Leisure Cafe

My friends and I came here on Saturday night. There was no wait, but the restaurant was pretty packed! I only saw two people working, however only one was able to take orders and bring food out. It took a while for them to take our order, and for them to bring the food out. I gave it two stars because I felt like the lady was extremely stressed out causing her to hate her job and the service was absolutely terrible. We constantly had to ask for utensils. Our food came but had to wait several more minutes for the fork and knife to come out. Sad! I was able to stare at my food while I’m starving but unable to eat it. Another thing was, I ordered my drink and I asked if she had forgotten but she replied back saying «The girl doesn’t have time to make it» At this point I was extremely confused. Is she going to have time to make it? Is it that hard for her to make drinks? Are you gonna cancel it or what’s happening?

It’s really 3.5. I come here quite a lot with my family. And my experience with here is overall very good. The max is only around two waitress in here some I would say their English really isn’t that good. I never had the problem but sometimes I would see customers trying to get their attention however not succeeding the first or second time. But the waitress are friendly and the service is good. They have good food. Their style is like Chinese American food, not like the panada express one with sour and sweet whatever. They milk tea is pretty good here. No matter served hot or cold. It’s the same price and I like that about it. Some other cafes charges more for cold drinks compared to hot.
Today is the first time my family tried their steaks. It’s not the same as American steak. It was more like the steak you would have in Hong Kong. It was really really soft and tender. It could almost melt in your mouth in a way. (Just personal opinion) It tasted really good. And their fried rice and such are worth the price since the portion is really big. Their chicken wing are also really good but it’s really salty sometimes. Should give it a try.

This HK style café has a lot of potential, unfortunately it hasn’t taken the right steps in reaching their goal. Service is a huge problem, missing orders on a consistent basis. Food quality is a huge question mark at times. When I first started to come here it was decent, now I feel like if the manager is reading this review, he needs to take a careful hard look at this review.
Service: There is a major problem with food being undercooked, I had to tell the waiter 3 times that I wanted it well-​done not medium rare. I get my fish, it’s undercooked. The waiter it tells me she wrote it on the sheet and it was on the chef. There has been 32 – 35 occasions where we ask for a simple napkin, fork, additional order and it would take anywhere from 5 – 20 minutes. The owner might want to consider firing some people that work here and consider people that can take simple instructions.
Quality: Its what u expect from any HK style café, the quality of food here is good, there will be dishes you enjoy and some that u wont that is the reality with any joint.
They should stop kids from stepping on the seats its very dirty, a lot of little things they seem to miss. The pricing is not cheap either, you would expect a lot more with what you are paying for, but as mentioned earlier, they miss a lot of things.
I will most likely stop coming here as much as I did in the beginning.

It’s crazy how many times my friends and I constantly rely on leisure for pretty great food in the early mornings or late nights. Even though sometimes their service might fall apart due to slow serving or constant lagging of communications between us and each staff. everything seemed to be okay until new years eve. A few friends and I went there for lunch and we were done eating and waiting on our bill, we decided to pay by card and was intending to tip them by cash. But when one of the servers came over to pick up our bill and signed receipt she looked at it and started to lecture us in Chinese, quote one quote saying: «You’re not tipping? You can’t do that! We gave you water and tea.» I was very shocked and didn’t know how to react. My friend explained that we intended to pay by cash and she continue to say «Yes okay but yesterday you guys came in with around 10+ people and didn’t bother to pay tip. THAT IS NOT OKAY» and I finally had time to process everything and told her «We didn’t come in yesterday.» and she was like «Whatever, in the end it’s not okay to not give tip cause we served you and gave you water and tea.»
I WAS SO HEATED. LIKE WHAT?! The most you did was probably pouring everything and brought it to our table, by demanding us to tip you and implying that we are THOSE teenagers without tipping you is NOT OKAY. Just because we are younger patron doesn’t mean I will come here to eat and not tip or pay my bill. By you just implying and assuming all these unnecessary comments and lecture us is not how I intend my visit to a constant familiar restaurant.
In the end we tipped them. but that will be the LAST time I’ll ever come here and the LAST tip you’ll get from me.

Nice, modem and huge portions. I had the baked pork chop over tomato rice and it was huge! Everything we ordered was delicious. There was a seafood over rice dish that had a seafood cream sauce over rice and it was pretty unique.
Overall, I will be coming back if I was ABC diner Chinese food.

