Apus Cafe

We ordered salted fish and garlic noodles, taste great!

Oh no! Just drove by and the windows are all covered with paper and the lights are out. Looks like the economy has taken another business down. Tried calling and there’s no answer on a day in which they’re normally open for lunch. I’ll miss Apus and the staff, great food and friendly people.

Virtually every dish I’ve had here has been good. It’s not a big, fancy restaurant… but if you’re looking for a good simple meal this place is worth a try. I love coming here too since they’re never very crowded and it’s child-​friendly.

2 stars for the food. No stars for the service.
The minute we walked in with 4 adults and two toddlers, the staff looked annoyed and reluctant to serve us. They asked if we had a reservation even though the restaurant was almost empty. They served us only 3 soups instead of 4 and told us put the paper placemats back in place b/​c they didn’t want to have to wash the table cloths (even though we told them the toddlers would crumple them or toss them aside anyway).
The staff were slightly more accommodating to Chinese speaking customers, and the food was tasty (not spectacular).

You have to be smart of what you order here. This place is no place for won-​ton or broth bowl noodle as you can see from all the less then stellar reviews. However, they have really good Chicken Wings and Pot Dishes. They also have the special «20 dollars for 3» dishes deal (with soup, no rice included) with over 50 dishes to choose from. I can say that this place offers the best «20 dollars for 3» combo in the Bay Area in my opinion.

I hate it when restaurants burn incense. Came here like around 1145 today because my friend Wilson L said this was a pretty good place to eat. He works around here so I said OK… why not.
There’s always one dish that a restaurant make that can dictate whether or not the rest of the food will be good or not and that dish is the Beef chow fun.
The dish shows how well seasoned their wok is, how experienced the chef is with keeping the noodles in one piece, and how well cooked/​charred the beef is. This dish was on par and probably a 4 star dish.
The Hainan Chicken, on the other hand, was cold. The ginger/​scallion/​oil sauce was good but it wasn’t good enough to hide the fact that it was cold. Warm to even room temperature would have been good. I asked the waiter if their wonton soup was any good… and he was honest enough to say… it’s so so. I really like that honesty. Most people would say YES. Because of that, I will come back.
There menu is all over the board… from chow fun, chow mein, to rack of lamb?!? It’s almost weird enough to want come back and try it. But for 20 bucks?!?

My parents had eaten here a few weeks ago and were raving about the food, so I decided to stop by and try this place out.
All I know is… WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!
The restaurant is fairly small and was completely empty when I went. The menu made everything sound good, so we ordered a variety of dishes for everyone to try. I’m big on family style and sharing, so when the food came out, they looked like lunch-​sized dishes. Although each one was $ 7.00, I could probably get more food at Panda Express for the price.
The food was decent on flavor, but the best dish of the evening was the Salt and Pepper Wings.
The service was pretty much non-​existent. We had to serve ourselves our own soup and clean up spills the waiter made. Come on, we were the only people there, so serving us should be a breeze, but nooo, they just sat behind their little counter and watched TV.
I have to say, although I generally trust my parents when it comes to food venues, next time, I’ll be sure to read the Unilocal reviews first.

Apus Café is a Hong Kong style café (Cha chaan teng) with a slightly improved menu that includes some innovative fusion dishes. Restaurants like this are really a dying breed. Many have tried and many have failed. There are Hong Kong Bistro in Castro and ABC Bakery in San Mateo downtown. Neither are really that great.
The food here is quite good. I contemplated giving it 4 stars but decided to hold off until I have tried more dishes here. Just to be fair.
Thai Red Curry Chicken with Rice Noodle — Under the fusion category. I guess you can call it a Hong Kong style Thai dish. It was rather tasty actually. Not very spicy nor too sweet. Chicken slices are tender and well mangled with the sauce.
Stir Fried Snow Pea with Garlic — Very standard dish. Unfortunately the snow pea leaves are bit too tough. Perhaps slightly overcooked?
Pan Fried Pork Meat Cake with Salty Fish — I can’t recommend this dish too anyone because I think the salty fish is pretty much an acquired taste. I like their pork cake here. Very salty (as expected) but lightly fried and not overly oily. The texture is great. The meat are loosely held together and not tough. A good dish to eat with your rice.
I know I visit Apus again and try out more of their dishes.

This was totally a last minute restaurant. That night I was craving Vietnamese food. As we were heading into the vietnamese restaurant (which was just next door, literally), he asked, are you sure you don’t want apus café? i looked up last minute and said, alright sure why not. and gave in. as i always do when it comes down to last minute decision, I usually pick the wrong one: T
There was a lot of people there that night so the service was kinda slow. We ordered baked pork chops, in hopes of them making it the same way as S&E. But hopes were shot down by the slow service, and the hubs pork chops being too over cooked. There was only two waitress in the entire restaurant. They usually always serve soup before your meals, and that night was broccoli or spinach based. But we didn’t like the soup very much, because it was too watery.
The conversation of the night: comparing the soup, pork chops, and waiter service to S&E and hands down S&E wins!
We probably will not be coming back.

