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Came here when we saw that the wait for Boiling Crab was "at least one hour". Why not the Seafood Village in Monterey Park you say? Well,
1. Temple City is not as busy as the one in MP. MP one is usually full of people waiting outside.
2. TC one has somewhat more seating capacity. I don't know the numbers but the room felt larger
3. The dishes at TC are somehow more tastier...
I've been here too many times to give a decent review. But in terms of dishes we never fail to order the House Crab .
Tonight, we also ordered the
- little lobster "yimian" at $9 per 1-lb lobster and noodles
- satay eel and snow peas
- sauteed garlic and big peasprouts
We asked for less oil and less salt.... but we still needed rice to help with the meal.
Water and tea were refilled timely. Service was quick as they needed the table.
Walked away with a full belly nevertheless.
$70 (incl. tips) for 3 people with plenty to bring home.
3.5 stars
Long story short: Just like any other Chinese Seafood restaurant in the SGV
Long story long:
Came here for a birthday dinner. Party of 12.
Now, is it just me, or do most of the Chinese seafood restaurants hire the same interior decorators? I mean... after awhile, they all just seem to look the same if not similar.
Anywho, once I got past the aesthetical similarities of every Chinese seafood restaurant in the SGV, this place wasn't too bad. They were nice enough to put us in one of their ''private'' rooms, so it felt like we had some privacy
Among other things, we got sweet and sour pork, corn chowder, winter melon soup, some veggies, 2 crabs, and... I forget what else. Everything was good and the crab was really good. It had a ton of roasted minced garlic, which I actually took a couple of spoonfuls of and mixed into my rice. Yeah, I definitely was not going to be making out with anybody that night. I'm just saying.....
Service was typical for a Chinese restaurant in the SGV. Nothing we had really was bad or bland. Prices seemed decent.
Tried a few dishes that I hadn't before and have found some new favorites:
- XO Jellyfish - this is so savory and tasty you just want to pour the sauce over rice and lap it up. It's asparagus and jellyfish stir fried with xo sauce and lots of scallions and this place does XO sauce well. YUM.
- another good dish but less good than the above was the SPICY SCALLOPS - stir fried with jalapenos and deep fried basil, this was a tad oily but the basil aroma was very nice.
This restaurant is known for Chiu Chow style Chinese food, which my father just told me is a lot… Read more »
This is a great place to grab some lunch or even dinner. They have a wide variety of seafood dishes to choose from.Their lunch special menu includes a whole steamed fish for only around $5....all the lunch items come with soup and rice.The dinner items comes with white fungus sweet soup. The food here is really tasty, but a little on the oily side. You can ask for lighter oil and no msg. This is my favorite authentic casual Chinese restaurant.
When you usually thibk of chinese restaurant customer service, is usually a very bad experience.
But this one change that, they offer the most waiter per customer ratio i ever see, is like 1 waiter per table. I think they change my plate like 3 times, usually most only do 1 time.
The food is very good, it actually taste more like home made, because they don't use msg and les salt and oil. Most other seafood restauraent i ate, i has to goes to restroom within a hour, but not this one, my stomach digest well. even after eating crabs, beef, and chicken.
The peanut appretice they gave you before your order, is quite good, one of best i taste, not those cheap saly peanut from most other restaurant, this one actually baked well and added vegetables, the free dessert soup is also good.
There' nothing wrong in this restaurant, great interior, also the wall post big picture of the menu and price to help ordering. parking is prettyful.
There is one thing I absolutely love about these types of Chinese restaurants... they have some-what private rooms for larger groups. My family, which has long since dissipated into the world, came together for my grandmothers 80th! :)
We had the house special lobster, house special crab, (which are so yummy!) and a heck of a lot of items off their lunch special menu.
I like this lunch special menu, because like online shopping, it is sectioned off by price (not just subject/title).
There are items like a fried flounder (which is the "kids" or young adult favorite), san-si-doh or green beans with stuff, fried salt and pepper shrimp (EAT THE SHELL, EAT IT WHILE ITS HOTTTT), and salt and pepper fried pork... there are many sea food options and staples for under 12 bucks.
The service can be iffy and since I'm not a fluent speaker it kind of stinks because sometimes they seem angry that I cannot speak. I also think I should learn to say my favorite foods.
They serve hot tea and rice, and also with the lunch special (and maybe all meals???) a house soup which is odd at first but good in the end.
For now, my family seems to like this place. It is affordable. For 11 people we spent around 140... but this was a splurge for a happy occasion. When we have come here for 6 we've spent 40-50 or so.
Typical Chinese food, and it must be good if my aunt and uncle keep coming back! Chase bank and Bank of America are down a a ways and if you want a boba drink to chase all the MSG and grease away there is a nice family owned spot in the plaza as well.
