Hollywood East Cafe

NOT CLOSED. It’s been open for years now. C’mon Unilocal fix this.

Yay! They’re back!
Somebody needs to get rid of the «Closed» and change the address to the Wheaton Mall, 11 160 Veirs Mill Rd. Wheaton, MD.
I always loved their translucent shrimp dumplings and a vegetable dumpling, as well as other wll prepared dishes, so new site unseen, I’m giving them a five until, if ever, I discover otherwise.

My friend wanted to come by for Dim Sum.
We ordered many dishes that were all pretty tasty including:
— Beef Tripes w/​Ginger & Scallions
— Chicken Feet w/​Black Bean Sauce
— Spare Ribs w/​Black Bean Sauce
— Beef filled Rice Noodles
— Eggplant with Stuffed Shrimp
4 stars for good solid food.
— 1 star for the fact that none of the employees speak Chinese… wtf?
We ordered egg tarts and it never came… hopefully we weren’t charged for it…

Looks like Hollywood East is getting evicted, but will reopen in Westfield shopping center in August. I hope their dim sum will be better than ever. I am a fan of their steamed beef short ribs and shuimai.

My new motto when approaching food is to just put whatever it is in my mouth and not worry about what it actually is. This has worked out great for me as i’ve discovered a new love of fish and pork. So that was entirely what i planned on doing at Hollywood East
Until i saw the chicken foot.
After watching Kevin struggle with that for like 15 minutes i decided to stick to stuff i knew somewhat well. My favorite was the little pulled pork esq sandwich. Very good! And i also ate a crap ton of this beef noodle wrapped thing. Yum!
Besides being in great company, i can’t see myself returning here for quite a few reasons.
a) i’m way too scared of chicken feet
b) there is no chinese word for fork. I cant use chopsticks to save my life, so kevin ever so kindly asked for a fork for me. Well they didn’t understand what he was asking for! Needless to say this discouraged me
c) i can see it getting really expensive. At any point in time i had no idea how much money i had spent. I was very nervous about this. I had no idea how much anything cost. To me it cost a stamp on a piece of paper. How much does that translate to?
d)The food was not that great. it just didn’t taste fresh. it tasted almost like i was eating it off a buffet rather than having it served to me.
I’d definitely be back for the company, but not really for the food.
d.

Came for dim sum, and to reune with some fellow Unilocalers. I was expecting to have my dim sum socks rocked off, because I figured, why else would foodie Unilocalers elect to drive out to Wheaton? Turns out they were engaging in the time-​honored Unilocaler tradition of taking advantage of a get-​together to try a new place. There were no guarantees here at Hollywood East.
Verdict? My socks stayed on.
Likes: The hot tea, the pork buns, the sesame balls with lotus seed paste, and most of the dumplings.
Not likes: Taro root cake (ewww, Kevin!)
Couldn’t care less: Everything else we tried, and I believe we had a total of around 24 dishes.
Now, I hadn’t had dim sum in at least 4 years, so overall I enjoyed myself, and certainly appreciated the company. But my next dim sum outing, which will hopefully be in less than 4 years, will not be a return trip to Hollywood East.

I was kinda apathetic towards Hollywood East Café. With such great reviews I was expecting to be absolutely wowed, but I wasn’t at all. There were a couple highlights but overall it was all just sorta ok. If it wasn’t so inexpensive I probably would lean towards a lower rating but it’s a pretty decent value, and still easy to have a good time when you’re there with some friends, especially when some of them are squeamish. I get a kick out of ordering stuff like tripe, organ meats, and chicken parts and watching them all squirm!
I think the highlight was the pork bun, which I likened to a puffy ball of sloppy joe flavored pork. The bun was a tad dry, but the flavor was good. The fried taro ball thing was also good.
The parking annoyed me since the lot is really really small, but there’s no room to turn around so if it’s crowded you eventually have to back out into traffic which can be disconcerting if you don’t have the parallel parking skills that I have. Fortunately there was a ton of street parking available when I went, though I believe it’s 1hr max.