I was taken here with my family and their friends as our last destination the day before leaving Nor Cal. It was another one of those Asian fusion style cafes that I’m all too familiar with living in the Asian-​ridden San Gabriel Valley.
Being a rebel with my sister, we decided to order off the Asian-​fusion part of the menu rather than eating family-​style ordering dishes with rice and everything with everyone else. Little did they know that wouldn’t keep me from stealing some of their goodies to try.
I ordered the Orange Roughy with Linguine. Before this, I honestly had no idea what an orange roughy was, assuming that it was just some made up name or typo of a fish Chinese restaurants tend to use when the fish don’t exactly have an English name counterpart. It definitely was a fish though, and it definitely was called and Orange Roughy. Thank you Wikipedia for enlightening me.
I thought it would be a baked dish, much like other Asian cafes have done before. The waitress overheard me talking about it and asked if I’d like to have it baked that way, which I obliged to. How nice! The dish was nicely done, and I enjoyed the large amount of fish they had put in it.
The cream of (some vegetable?) soup was a nice appetizer as well, and is complimentary when ordering from the fusion menu.
The Chinese dishes themselves were quite flavorful. What I enjoyed was the fact that they didn’t have that much of an MSG taste to it, which most restaurants of this sort tend to overdose their dishes with. Good stuff!
For dessert, they gave us complimentary Tofu Flower Soup! A personal favorite of mine!
The service here is excellent as well, which says a lot when it’s an Asian Café restaurant as well. Besides allowing the changes to my dish, they also periodically exchanged our plates with new plates as we ate. What kind of Asian Café does that?! Additionally, we never asked to refill the water or tea. And they constantly transferred food into smaller plates as we were eating in order to make room for new dishes coming out. Awesome! We stayed until past closing as well and were not rushed to be kicked out. Unheard of.
Definitely approve of this place, if not for the decent food, then at least for the amazing service!

What can you get for three entrees, with home-​made soup, and dessert for $ 20.45? I’ve had the tofu and mushroom, eggplant and pork chops, and vermecilli beef claypot. All very delicious. At least, I don’t have to drink a gallon of water, which means their MSG is not their main ingredient. The service is always warm and friendly. Last time the soup was lotus pork soup. The dessert is the fungus (I know it doesn’t sound good, but it is supposed to keep your throat clear. The place is clean. It’s just so inviting.

This place is alright. They tend to be fairly busy there for lunch with lots of faithful customers. They have a Roasted Duck Wonton Noodle Soup that is to die for; however, the duck is from a different restaurant in San Francisco. So if you are able to find that store, this place doesn’t really have anything outrageously special.
It is a good little place to eat at once in a while and the service there is usually very good. If they changed their specials more often, I would visit them more because their special comes with a drink of choice and a pretty tasty egg-​roll.

A pus, weird name for a restaurant. They explain the meaning of it in the front door, but just doesn’t sound appetizing, or it could but in a different context and not when I’m focusing on eating dinner.
The 3 of us went here for dinner tonight and ordered the special 3 plates for $ 20. We added an additional plate for another $ 6.75. Salt and Pepper fish fillet, braised tofu, claypot beef, and salt and pepper chicken wings. The dinner comes with complimentary soup (broth and a few beef bones), and complimenatary dessert soup.
Dinner was pretty good and service was decent. The dishes are priced great, but it does not come with rice. To order rice they will tag on an additional $ 4.50 for the 3 of us.
I think the plates are priced great, but once you tag on the additional rice it is back to an average price. They don’t quite give you enough food (very small portions), so perception wise, I don’t know if I would dine here again. Left hungry still… on my way to get dessert somewhere else to satisfy my hunger.

So I reviewed this place when it was Apus Wok & Grill (menu is the same now), and gave it a fairly decent review after my first visit. I’ve been there four times total now, and I have to say now I really don’t like this place. I go because my husband likes it, but it’s starting to lose its luster for him too.
Our second visit I ordered the same dish I had the first time– Salinas Fresh Vegetables with spinach noodles. It was different that time– the sauce had cream, ewww! I was so disappointed. The third visit I had to be dragged, and I ordered something different, the giant prawns with garlic noodles. BURNT GARLIC gross! and dry as a bone. I didn’t eat much of it. Visit #4 was last Sunday– my meal was actually the best yet, the malaysian style prawns with rice noodles. The prawns were tender, with green beans and carrots and a light coconut milk sauce. BUT, the kitchen screwed up on my husband’s dish, so he received his food when I had practically finished mine. Bad form, they should have rushed it out a little quicker or taken mine back so we could have eaten together. If I had waited mine would have been stone cold.
Beyond this, I have to say something about the service. This establishment clearly favors any Asian customer who comes in. I’m sorry there is no nice way to say that and I don’t say it lightly, but after four visits with the same treatment there is a bit of racism going on here. My husband and I are not Asian and I can’t recall feeling so unwelcome in a restaurant. We are ignored when we come in, ignored after we sit down, and we watch several tables be served who walked in after us while we continue to wait for our food. We are kind and friendly, there is no reason for such treatment in an establishment that values their customers.
He’s really going to have to drag me to get me here again.. .

