Pacific Lighthouse Restaurant

I've been to Pacific Lighthouse maybe 6 or 7 times previously for lunch and dinner events. This time, my husband and I were having dinner with 8 friends (4 couples). We pre-ordered our 10 dishes with the restaurant. However, there were lots of traffic issues going on in the Bay Area. The big one for us was that the Alameda tube was closed down (Webster Street entrance) due to an accident in the tunnel. We had to re-route to get to 23rd Street to get to Alameda...along with everyone else so the traffic just crawled. It took 1 hour 40 minutes from Oakland Chinatown Webster Street to arrive at the restaurant.

All of us do not live in Alameda. So while we were waiting for everyone to arrive, we were asked if we'd like to have the house soup. We said yes. Afterwards, a few friends said the soup was not complimentary the way it is at other Chinese restaurants. It turned out that the soup cost us $30. I feel the waiter should have told us up front that the house soup was not complimentary as I'm sure he knows most Chinese restaurants don't charge for the house soup so most customers would assume it was free. Otherwise, we might have wanted to order a different soup from the menu.

Out of the dishes we ordered, I liked the Peking duck, salt & pepper chicken wings, salted fish with pork patty, pea sprouts with garlic, dry saute string beans, pan fried noodles with pork, mushrooms, and bean sprouts, cod fish with black bean sauce, and beef cubes with XO sauce. I didn't eat the saute oysters with ginger/scallion as I don't like oysters. I also didn't care for the salted eggs pumpkin. The pumpkin is okay. I just don't like the salted eggs that coated the pumpkin. Regarding the salted fish pork patty, it was delicious but the pork patty was on the tough side instead of being tender.

Our group felt there should have been more cod fish in the dish. They also felt the same way about the oysters which they said had too much onions. Otherwise, the food portion of the other dishes fed all 10 of us. The dishes were all single order.

The price was $75 per couple which included tax and tip. It would have been $70 if the soup wasn't added. We all felt the price of dinner was reasonable.

Considering the size of the restaurant, there weren't very many patrons for a Friday night. There were maybe 10 tables filled at most. The restaurant has maybe up to 60 tables in the 2 main rooms.

Wonderful and authentic Chinese food featuring Cantonese style cuisine.

Amazing and friendly service. Have been here many times for different occasions and always enjoyed the food here.

Ambiance: let me start with what's amazing about this restaurant. This restaurant is directly right by the San Leandro Bay, and some of the seats in this restaurant really give you the best view of the bay full with sailboats, which is a view you don't often see. The restaurant also looks regal, in a classic Chinese banquet-style type of way. I loved it.

Service: The service was also great - friendly staff and quick service.

Food: The food unfortunately didn't quite meet my expectations though.

- Steamed Rice Noodle with Pork Ribs: I really enjoyed this a lot. Basically, it was plain chang fen (rice noodle rolls) topped with ribs in black bean sauce. Delicious and I would order this again.
- Beed Rice Noodle Rolls: pretty good and the filling was generous. I generally would stay away from any steamed beef type of dim sum, but I enjoyed this because it had a lot of beef filling.
- Steamed Bbq Pork Bun: pretty standard with fluffy warm bun but the ratio of meat to bun was a little off; it could use some more filling.
- Steamed Egg Custard Bun: it was creamier than it looked. Decent as well.
- House Special Shrimp Dumpling: it tasted good, but the skin fell apart almost immediately as soon as I picked it up. Not sure why the integrity of the skin was very fragile. It made a messy eating.
- Steamed Siu Mai: I didn't enjoy their pork siu may as the meat was too hard it was almost "crunchy". The texture to me was either off or way different than pork siu may from other places I've tried.
- Baked Portuguese Custard Tart: amazing and I would order this again. The crust was super buttery and flaky, and it created a good texture balance with the sweet creamy filling in the middle.

With a need to find a venue for an upcoming res egg and ginger party, the hubby and I ventured here on a rainy day. Despite the weather, we were able to fully enjoy the view of the water way and downtown Oakland.

We arrived after 1pm and the place was pretty empty. It was also Thursday so no problem with seating. The room felt cavernous but the view is really nice.

We ordered chrysanthemum tea, dry beef chow fun, har gow, beef noodle, special pork bun and filled bean curd.

The chow fun came out first and the smell caught me! The "wok hay" was evident along with the vibrant green onions, bean sprouts and chives. The taste was good!

All of the other items were good as well. The beef noodle is a surprisingly big portion which is always nice. The har gow had a nice size shrimp in them and pretty much nothing else in there.

Hubby's favorite is always the crunchy topped pork buns which he enjoyed. Good proportion of filling.