3.5 - 4 stars.
Labor Day plans: hot and sweaty day at the beach or over a BBQ grill, or nap all day and head out for Seafood Village? That's a no brainer for me.
The crab is a good deal, but the seafood and tofu hot pot was a lovely surprise too, with just the right balance of flavor and custardy texture. I also enjoyed the fluffy omelet. Some of the dishes, such as the long beans and deep fried squid, were a tad salty.
Service was not a problem for our large group. Servers came frequently to exchange plates or to remove dishes from lazy susan or refill water and tea. We were even treated to an after dinner digestive - like a hot version of Korean shikhe, with clear fungus (the name is escaping me right now). All in all, an enjoyable time, and we made out like bandits.
Service was decent, I got my beers I ordered quickly.
Beer selection: Bud Light, Heinekens, and Tsing Tao.
Sweet and sour pork chops are delicious here.
The lobster and house crab was good.
Mapo Tofu was a bit on the oily side, but very spicy which is hard to find these days.
I came in starving, but left with a toothpick in my mouth.
This is the place that I don't care for much but still come back once in a while. Their food is good. Their lunch specials are good, but the waitors' attitudes are notoriously known to be bad. However, their recent service has improved and seems to be better than the past.
We've tried most of their lunch special dishes, but like their Satay Beef with Vegetable a lot. We also like their Steamed Talapia. This time we lucked out that our fish was steamed right and it was served nice and hot. (there were times we got only lukewarm fish, as if they steamed a dozen fish to be served and we got the last of the batch.)
Their typical lunch specials are served with soup which is pretty good, and with tea.
Very hit and miss for the most part, but they do hit more often than they miss.
Obviously the crab is a must, something like $5 a lb, each crab's about 3 pounds..
Everything's pretty good, i normally go for the lunch special since dinner's normally pretty dang expensive. Personally, i like the spicysalt porkchops and chiu chow spicy chicken. mmmmmmmmm.
This place has pretty good quality food, and the prices are quite reasonable. The crab with garlic was great and the dessert with the steamed taro was quite special. I also really enjoyed the fried rice. The food is prepared quite delicately, and the decor is nice, quite brightly lit and modern.
3.5 stars rounded up to a 4.
I have no problem recommending the food here. The house special crab is to die for. The oysters, clams, meats and veggies are all stellar. My problem here, like some others have mentioned, is with the service.
Usually we get corralled to a table that's off to the side, get our orders taken after an unusually long wait if we're not ready when they are, get our food, and then as far as they're concerned, we magically disappear. Forget about getting refills or ordering something else because trying to flag down a server is impossible for us after all the food gets to the table. Really now? I thought the point of operating a restaurant was to make money? If you don't keep your customers happy and make yourself available to take further orders, aren't you shooting yourself in the foot by ignoring or alienating those same customers?
I figure that their turnover is so high that they just don't give a F if they piss people off. I guess I'll keep taking their crap until I find another place that serves food like this just as well or better, but until then, I'm just gonna bend over and say...
"Thank you sir! May I have another?"
House special crab and a Tsing-Tao and I'm set here, but the steamed fish is amazing also, everything else I've tried is on par, I'll pass on the abalone though.
Service...its a Chinese restaurant, need I say more.
I just got back from Seafood Village for my Dad's birthday and I remember it being better. Although I've only ever had it one other time. The food was mediocre. It's not fantastic and it wasn't terrible. Their portions compared to other Chinese seafood restaurants were definitely skimping. We ordered their lobster deal, $9.99 each over yee mein. The lobster was ok but the yee mein had a very strong butter taste and smell. It wasn't very appetizing...it tasted kinda crayon-y. We also got oyster stir fried with green onions, Yang Chow fried rice, spicy and salty squid, walnut shrimp, basil clams, and 2 other veggie dishes that weren't that memorable. I think the walnut shrimp was the best out of all the dishes we had. It had the right amount of crunch although I prefer a little less mayonnaise. Their dessert was good. Not too sweet. It was white fungus with water chestnut. It was refreshing.
As for the service, it was less than mediocre. Although that's what's expected of any Chinese restaurant but still. My sister made reservations at 5:00 just in case. When we got there it was near empty with 2 other tables. I walked in and told them that we made reservations, the host asked for our name and the phone number that was used to place the reservation. I told him the information and he informed us that he couldn't find us in the book. I told him we did and he began to argue that we didn't. So I said, ok fine! Can we get a table for 6? He's like ok. Um...as any decent restaurant/host would do would be to offer us a table after not finding our names in the book since the restaurant wasn't even filled. So that annoyed me a bit. Throughout the meal, the waiters were only around to fill teapots and take away finished dishes but at one point, one of the waiters was just standing there trying to take this empty plate off the lazy susan while my mom was still eating from it. Um...what the?! Towards the end of the meal they kept interrupting us as if they were trying to shoo us out of there. I felt rushed. Not cool.