If you are looking for very good Chinese and I mean Chinese go to Hollywood East Café. Forget about those trendy PF Chang’s and all of their Asian fusion concoctions. Or the greasy fast food Americanized Panda Express. This the place to be for seated or for takeout, you cannot go wrong here. Both locations serve up some of the areas best authentic Chinese American food and traditional Chinese. Maybe one day I get little adventurous and try some duck feet or the intestine with sour cabbage dish, but I have had just about everything else on the extensive menu and I have not experience anything negative yet.
I met the owner, very nice lady I told her that my company kept getting a lot of their phone calls because of the name Hollywood East Studio Productions «creating television and multimedia production services» as opposed to Hollywood East Café. Turns out that she had gotten a lot of our phone calls as well but that’s been cleared up with the phone company so all is right with the world and we had a good laugh about it.
Great place, 5 out of 5 stars.

This was my first Dim Sum experience since my recent relocation to the DC area and I have to say I was very impressed. First of all, I was very happy that they had a parking lot, so they started off on my good side. The variety of the dumplings (that’s what the Dim Sum is all about) was excellent. The quality ranged from 3.5−4 stars but all in all, very tasty. I think it is very difficult to do outstanding dim sum and very easy to do crappy dim sum, so Hollywood East definitely delivered. I still miss my KC dim sum at Bo Ling’s, but Hollywood will more than satisfy my dim sum cravings.
I was not a huge fan of the shrimp toast. It was a little too much toast and not enough tasty shrimp. That was the only dish that I really think was poorly executed.
Side note, we arrived at 1100 on a Saturday and were instantly seated. By the time we left the place had filled up, but was not on a wait yet.

The dim sum was pretty good. It’s a small restaurant, though, so there wasn’t a huge selection. They had beef short ribs, which I hadn’t seen before at dim sum.
It was kind of annoying that none of the carts had any ha gow or siu mai until we were about ready to leave. The staff is pretty nice though, and explains what everything is — I noticed a lot of non-​Cantonese speaking people there so this would be a good place for dim sum noobs!

I have not had dim sum here, but I’m hoping to go back and try it soon.
This is a great place to go for Hong Kong/​Cantonese style Chinese food. I used to live in Hong Kong and definitely miss the food there, so I was happy to find Hollywood East. This place can be a touch expensive depending on what you order, but its usually worth it. The only downside is that service is not so great, but you should still try it.

This place was good. Food was decent, prices were decent, service was OK. Had an encounter with a somewhat rude waiter, which somewhat soured the experience. But maybe this was just an exception?
Either way, nothing to write home about. But this would satisfy your hunger for dim sum better than many other places in the greater DC area…

When I want dim sum, Oriental East is my fave place to go. It’s good and added bonus is that it’s basically across the street from me. Unfortunately it seems as half of DC and Maryland also wants dim sum on Sunday mornings. One day we waited painfully for 40 minutes and yet there were still 20 tables to be seated before us. We were all starving and most of us had places to go. It was suggested that we take the bet that Hollywood East may not be as busy. It was a good call, because we were seated within 5 minutes.
There were a lot good dim sum items that most other places don’t have. For instance there were the duck dumplings that were really good and then the lotus balls made with green tea and stuffed with ground sesame seeds. Of course they had all the other traditional items as well such as shiu mai, pork buns and stuffed noodles. There was a very wide selection and my Muslim friend had plenty of options despite not eating pork.
Although I still prefer Oriental East, this place is a close second. Definitely come here if you want to avoid the lines and hassles of Oriental East.

My family was in from Halifax Canada over the weekend and we rocked this place hard. For an appetizer we had the steamed dumplings. They were exceptional. I also had the Hong Kong Wonton Soup. It was awesome. Then I had the walnut shrimp and the Triple Delight. Still Awesome. Mommy had this eggplant thing which I heard was great. She also had the Moo Shoo Chicken and mad a real mess with it. There was black stuff all over her hands. Mommy sure is a messy eater. My parents said that this was the best Chinese Food that they ever had but what do they know they’re from a small town in North East Canada with a population of 10. They like McDonalds too.
I love this place! Try it. You’ll like it.

While a bit more expensive than its competitors, it makes it up in newer décor and furniture. The cooking is quite consistent, and they make rather authentic versions of the standard cantonese cuisine. Fresh fish is available, though primarily fresh water.
It’s currently my favourite HK style restaurant in DC for trad. cantonese cooking.