As we entered the 2 o'clock hour, the waiter brought out a tray with buns and tarts to offer at BOGO. I can't turn down a deal so we got the custard filled buns and black sesame buns. Each one had a nice crispy topping. Very good!

Parking was easy and the bill was pretty high for the two of us but we did get extra to share with our kids.

Definitely a nice place to revisit. No problem with the restroom cleanliness. I appreciate that they have several stalls and the room is spacious.

Could the carpet stand a cleaning? Sure but this is what happens when people come in from the outside and walk on carpet people.

Please support this local business.

Update:
- Went for Dim Sum
- Excellent Wait Service and Dim Sum Carrier Service
- Watch for tea service overcharges, make sure they get the head count right
- Pricy but unique dim sum as they specialize in Dim Sum from Zhongshan, Guangdong area (steamed sticky rice options both savory and sweet)
- Liked the Sea Snails, French Style Baked Pork Buns, Beef Stew Fun in Clay Pot, Three Types of Mushroom Dumpling, Fried Taro Cubes, Black Sesame Mochi, Beef Cheong Fun
- Nice view of the Oakland Alameda Estuary with sailboats, motorboats, kayakers, etc....
- Plenty of Parking
- Maitre D is not too friendly
- Restrooms are dirty

Overall: Tasty food, pricier than other places but has unique Dim Sum dishes, nice view, parking lot, dirty restrooms.

WHEN: Sat @12pm

TLDR:
Service is great, so is the food. Never a wait. My favorite local Dim Sum spot.

I had my sis come early to help reserve a table for our party of 10 since Dim Sum places tend to be busy and there can be a wait, but to our surprise, there was a good amount of open tables!

Parking was a bit tricky though even though they have their own lot, which was like 95% packed by the time we got there. It was okay there we just parked on the street right as your enter/exit the. Lot. Not that far.

I've been here twice before and absolutely enjoyed it, so I was excited to bring my family here. Everything here was good except for the SOUP DUMPLINGS (Xiao Long Bao), which was hardly soupy. Perhaps they were punctured during the steaming? But everything else was good.

So the set up is there are 2 ways you can get food:
1. Fill out a form and hand it to your server.
2. Accept the food that other servers would come around with (mostly no carts) the way traditional dim sum is served.

My only slight complaint is that this is where it gets confusing because most servers do not speak/understand English well. So when one of them comes by with dishes that I've already placed an order of, I thought it was the food I had ordered from the form. So additional dishes would be added to the bill without realizing.

So here's a tip: Designate one person who filled out the form to order and have them sit on the outside where the servers would approach to help keep track of what is expected to come, and which is obviously add-ones.

Anyway, food was great and I appreciate how the CUSTARD PINEAPPLE BUNS had a generous amount of filling. Other highlights were the PORTUGUESE EGG TARTS, CHICKEN FEET, BEEF RICE ROLLS.

The thing other thing about the Xiao Long Bao was when we asked how many are in one order, they told us 4. So that helped us determined how many sets to order. But turns out there are 5 so we ordered too many, which ended up also not being good.

It seems this place is hit or miss for most people Know, but so far it's been a hit for me, except for the soup dumplings haha. I'm still going to rec this place and continue to come back. I missed it so much during the Pandemic.

I don't understand the poor reviews or why business is slow. The food and service were great and they gave us a free lobster!

Love this place ! Super cute location, wonderful food & service. All the classic dim sum foods.

We came here for my mom-in law birthday. we got here a little after 10am. One star knocked down because we wanted to sit by the window but the manager there said all the tables were reserved which was only 4 tables. Food here was ok depends on what you like to eat. The staff here works hard and is always refilling our waters and our teas. by 11am this place was packed already.

This is probably the first place I've been where I didn't expect it to be good due to the Yelp review aggravate of 2.5 stars. The only reason why I decided to come is because I saw this place on the list of tasty buns in an old article posted at a Walnut Creek Dim Sum place. I decided to visit all the places listed in the article as a new goal.

Firstly, there was plenty of parking. the place is situated within neighborhoods of condos and apartments. It's right next to the water with a view of the harbor, plenty of boats. Coming in around 11:30 on a Saturday (near open hours), I noticed that there were plenty of Asians sitting in the tables near the window view. By the time I finished my meal, the place was well packed.

The food selection was great. The servers come by with dim sum dish options. The dishes were big and plentiful. I got to choose what I want to eat... as opposed to some Dim Sum places nowadays where I just order from a menu. There is also a menu and I used that to order the veggies I didn't see available with the servers.

I would give this place a 5 stars... but I ordered #69 (coconut osmanthus pudding) and what came out was just a regular osmanthus jelly. Obviously, I was disappointed that the place didn't know the difference between a pudding and a jelly. Additionally, there was no coconut whatsover