asian Fusion, such as that offered by Ming Tsai or Roy Yamaguchi.
My biggest complaints with the food were the lukewarm hot and sour soup (ironic, no?) and pot stickers. The flavors were good, but the temperature made them less appetizing. Much better, though, was the Szechuan Beef, which was super tender, flavorful and spicy. The service, though, was really lacking. No follow through at all. I would liked to have ordered another drink, but was never asked if I wanted one. Oh, and there was unidentifiable gunk along in the inside of my water glass. Yuck!
With so many people coming here with the Travelzoo voucher (I counted at least 5 tables that had this), this was Pagoda’s chance to hook some new customers. I mean, the food actually is quite good, if a little pricey. But, in the end, they blew it and I don’t see coming back here… unless Groupon or some other daily deals site does something here.

Came here for a date and it was nice. The food was a bit pricey but everything on their somewhat limited menu was tasty and cooked perfectly. We had the potstickers, Schezwan Chicken, and Peppered Beef. They have a full bar and a very good piano player was there on our visit.
It’s a bit hard to find tucked away in the fairmont hotel but it’s a pretty place (well decorated) and kind of fun. Service was very good.

Not very crowded, but friendly and yummy food!
We walked around downtown saturday night looking for something to eat! We were walking by this place on the way to somewhere else when I smelled this amazing thing… It was Pagoda! It looked empty, but we were so hungry and it smelled so good we figured we HAD to try it!
The door from 2^nd street is not the regular door, most people enter through the Fairmont hotel, but they were pleased as punch to see us and cam and opened the door for us!
We chose a booth and ordered up our meals — i went with tofu and eggplant — it said spicy — but i think you had to order it as such. I added some chircacha and whala– mmmm, yummy for my tummy!
Hubby went with the kung pow, xtra spicy and really enjoyed it! And our other friend went with shrimp and scallop dish and mushu wrappers and enjoyed his meal as well.
The water tasted chlorinated, but not having lived in CA for a few years, this could have just been the norm.
All in all it was an enjoyable meal! Good choice when all the fancy places are full on a Saturday night!