Yet another great restaurant discovered thanks to Unilocal!Before going, we also did some research to find that Hollywood East has been featured in the Washingtonian for «cheap eats,» «dirt cheap eats,» and «very best restaurants.» How could we possibly go wrong with all of these fabulous reviews?!
I’ve been to Oriental East for dim sum too but we were meeting another couple and this place sounded promising. Oriental East always has lines up the block to get in. We arrived at Hollywood East on a Sunday morning when they opened. No lines! We were seated immediately and the place gradually filled up. Still, during our entire meal, at no point was there a line or wait for customers to be seated.
We ordered lots of dumplings, especially with shrimp. I mean, almost everything we got had shrimp in it (no complaints here from me!). The wait staff was friendly and took the time to tell you what was in the dishes if you asked. Perhaps this was because it wasn’t too busy, but I was glad to not feel rushed to choose something.
Very reasonable prices and we didn’t spend much, considering all the food we got! It was certainly a meal that «touched the heart.» Or added fat to the stomach.

Look for the palm tree! This restaurant is located on University between Georgia and Veirs Mill (two pretty big intersections), so it might be easy to miss — But I always tell my friends to look for the palm trees. That’s where you’ll find some of the best Chinese food in the area.
I haven’t been here for the dim sum (It’s on the agenda), but I already love this restaurant. I’ve been here only on Saturday nights and they’re always gracious to accommodate our huge group.
I always order the deep fried squid, deep fried pork, snow pea leaves with fresh garlic, ma po tofu and some kind of fried fish (ling…something?). YUM! I also love their lychee drink with real lychees.
Definitely one of the best Chinese places in the area, and it helps that they’re open late!

I just wanted Chinese, but my dining options were limited at 10:30pm on a Tuesday. Sure, there are more than a handful of unauthentic take-​away restaurants within a few blocks. Unfortunately I just don’t trust a Chinese restaurant that offers both kung pao tofu, fried chicken, and philly cheese subs. Ew…
I found Hollywood East Café through Unilocal.Being desperate for Chinese food, I called them to confirm their hours. To my pleasant surprise they close at 1am every day, and 2am on Fridays and Saturdays. The drive on Georgia Avenue to Wheaton at 11pm was pleasant and quick. Hollywood East Café was very noticeable once we turned onto University Boulevard. It’s a standalone new-​ish yellow restaurant with neon signs. (I’m including a description because it can be a little difficult to locate a restaurant at night.)
We went in and were seated immediately. There were only two other tables in this huge (yet clean) dining room. The menu was typically large as other Chinese restaurants, but Hollywood East Café specializes in Cantonese cuisine.
I had the egg drop soup (it was alright) and vegetarian dumplings (large in size, but there could’ve been more filling) for starters. For the main course, Curtis had the Buddhist dish, and I had Chinese Broccoli Chow Fun. The portions are large in the manner of family style. My noodle dish was delicious, but lacked some flavor. Then I remembered that everything tastes better with hot sauce!
The biggest downside to Hollywood East Café was the service. Our waiter was nice, but he was not as attentive as I hoped for an empty restaurant at 11pm at night. My water glass remained empty most of the time. The check took so long to arrive! Curtis had to get up and find the waiter (who seemed oblivious to our needs).
I will return to Hollywood East Café to satisfy my late night Chinese food cravings, but only to order carry-​out. The service was off-​putting, but at least they offer a good selection of vegetarian dishes.

The dim sum was good enough. Not outstanding, not wowing my mouth, not memorable. But fine. A decent meal. The dumplings were good, and the turnip cakes were excellent.
HOWEVER, we were sitting enjoying our tea after paying when we were told to leave by the manager because they needed our table. Keep in mind that we had been seated less than an hour before. Keep in mind that there were other tables available (albeit no tables of four like ours). Keep in mind that we had eaten quite a bit of food and paid more than we would in other, better places.
I’m not sure if I’ll go back because of that.

Friends and I came for dim sum today because we’d heard that they had swan-​shaped dumplings?!

Alas, it was not as exciting as we expected — we ended up ordering lots of good, but traditional, dim sum dishes. The staff kindly accommodated the vegetarians by offering meat-​free lo mein, vegetarian spring rolls, and veggie dumplings. I also liked the dark sticky dessert balls stuffed with black sesame paste, and the crispy shrimp wonton with mayo. We noticed more interesting dishes coming out of the kitchen toward the tail end of our meal (inc. fried bread), but by then we were pretty full.