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Bamboo Garden Restaurant - CLOSED
Category: Restaurants Chinese Dim Sum Dim Sum [Edit]
711 Town and CountrySunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 736-3168
- Parking:
- Street
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
23 reviews for Bamboo Garden Restaurant
23 reviews in English
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Review from Heidi B.
San Jose, CA
1/3/2008
I had my son's christening here about a year ago, and I really appreciated the service from the manager. I forgot his name (LOL) but he was this Asian guy that really made an effort to accommodate us, and our Filipino-ness where my crazy mother in law had to bring weird Filipino dishes and crap. Go figure, with a delicious Chinese meal, right? The food was really good, but I do agree that it depends on what you order. Their salt and pepper dishes are always really good, and so are the soups... but the best part of the place is the lunch time DIM SUM!!! It's cheap if you come around lunch time, and you can order a buttload of plates that run around 2.00 each. It's great.
Every time we've been back since then, that same manager, and some of the staff has welcomed us with a big smile, and asking how my kids are doing. It's a little more expensive for dinner, but SO worth it to get that fix!
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AWW!!!!! I'M TOTALLY BUMMED to find out this place was closed :( -
Review from Caroline B.
San Jose, CA
12/8/2006
Good, cheap lunchtime dim sum. We arrived at 11:45 and the place was absolutely packed by 12:30. The price was definitely right (under $60 for 6 people packing in as much dim sum as humanly possible) but some of the meat seemed to have an slight off flavor (especially the items ordered infrequently like chicken feet - hey! they're good!). The off flavor could just have been my imagination and if it doesn't happen on a return visit, I'll bump the review up a star. Still, though, it wouldn't keep me from coming back for the ability to eat dim sum close to work for just a fraction of what it would cost elsewhere.
The shu mai are very good as were the shrimp-dumplings-that-I-don't know-the-name-of. Taro dumplings were good for the price but I have had better. I had forgotten how much I like chysanthemum tea on a Fall day :). -
Review from Joe L.
Bay Area
5/17/2007
I'd only rate 2 stars for the food. But the low price gets another star.
The dim sum here is quite low quality in terms of the ingredients used. The seasoning is too strong at times. Most of the seafood dishes are peppery. Heavy use of pepper in Cantonese restaurant is a sign of stale ingredients. The cook tries to cover the fishy rotten smell and taste with pepper powder. My kids find them too spicy hot. They are not chilly pepper kind of spicy, but white pepper corn (Hu Jiao) spicy. The heavy hand pepper seasoning makes almost all dishes taste the same.... too hot.
The $1.99 per dim sum is hard to find in the South Bay nowadays. Most dim sum restaurant charges different prices for small, medium, large dim sum (the ranking is NOT really size based, it is just a common price ranking system dim sum restaurants use). Small dim sum cost $2.00 to $3.00. The large dim sum can cost $3.50 to $5.00 depending on restaurant. Many restaurants price their dim sum as 10% small, 10% medium and 80% large. So the low price for "small dimsum" is just a low-balling trick. On the contrary, Bamboo Garden charges $1.99 for all dim sum small or large. That is really cheap.
But again, you get what you pay for, the quality is not very good. -
Review from Mel S.
Mountain View, CA
12/22/2006
Food: 3.3 stars (authentic, good variety, quality, & flavor)
Atmosphere: 3.5 stars (semi formal, intimate dinning room)
Service: 4 (knowledgeable and efficient)
Price: 3.8 (for this price, you shouldn't ask for anything more)
Recommended Dishes:
Crispy Fried Chicken (Ja Gi Gai)
Oyster Sauce Chinese Broccoli
Soft Egg w/Shrimp
Steamed Pork with salted fish (for the hardcore Asian eaters)
NOTES: Dinner special offers 3 dishes for $15 (does not include steam rice price, however it comes with house soup, hot tea, fortune cookie and a house dessert!! Huge selection on the menu starts at 5:30pm. Dim Sum (I haven't tried it but its $1.99 a plate)
This is a great (clean) Chinese restaurant for a simple meal that keeps the dollars in your pocket. -
Review from lowkeytokey o.
San Jose, CA
9/14/2007
Maybe I'm being generous with the stars
My parents came over here after they heard about it from friends and had California Buffet gift certificates that were rendered useless by their closed Mondays.
The dining room was pretty big, easily accommodating 8-10 companies of people (10-15) on lunch break and equally as many people in small groups. All in all, I hardly saw anybody who had to wait very long.
The big selling point for me was that all the dim sum dishes small to large were $1.99. Naturally, this attracts Chinese people from all over because at that price, it hardly matters if its quality, this is all about quantity. Since this time I was with my parents and grandparent, I didn't have to worry about the money aspect and I didn't have much of an appetite to puff on either. =T
Whatever, the food is edible and tastes pretty close to the dim sum at National Seafood Restaurant in Diamond Bar and for around the same prices.