I’ve been a longtime and frequent leisure café patron since it first opened. I’ve gone at different hours, whether it’s a weekday lunch or at midnight on the weekend.
With that said, I know that this place doesn’t have the best service. You might wait up to an hour for your food and sometimes they might forget to serve some of your dishes. However, I still continue to come here because it’s the only Hong Kong style café within the San Leandro area and the food is pretty decent.
BUT an incident this week has me BENT. As used to the bad service as I am, I can’t get past this: So group of friends and I came in to eat. After we paid the bill, we decided not to tip because we were paying VIA card. (WE WERE INTENDING TO TIP WITH CASH WHICH IS BETTER FOR THE STAFF) Anyway, our server decided to come over to our table and lecture us in Chinese on why we didn’t tip. After explaining to her that we were tipping with cash SHE STILL lectured us and even compared us to other patrons who apparently didn’t tip. LIKE I DONT CARE? THAT WASNT US SO ??? Omg I’m still heated over this.
Moral of the story: Leisure Café will wont be as attentive and judge you over everyone else if you’re a group of younger patrons.
(But the food is still good. I recommend the Puff pastry seafood soup, salt and pepper chicken wings, porkchop baked rice, and the iced lemon tea SMH)

I have been here a couple of times, and most of these experiences were during the late hours of around 11 – 12 PM. The café is a fairly decent place for a late-​night snack, as there are a variety of appetizers, small dinner-​like dishes, and dessert. During most of my experiences here, there were only a couple of customers in the café.
Food: The food itself is pricey for the quantity as well as quality. For example, the pan-​fried potstickers, which cost around $ 7, are small, few, and taste on-​par with store bought potstickers from Costco. The only difference would be the cheese and white sauce that covers these postickers. Also, some of the food items are a bit watered-​down (i.e. non-​viscous) such as the clam linguini or many of the items with white sauce.
There are, however, some notably good snack items. The baked seafood soup with puff pastry has a soft exterior with a creamy combination of clam, shrimp, squid, and other seafood in a white sauce. The chicken wings, albeit a bit under-​cooked, are crispy and topped with salt, pepper, garlic bits, and bell peppers.
The dessert here is plated very nicely and taste pretty decent. I had the green tea ice cream waffle. The waffle was a little stale for my taste, but overall, a very good dessert, even though it was a bit messy with the chocolate.
Service: Waiting for the food to come is like waiting for all the water to drip from a bucket. The wait time for food has averaged from 30 minutes to even an hour, even with only a few customers in the restaurant. The staff were fairly receptive to requests made by the customers, occasionally having to ask where our food was, only to find out that they neglected to get the food out of the kitchen.
Ambiance: The restaurant is very quiet (due to its lack of customers), but has a very pleasant and spacious modern interior design.
Overall, the place is okay for a quick snack, but if waiting is not for you, avoid this place.

This is a late review, I ate here during a late afternoon in August for dessert. The store has a nice ambiance, tables and seats were new and clean. It was also very empty. There were only two other customers besides us.
We ordered a serving of fries, fried chicken wings, as well as waffle with green tea ice cream, mango, and strawberries. I had asked the waitress to serve the waffle with ice cream in the end so that it won’t melt while we are eating the other food.
Given that there was practically no other customers in the store, we expected the food to be served in a timely manner. However, we waited for over 20 minutes for the fries and chicken wings to be served. The food was good, pretty average, a little too salty on the chicken wings. But then, it seemed like the waitress almost forgot our other order, the waffle. We had finished the fries and chicken wings for quite a while already, but there was no waffle in sight. I heard the waitress chatting with someone in the back, probably the chef? But they weren’t talking about my order. Finally, I had to ask to waitress to bring my order, and she went to the kitchen and they are finally started to make my order.
Long story short, it took at least another 15 minutes before the waffle was served. The presentation could be slightly better, I felt that the chocolate sauce was too messy. However, the fruits were sweet, and the waffle was nice and crisp. I probably wouldn’t return to this place on my own, it was ok, but the service was very slow and the food is so-​so.

Aiiiyaaa! I knew this place had dodgy service. You can catch them on a good day or bad. This time, unfortunately, was the latter. My family and I ordered dessert only, which we assumed would be quick –I was SO wrong! Out of the 5 desserts we ordered, only 3 were able to come out within an hour’s time span. The dessert was pretty good, but the wait was just ridiculous! We canceled the rest of our orders and they were nice enough to charge us only for 2 dishes. So, I guess they know how to do business as they messed up, they made up for it.
I’ll always have a love hate relationship with Leisure Café.