Local Chinese Restaurant, I come here when I want something fast and want to pick up something to-​go. The food is consistent, prices are very reasonable, I rarely have to wait longer than 20 mins to pickup my order.
I typically order their Cantonese style dishes, if you are in the area I would recommend. You can order your food without the MSG, you just have to ask.
If I could I would give 3.5 stars.

Food was good only coz they add MSG to the food. I saw the MSG bucket in their kitchen when I was about to pay off the bill and decided never to try this place again.

Never would have bothered to stop by here if it weren’t for a friend’s recommendation. Reasonably good HK style café with very generous portions.
Just like the place next store, this place seems to have changed owners and restaurants numerous times over the years. The latest incarnation is Apus Café, which you never would guess is a HK style café with HK comfort food unless you went there.
Beef chow foon (3.5 stars) — pretty standard, tasted good, HUGE portion for the price
Eggplant (3.25 stars) — decent, eggplant seemed fresh, maybe slightly undercooked
Dry Green beans (3.5 stars) — tasty
Singapore curry noodles (3.5 stars) — good and I like the Singaporean curry powder
Place inside is surprisingly nice and modern. Place was about 75% full during weekend lunch, mostly Asian ppl so good sign. Little parking outside but should be easy to find parking on 25^th st.
Bottom line: Decent HK style café and not bad when you are in the mood for HK comfort food. Generous portions for the price. Just a rather lame, non-​descriptive restaurant name… maybe they meant Aplus and just spelled it wrong. 3.5 stars.

Came here with the folks and some low expectations. But, it was a rather pleasant experience. The name is rather non-​sensical. But the food is decent Chinese fair. We ordered off the 3 entrees for $ 20 set list: fried fish, sweet and sour beef, salted-​fish chicken claypot. Entrees were preceded by a peanut soup with lots of chinese ingredients — the kind where you know they’ve been stewing it all day so everything’s smooth. Rice is at $ 1.50 per head — a tad pricy, but… it was just about the best steamed white rice EVAR! Slightly sticky, but with smooth texture and form — I found myself cleaning out every last rice speck, and mixed with the sweet and sour sauce — pure delight. To top it off, we got tofu-​fa for dessert, with a little ginger flavor. All for under $ 10 a person. I would give this 3.5 stars if I could.

This is a review I forgot to add last year. I found the take home menu today and wanted post up my findings. And the first thing that came into mind — NO DUCK PLATES! We did order the Peking Duck Rolls but just wasn’t the same. It was a teaser (small thin cuts of succulent duck rolled up into these cute tiny white dough rolls) ARGH! So unfair! And when I mentioned. «WE» … it was the Brotherhood having an early dinner here before the Unilocal Elite Event: John-​Michael, Ron L, and Bobby L. We are steamed rice and DUCK eaters!!! Meaterian Style!
Walking Distance from Mandala Lounge: Yes — Its about one block away. You can park your car on East 25^th avenue. Walk over to Apus Café for some early Chinese food. Then go clubbing at Mandala. After the club, hit up Heidi’s Pies down the street. Its SBC tested and approved.
Dine In Date: Wednesday, November 19^th, 2008.

Was here for lunch and noticed that on Unilocal,it used to be called Apus Wok and Grill. Not sure what the difference between the old and the new is, since I was never there when it was Wok and Grill.
Anyways, there is no parking on El Camino, so you have to park on 25^th avenue. Place is clean and looks well taken cared off. There are no crayola writings on the wall by kids and this place appears to be run professionally.
Food overall was good. The deep fried calamari was a bit greasy and the portions weren’t that large, but it was fine. To prevent the grease from greasing up the food, one needs to fry it in very, very hot oil, but I doubt I will be ordering this dish in the future.
The other wonton noodle was OK. Not super fantastic, but not bad either. I would order it again. The chow meins we order was good. Not as flavorful as I would like, but add your own soy sauce.
The prices were not too bad. They seem comparable to many other places of this kind on the peninsula. In fact, the nearest example I can think of is Blue Sky Café in Belmont. I wold give BSC a slight lead in taste, flavor and parking, but this place is run like a real restaurant, so in the end, it’s a draw.