I didn't even look at the check but I'm sure it was slightly cheaper and I think they did it by having bare minimum staff. I only saw three cart pushing ladies and after flagging them down twice with nothing in their carts, they remembered and started showing up every 5-10 minutes fresh from the kitchen.
Next time I'm in town, I'll have to really pig it out at this place, if I remember to. -
Review from Ta G.
San Francisco, CA
10/31/2006
Cheap dim sum that's pretty good. I just find it weird that they open their restaurant to the public during wedding receptions and funeral receptions. They were nice enough to make shu mai for my boyfriend at dinner time. hahahah. The seafood entrees and noodles are good.
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UPDATE
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Oh hell no! With luke warm and/or leftover dim sum that has been sitting around for awhile, this place is no good anymore! I got SICK from this place. Thank goodness for Pepto.
My bro-in-law and sis went to eat their 3 for $15 dinner special. They said it was totally nasty. Not going back! Too bad. -
Review from Jason G.
Sunnyvale, CA
11/21/2006
Wow! Apparently from the other reviews I should really try the dim sum. Unfortunately, I ended up at Bamboo Garden because I was desperately trying to find a chinese place in downtown Sunnyvale and it was the first one I saw. After ordering some food to go which consisted of the usual items... I was astonished at what the total was. This place was pricey!
I hoped that the high prices were due to the high quality food, but after I got home I found that NOT to be the case. Sure, it was chinese food... but Panda Express serves better food than this place - and that's not saying much. The food was all very bland, and had virtually no distinctive tastes or flavors. Plus, each dish was in a styrofoam container that was not very leak proof and I ended up with a bag full of beef-and-broccoli juice. Haven't they seen chinese take-out boxes?? Those things are impenetrable!
Maybe I need to go back for the dim sum, but I will never go back for dinner! -
Review from Eugene F.
Campbell, CA
3/26/2007
It ain't too bad! I've been going to Bamboo Garden for probably four years, now. It's one of the closest dim sum restaurants near my work. One of the benefits of this place is that Sunnyvale Town Center has an underground parking lot; unlike going to the Cupertino Ranch 99 that has zero, zilch parking on a Friday afternoon.
The $1.99 dim sum ain't that bad, but can be pretty uneven. Some are good, some not too much. The siu mai, har gao are good. Nothing to write home about, but for a quick lunch, you'll walk out pretty satisfied.
You will note that it gets EXTREMELY busy at lunch. The place is pretty large, but you are better off getting there a little earlier to ensure you get better choices of food. -
Review from Jenn G.
9/1/2007
It seems most places are closed in Sunnyvale on Sundays (not sure why?) and my co-workers ended up going here for dinner because it was one of the few places open. It was good coming here though. The service was quick. The restaurant was quiet. The waiters were accommodating. We had a good dinner.
My co-workers I had their special offer which is 3 dishes for $15. It was a pretty good deal. Our meal consisted of fried rice, wonton soup, sweet and sour chicken, mongolian beef and noodles. The special even came with dessert. Plenty of food for us. We even had so much left over food that we had meals for the next day! -
Review from Tomomi S.
9/4/2007
Group of 10 to have a Saturday brunch... and we only paid $10/person and we ate till we were pretty full. Parking was fairly easy unlike other Dim Sum places. Got here around 10am and this place was not crowded yet. Although by the time we left (around 11:30) place was packed!
Ordinary but plenty of selections, each item was "fresh", not dry or over cooked that you know it has been steaming a long time, over all food experience was good. But if you are here, you have to try their Shark Fin pot stickers. It was YUM!!!
Service was good, I have no complains at all. But again, this place gets crowded (like other Dim Sum places) so get here early if you could. -
Review from Robert G.
Milpitas, CA
4/11/2007
$1.99 per plate for dim sum- pretty good deal. Nothing taste wise stood out to me to say that this place is memorable for it's tastes, but nothing tasted bad.
On the decor side, it doesn't seem that they took to much. While waiting for our entire party to arrive for lunch, we looked around and had enough conversation to fill time about how a lot of how they decorated the place mismatches. Not that it takes anything away from 1.99 dim sum, but it was just a bit weird- lodge roof, victorian chairs, vegetable americana on some walls, and cool modern asian looking lights.
There wasn't the that many people serving dim sum, but enough that we didn't worry about the next time, but weren't bothered too much ever other minute. Their cutting skills weren't that hot. Some of the chinese broccoli that we got weren't cut so we had some big pieces which becomes awkward.
If I worked closer to this place, I'd make it an option for the 'Where do you wanna do lunch' question. -
Review from Bubba G.
Union City, CA
10/14/2007
Sunnyvale Town & Country is a ghost town since the businesses have been closing shop to make way for the new and improved shopping center. Its too bad if Bamboo Garden doesn't come back.