Very biased for this restaurant because I ordered a crap ton of food along with being able to speak Cantonese (you all know how that goes #asiancustomerservice #doesntexist lol)
My favorite dish at any of these places is the baked spaghetti with chicken steak but they had pork chop here which was fine — hardly any fat, I was shocked! It was delicious too and was even happier they used linguine noodle than regular spaghetti hehe
There was a baked rod fish dish with rice? that was pretty nomz too
Skip the salmon fried rice and the seafood soup that comes in a toast box — came with octopus and a big ass calm — not so much my thing
Satisfied the craving and didn’t eat anything all day — would keep in my book if I’m ever in this area

I really did not have a good experience, but a few members of my family did so there must be something there. Also, disclaimer: I really have never been a huge fan of the food at these type of cafes.
I had the seafood soup topped with puffed pastry, very impressive to look at so I was excited about trying it. It was pretty difficult to eat and the soup was very salty. My husband had a corn chowder, better because the sweet corn cuts through the salt. My mother in law had salmon fried rice that was insanely bland. My father in law had beef tongue in curry, a little on the spicy side, but there was more flavor.
Meh.

This place has the worst service ever. I came here with my mom and we were waiting to be acknowledge by someone but it took a good 5 mins before someone said anything to us. The waitress there just looked at us and continued on with whatever she was doing. Finally, my mom said something and someone finally noticed us and pointed to a table.
We sat down and they gave us some menus. They have a variety of dishes that were unfamiliar to me when it comes to a HK style café. Prices were a little bit on the expensive side and none of the dishes seemed really appealing to me. So I decided to order the baked pork chop over spaghetti, while my mom ordered the curry beef tongue over spaghetti. Flagging down a waitress also took some effort because they were just no where to be found or just busy ignoring us. It wasn’t even that busy during the time we went (a little after 8 pm on a weekday), and it was like they didn’t want to help us. So finally someone took our order and we waited for our food.
When our food came, it looked nothing like the picture in the menu. The pork chop was covered in a sweet ketchupy sauce with cheese and underneath it was some linguine noodles. Yup, linguine, not spaghetti. Apparently, Chinese people will use whatever noodles they have and make a dish with it. It barely had any taste and was definitely not what a baked pork chop over spaghetti should taste or look like. My moms curry beef tongue was also very bland and the curry was very watery. The cooks here obviously have never cooked what a real HK café dishes because it lacked so much ingredients and flavor.
I will never come here again. Not worth my time and money. They need to improve on their service and as well as their quality of their food.

The word has gotten out people — this place is always packed now (maybe even a bit of a wait) Despite a low Unilocal rating, I think just based on food quality itself it deserves a 4. The food hits the spot and makes my Asian palate very happy. I love a good HK style café — so comforting & doesn’t break the bank.
With the success of T4 right next door, sister restaurant Leisure Café is bringing in a lot of customers to a formerly unsuccessful part of the plaza (partly because it doesn’t face E.14^th and somewhat hidden).
They have a pretty large menu but my go to dish is usually one of the baked rice or spaghetti dishes — is piping hot and STAYS that way from start to finish. Generous portions which means yummy leftovers for lunch the next day! The people I’ve dined with or have recommended to come here have (for the most part) enjoyed it too.
Prices are very reasonable which is why it’s super packed now. Asians know quality & a good bargain when they see it LOL (it’s true!) They are also open late which is makes it great option for late night eats.
They have two TVs and that’s usually broadcasting two different channels. The place is kept pretty clean (including the restroom) which is a PLUS!
Service can be painfully slow but I’ve heard from friends that they’ve hired more staff recently so service is slowly improving. I’m pretty understanding of slow service though when there is only 2 severs for a packed house.
Side note: They have Durian Mochis (OMG) and I really like them but do the other non-​Durian lovers a favor — Order them to go haha: D :D

I think I got lucky or something and ordered the right dishes because the stuff we had was good (compared to other Hong Kong cafes).
The clam linguine has a lot of noodles and yes, a lot of broth. Some might say it’s too watery except the broth is super garlicky and good enough to drink.
Another gem was the baked rock cod and spinach over macaroni (or rice or spaghetti). Eating it with macaroni makes it less heavy in my opinion and it’s pretty much Chinese mac and cheese. The rock cod was cooked just right and spinach was fresh and not watery.
The HK milk tea was average in my opinion. Not overly sweet at least but it was missing some depth. I had to remind our waitress because she obviously forgot about them.
In terms of the environment, it’s up to date and nicer than Cousin Café or Venus Café (both in Newark). A couple big screen TVs.

Had a craving for some Hong Kong style food, so I decided to stop by Leisure. First walking in, we were acknowledged pretty quickly hut had to wait a few minutes for the waitress to clean the table for us, but there were plenty of other open tables.
I ordered the Milan Chicken Steak with rice and my friend ordered the salmon fried rice. My chicken steak was okay. It was a little bit too sweet, had not enough cheese and lacked salt overall. However, my friend’s salmon fried rice was perfect! Good balance of savory and sweet, so that was a good part of the meal.
However, the service was a tad slow. It took about 30 minutes for one if our dishes to come which was a bit long because there were only a couple people in the restaurant. The waitresses also tended to be around the back most of the time, so it took a bit to grab their attention, but they were friendly.
Pretty good Hong Kong food, a tad lacking service – check it out.