I probably wouldn't come back here. I think Top Island on Valley near Big 5 is better in terms of food and I think their service wasn't that bad...and that says a lot for Chinese seafood restaurants.
My family and I always go here for birthdays! It's close, cheap, and delicious!
Unfortunately, I can't say much about the house special crab since I don't like crab but I love the filet mignon cubes. I always go home with a satisfied stomach. (:
A few things I'm not too happy about... It is a little crowded, especially in the waiting area. Even on the weeknights it's a bit crowded and filled with a few people who aren't willing to sacrifice their seat for my grandmother. I also found myself laughing when we had a table in a private room and the table next to us muttered, "Great, we have to share this room with a bunch of fobs..." The parking is also very difficult at times, but of course, it's Las Tunas. I wasn't expecting any concrete meadows. But there's nothing the restaurant can do with that so it's fine by me.
Also, some of the waiters ignored us. We had to ask for a pot of hot water five times (each to different people) before we got it. The other servers are, on the other hand, very kind and always recommend delicious meals! (I feel bad that I complained a lot more than complimented... But really, I enjoy this place a lot!)
Decent food, just be prepared for a long wait during peak weekend hours. It's a no-frills dining experience, borderline hole-in-a-wall Chinese restaurant just across the street from Temple City's library and city hall. Strangely, you enter through the back entrance, as the front door is usually blocked by more tables. You immediately notice the decor of bright, colorful pictures of food lined up along the side of the walls, telling you the price of each. Sure it's tacky, but just point and order if you don't speak Chinese.
If you had to order just one dish, go with their house special crab. It's flash fried with a mountain of chopped garlic with such tender goodness, that you'll find yourself just eating a lot of the shell because it just tastes so good and you're too lazy to pick out the crab meat with your stubby fingers. Another memorable dish is the seafood tofu hot pot. Large shrimp, scallops, and squid are all mixed in, perfect with some rice. The prices are average, and service is pretty bad when it's a packed house, especially when they have their attention on larger parties.
I can't believe this place only has 5 reviews. Seafood Village has the best crab ever. The crab is cooked with garlic and it makes my mouth water thinking about it.
Dishes I always order:
watercress vegetables
tofu
filet mignon cubes
house special crab
The food is also super affordable. I believe everything come out to under $60 and this can feed 4 people easily. Large easy to use menus with pictures of food, so you can just point and order. :)
I went to Seafood Village with two friends and I have to say it was an excellent meal. The seafood dishes we ordered were all fantastic!
The squid was just the right amount of salty and spicy and was surprising un-oily. The seafood Chow Fun was bursting with a scrumptious medley of various marine delights, all prepared in a hearty sauce. The scallop dish had some of the most flavorful and tender scallops that I've had at a Chinese restaurant.
The service was also attentive and kind. Our teapot was replaced as soon as it was empty and I never felt neglected. The free soup with huge chunks of beef was excellent as well. I think the final bill for all of us was around $20. Amazing food and amazing deal!
I'm not sure why people like this place. Maybe Taiwanese folk don't know how Cantonese food should taste. I've been here twice and both have been mediocre experiences.
Their special plates (chiu-juw style) were pretty bad; some squid/octopus dish and soy sauce chicken. Chicken was tough and bland.
We ordered a bunch of stuff for a party of 7 and none of us were happy with any dish (cantonese family from San Francisco). As an ABC, I have cravings for fried rice so I ordered the house special fried rice. The portion was small and it was full of yummy MSG.
I couldn't believe that at 6:30p the place was packed and people were waiting.
This Seafood Village Restaurant is pretty much the same as the one in Monterey Park. Excellent Chiuchow/Teochew/Chaozhou food. While their dishes maybe a bit more exotic for some people, you can always play it safe and order by the poster sized pictures on the wall.
See my pictures for more comments on the dishes I tried.
After a bad experience at Hop Woo for my grandma's birthday, I was apprehensive that Seafood Village could impress me.
It did.
1. The wait staff were super friendly. Especially this one dude that had a crazy awesome chikon hair-do.
2. The food came out fast and hot even though we had three tables of people.
3. The food was GOOD. Like edible and tasty and different. I really enjoyed the flavours and textures of the food. Jellyfish with asparagus, chicken with an amazing minced ginger/scallion sauce, lobster with fried minced garlic (WOW) and the desserts! No recycled red bean soup here folks.
4. We had our own private room with a view of Las Tunas traffic. Woohoo.
I liked the food. I would go back. I'd like to try other dishes. I would recommend this place to others.