BG may not have the best decor, the best atmosphere or the best food. But it is a very affordable restaraunt. The dinner special menu has the 3 dishes for 15 or 16 dollars. So dinner for 2 would be under $25. What a bargain!
We had a table of 7 adults and 6 children. We had ordered 9 dishes, soup and rice. Sizzling rice soup, broccoli beef, chinese beef stew, tangerine beef, garlic eggplant, honey walnut prawns, sweet and sour chicken, bitter melon with beef, and mandarin pork. All were very good dishes. I thought that the honey walnut prawns, beef stew and the bitter melon were done especially well.
I read some of the previous reviews and feel that although they were critical of the food, they did not take pricing into account. BG deserves a minimum of 3 stars for its food and another star for the prices. -
Review from Jing F.
3/6/2007
just ok...i had some dim sum and wonton soup.. wonton soup was bland and ended up looking for that special white pepper powder to give some umph to it. i will give 2 stars for service, it seems like they forgot about me..the same staff was offering the same food(dimsum lady). I finally grab a hold of a staff and asked him about the steamed dimsum. So he talked to the other dimsum lady with the siumai,rice wrapped with lotus, or the steamed dimsum goods. I had this feeling,just because the dimsum were only 1.99 ea. they probably dont care if get some dimsum or not. Other dimsum restaurant will push to offer you more because it's more expensive. Just my thoughts...
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Review from Ada W.
Palo Alto, CA
8/17/2006
If what you are after is a quick yum cha meal, el cheapo style- that this is the place you want to try. Food is OK but they will feed you quickly and cheaply. For all dim sim only $1.99 each, it sure is a bargain. Advertised is their nightly meal offer: $15 for 3 dishes with soup. You have a huge choice from their menu and appear all very "Cantonese" style dish. They say they'd do takeaway for the same price too, only you wont get their free soup. But hey, $15 for 3 dishes, that's almost cheaper than cooking yourself????
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Review from Anita L.
4/30/2005
Personally this place has some pretty awful dim sum. We've been a few times each time because my husband tells me he thinks they have changed hands and so the food could be better. Well, he's WRONG!! Their Cantonese dim sum is truly dismal. Cantonese dim sum is definitely not up to par -- this restaurant 'specializes' in banquet style dinners, weddings, birthdays etc. If you want dim sum, don't bother with this place. Take the time and drive to either Milpitas or Cupertino for great Cantonese style dim sum.
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Review from kim n.
6/27/2006
Decent, cheap and fast is how I would descirbe this dim sum. It's the closest dim sum I've got, it's pretty solid, but there's not much variety. If a quick fix /quick lunch is what you're seeking than this will fit the bill.
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Review from Danvin R.
Mountain View, CA
6/10/2007
Its cheap and all... but the quality of the food wasn't that great. I guess beggars can't be choosers. We were able to get a group of 7 in quite easily, lots of tables all over this restaurant.
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Review from Shannon T.
San Jose, CA
3/11/2008
I knew this place would go out of business - it smells and looks hideous!
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Review from Vivien W.
San Francisco, CA
2/28/2006
I've eaten at Bamboo Garden three times now in the past year and have always been pleasantly surprised at the bill when it arrives. Two people stuffing themselves silly will cost you right around $20, which is hard to come by at other dim sum places. While the dim sum is not the absolute best I've had, it was still good. The restaurant itself is slightly run-down, but if you want reliable, cheap and short or no wait, then this is the place for you.
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Review from Cheng X.
San Jose, CA
6/28/2007
The 3 for $15 was not a good value (or taste). I got the walnut shrimp which was the 1/3 of the serving size of other restaurants. I got a fish dish with vegetables, it tasted salty, but was the best dish of the three. Then I got the five flavor duck, which tasted like old duck days old left over s from other dishes. A portion of the meat for was the same part, hand picked rejects, from several different ducks.
To be fair to them, their ambiance and environment are nice. I've never tried their dim sum, but I heard good things. -
Review from John S.
Azusa, CA
1/29/2008
It's CLOSED! Dang. I loved this place.
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Review from P S F L.
San Ramon, CA
7/28/2006
this $1.99 per dim sum dish promtion, which has been going on forever, is the main attraction of this place. it is cheap and never has a wait. convenient parking structure just right next to it. the reason i give it a five star rating is because I want to skew the average. 3 star average is just too low for this piece of hidden gem!
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Review from Jennifer T.
Sunnyvale, CA
8/6/2006
I enjoyed having dim sum at Bamboo Garden because they had a good selection of my favorite dishes, and best of all, the restaurant was busy (Sunday 12:30 p.m.) but there was no wait to get in. It was also a great surprise to find that the total bill was $21 for two people, and we ate a LOT. The only reason I am not giving four stars is that a couple dishes were unpleasantly cold by the time they got to us. Will definitely be back though!