I would consider this a fushion chinese restaurant. There seems to be more and more of these cafes opening, which is a good thing. They’re open late for all your munchy needs. There wasn’t a crowd like some cafes, and the place is spot on clean, which is very important in my opinion in an restaurant. Overall, good first impression.
The menu was what I expected out of cafes. I ordered the baked pork chop over rice, which was good. The pork chop wasn’t dry, rice was soft. Overall not bad. My friends ordered the clams, which I found to be tasteless. I usually prefer the black bean sauce clams, but they didn’t have those. We also had the curry cow tongue, not something I prefer but it was alright.
This wasn’t one of the better café’s I’ve been to, and judging from what I had, I might/​might not come back here. But this place is definitely worth the try, especially if it’s late and nothing else is open.

This is like the Shooting Star of San Leandro except with a smaller menu. I like that they open late and doesn’t get as crowded as Shooting Star.
The first time I came here, I ordered the sea food baked rice. It wasn’t too salty which was good. I wouldn’t consider this a cheese baked rice dish since it is more creamy rather than cheesy. The second time I came here, we ordered the salt and pepper tofu and the kimchi sea food fried rice. The tofu was good and spicier than other places which I liked! The kimchi fried rice had less kimchi than I expected it to. It could be better if there was more kimchi.
Like other reviewers said, the service is pretty slow even when there isn’t a lot of people there. I definitely wouldn’t come here if I was in a hurry.
Parking is terrible here during lunch time! I didn’t even know so many people come to this shopping plaza for lunch! Also, watch out for the cops if you park in a 2 hour zone. A cop almost gave me a ticket as I walked back to my car!
Overall, I would come back when nothing else is open and I don’t want to drive all the way to Shooting Star. I also want to try their desserts too!

Came in around 11:15 PM
Got say right away, server asked us what we wanted to drink, tea or water.
11:25 (still in the restaurant) I called and placed an order to go because it was obvious that we were not going to be helped.
11:35 server comes by and asked us if we’ve been helped. (Menus are still on the table). I told her that I jut placed an order to go instead but I would still like to order a mango delight.
11:40 a cup of hot tea and my mango delight arrives at the table. Server asks me what I ordered. I told her my order.
About 2 minutes later, she tells me that they ran out of sauce for my food.
(So what she is telling me is that they are just now working on my order when I called it in over 10 minutes ago?!)
11:55 my food finally arrives. At least they got the order right.
Food is pretty good. The mango delight was good. Too bad the service sucks.

I always stop by Leisure Café in the evenings around 11pm so I’ve never had to deal with a terrible wait for food or bad service like the other reviews here. In the couple of times that I’ve been here, I’ve actually encountered relatively good service and a minimal wait time for food. The server I always get (man with glasses on weekend nights, usually the only server there LOL dunno his name) is always really responsive and polite. I really like how it’s one of the only late-​night HK cafes in San Leandro, and that I don’t have to drive all the way to Shooting Star in Oakland CT for some late night grub! They have a pretty wide selection of dishes including ramen (instant lol), baked rice/​spaghetti, curry, toast, and dessert. The interior is also very cute and modern and they have TVs with the games/​news on. The booths are roomy and comfy, similar to Shooting Star.
Things I’ve tried:
— Baked Portuguese chicken over rice: yummy creamy sauce over chicken chunks and veggies. Quite a generous portion. Enough to serve two. And its only like $ 8… Thumbs up!
— Mango «dumpling” — AKA mochi with fresh mango in it. Hella bomb. but like $ 3.50 for 3 pcs :(
–Mango sago– Tons of mango purée and pieces, but a little overwhelming for me.
Will come back to try more things on the menu!

I’ve been here twice already, and to be completely honest, this place isn’t as bad as people say. I do have to say that service is often a hit or a miss. Sometimes, they respond and serve you super quickly but other times, you will literally have to wait for forever to just get a refill on your water.
If you do come here, however, my suggestion is to get the baked rices/​pastas, those are always really good. (Although steer clear of the baked dumplings, apparently those are ass). I’ve consistently had good experiences with my baked rice dishes each time I was here and the portion sizes make me really happy.
For the most part, this restaurant is well kept and clean. I don’t feel like I’m going to catch a disease sitting here and eating a meal which is always a plus in my book. Prices are really reasonable too and for the amount of food you get, there’s really nothing much to complain about.
Overall, this place is quite average but really does satisfy my Hong Kong style food cravings!