This WOULD be a 3 or 4 stars review if not for the manager. Right after our dessert, he came to us and basically kiced us out. He said in Cantonese, "If you are done, don't sit here and occupy the space. There are people waiting." We were about to pay when he said that and we thought his attitude was very very rude. We understood they were busy, but it would not be a problem if he asked politely. With this kind of customer service, the chance of me going back is 0. RIP, Seafood Village. (I dedicate this review to my best friend, Jana)
My sister says they're famous for their crab, and I tell ya, it is NOT to be missed! Great seafood, although their other dishes are good, too. The menu has some pictures, so you can even see what these things look like... yes there are some more exotic dishes (braised pork hock is great!), but they're all very tasty.
They take reservations for parties of 8 and up. The waitstaff are very friendly (well, especially if you speak Cantonese, but most of them speak English just fine).
Just recently, Seafood Village started this awesome promotion where from 9:30pm to midnight, they sell their house special crab and their jumbo boiled shrimp for $2.99/lb. The promotion also includes a buy one get one free on their beers and special items on the menu for only $5.99.
Some friends and I arrived just in time for their promotion to start and noticed that it wasn't as packed asusual (it could be because it was getting late). But as we were enjoying our meal, more and more people started to come in and on almost every table was a house special crab.
We ordered their house special crab, their boiled jumbo shrimp which comes with a soy dipping sauce, their fried pork chops, fried rice and a veggie called kong xing cai (empty heart vegetable?). The house special crab was delicious! They take a whole crab, chop it into pieces, dip it in a light batter and deep fry it until even the shells are nice and soft. The meat itself was really tender. They top the fried crab with some fried dried red chili peppers and a huge mound of deep fried chopped garlic (which goes really well with white rice). Their boiled shrimp was pretty standard, nothing too amazing about it, except for the fact that it was $2.99 a pound. Their fried pork chop was delicious as well. The meat wasn't chewy and dry and it was fried nicely. The veggies were probably my favorite dish (I'm a huge veggie fan). It was stir fried with garlic and chilies and I think a bean curd sauce, but I could be wrong. It was a little on the greasy side, but it probably added to the deliciousness of it all. I didn't get a chance to try out the fried rice, but it looked like any other Chinese place's fried rice (peas, carrots, fried egg and green onions stir fried with rice).
They had great service for a Chinese restaurant. Every time our plates were starting to overflow with empty shrimp and crab shells, someone was at our side ready to switch our plates to clean plates. They refilled our tea pot regularly as well.
For a party of five, the total came out be about $50, including tax and tip! We'll definitely be back when we're starving and in the mood for some great Chinese food.
Affordable dinner that is very good. As everyone says, the crab is very good here. Definitely get that if you come for dinner. Hot pot is good too. I eat here mostly for lunch though, because the lunch special is the cheapest in Temple City (actually one of the only places left with Special Lunch in TC). The menu for lunch is small, but is only around $5-7 per dish. I recommend this place.
This place knows how to make FANTASTIC Chinese food.
The highlight as many have stated is the House Special Crab.
Other highlights: Snow fish soup (the broth is to die for!), French style beef, House special Chicken. All their soups are really well done.
This is the restaurant my parents go to whenever they are in town. They'll eat there one night and then get take out another night! =)
I usually come here for the lunch specials because they're so much cheaper than the prices they charge for dinner. I'm not a fan of seafood but their crab is actually pretty good. Their chinese food other than is pretty good also. The service as described by other people was attentive and kind. Would recommend to other people.
Their famour garlic crab - excellent!! Chiuchow/Cantonese style food. Price is very reasonable too.
Really, really good! I brought my boyfriend here for dinner a few nights ago, and the food was amazing and cheap! The after-9:30 special is a great deal! We had the famous house crab, boiled shrimp and house rice. Although, I really wish someone had told me that they obviously boil the shrimp alive, as they serve it with the eyes and antennae still attached. I prefer my dinner not to look at me before I eat it... It still creeps me out a few nights later...
I've only been to this place twice and I've enjoyed the food both times BUT on my second trip I ran into a WAITER WHO DID NOT WASH HIS HANDS AFTER USING THE RESTROOM! I was appalled at this guy...not only that but he wiped his nose with his and hand like 4 times while he was making his rounds and serving people. I was trying to finish my meal asap and get out of there. On my way out, I reported this spikey-haired waiter to a manager so hopefully he gets disciplined and no one else has followed in his footsteps.
they got some delicious plates of Chinese food :] don't be afraid to go for the more expensive meals
Monterey Park, CA
Category: Seafood
Arcadia, CA
Category: Chinese
Arcadia, CA
Category: Chinese
Monterey Park, CA
Category: Chinese
Temple City, CA
Category: Chinese
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