Yao’s Restaurant

Wanted to support them, but the cold appetizers (choose any 3) weren’t fresh this time. The Purple Yam Cakes were «ok». It used to be better. Even though it was hot when I ordered it, somehow from the texture, I get the feeling it has been sitting in the fridge. Better get my cold noodle when weather turns warm and before they go out of business.

Please dont come here. The food process time is really slow, No AC, and bad customer service.

Cash only even if you eat hundreds of dollars. Poor restaurant. Do not come to here! Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Spicy Hotpot, my first try, before taste, it smells good already.
It contains different veges, noodle, sausage, fish ball…
Highly recommended

I wouldn’t recommend coming here. Pass the door and go to the restaurant next to it. We got the pumpkin porridge, pork noodle soup, and some sort of pork/​squid dish. The noodle soup and pork/​squid dish was so oily, fatty, and disgusting. The pumpkin porridge was bland. Aside from the food, the restaurant just did not feel comfortable. When we walked in there was a guy laying on the bench without shoes. Eww. Then he proceeded to go into the kitchen… uh no. The waitress didn’t even bother to address us. It felt so disgusting afterwards. Please don’t come here.

The food is not so good, service is so slower I understand maybe there is only one waitress, but the price is expensive. I ordered dumplings. OMG, I went a lot of Chinese restaunt, it is the most SMALLEST size dumplings I have seen! It is more expensive than the other same lever rest. I will not go there again

Came with a friend. To be fair, the chill and sour potato and quail skewer are pretty good. However, the porridge are just miserable — we ordered sea cucumber porridge and shrimp porridge, they are all very bland and are made out of the same base. I don’t think I’ll order their porridge again, but may try give other dishes a try.

Tasty dumplings and the purple potato pancake is pretty good.
Cold noodles are good, but it’s a cross between Chinese and Korean and I can’t quite decide if I like ‘em or not. We had another noodle soup dish that was slightly spicy but lacking in flavor otherwise.
Pickled mushrooms and kimchi appetizers were okay– I suspect pickled mushrooms aren’t my thing. Pig ear was good but not great; a nice contrast if you want just a hit of spice.
Strongly suspect there’s some better dishes here than what we had, just haven’t had time to try them yet…

Was not expecting much but the black bean noodle turned out to be the best ive had in LA. Will try their lamb skewers next time.

I don’t normally write reviews but felt compelled to after my experience here. My wife and I came here on a friend’s recommendation. We ordered the veggie porridge, pork and preserved eggs porridge, assorted meats dumplings, and pork buns. The porridge had absolutely no flavor at all. I felt that they made plain porridge and then just sprinkled the ingredients (a very small bit of eggs and pork on mine and some veggies on hers) on top. There was no trace of the ingredients’ flavor in the porridge at all! The buns had only a teeny tiny amount of meat inside. The dumplings were the best of our order today but even then were mediocre.
After the meal, I checked the Unilocal reviews and could not believe that this place had 3.5 stars. I am shocked and don’t know how this place got that rating. If I could give it zero stars I would. There is no way I would ever go back, and I would not recommend this place either.

Horrible service and attitude.
Since this restaurant opened, I always come to here with my friends or family. The food at here was great and as so as the service. However, the service yesterday was horrible that makes me to give 1 star review for this restaurant. I went to here yesterday with my mom to look for the cold noodle. When we sit down, we ordered two iced water. The waitress went to prepare the waters. I saw the waters were prepaid, but the waitress didn’t bring them to us until we called her for ordering. After we finished the cold noodles, we asked for the check and paid it with the credit card. Meanwhile more people come to the restaurant and there is no seat. Then the waitress gave the credit card back to us and waited for us to sign the bill. I wrote down the total amount and the waitress asked us to be fast. I asked for more time for my mom is not a quick reactor. Then the waitress become impatient and ask us to leave.

5 stars just for the lamb skewers. Yao’s has my favorite lamb skewers in the San Gabriel Valley. The meat is super soft and falls off the stick. I also love the corn noodles with tomato and egg.

I ordered Guo Bao Rou to go on Sunday. It tasted soooooo good. It was the best Guo Bao Rou I ever tried in LA. BUT their service was terrible. I just needed to pick up my order, there was 3 people in the counter, one lady was busy with other dine-​in customer, one man was on the phone talk to his friends (or maybe family), and one lady was also concern about that phone chatting. Excuse me?! Do you really need 2 people on the phone to explain to your friends how to get this restaurant?! Obviously, they are small family business. They just let me wait in front of the counter for at least 5 minutes, not because they were busy! At that time, they were not busy at all!!! I will come again for their tasty Guo Bao Rou. But I really hope they could be more professional, and think for their customers please!

I ordered a cold noodle for a hot day. A warm noodle bowl came and waiter said he thought I said cool noodle. I even pointed to the cold noodle poster on the window. I didn’t have time to change order so I accepted it, with regret.
No flavor, very little meat, over cooked noodle, flat tasting broth. Even the chili on the side didn’t have enough flavor to save it. I didn’t finish even a third of it.
Return? I don’t know. Definitely not for the same noodle. Maybe one day for other dishes when I ran out of other very good restaurants nearby.

food tastes fair, dried eggplant in cold dish is great, porridge is fair, steamed bun took too long to be ready. Service is poor, they do not accept cash under $ 25, and we spent $ 24. :(

Food so so. Just another dumplings restaurant. Service is very slow. Absolutely not kids friendly AMD not prepared for sharing food. We ordered a porridge and a noodle, and they didn’t give us small bowls for sharing. When we asked, they just gave one bowl. We have young kid with us, how can we eat without extra bowls.
Not recommend if you have kids under 5.

Came here with my sis in-​law and husband who is from northern china who knows what to order here. I would have no idea! Some different dishes i never had before, which is good. We ordered a lot of different things where some were not bad and others could be better though.
The corn meal noodles soup with tomatoes wasn’t bad at all. Pretty soothing and light. Love the shredded potatoes and Beijing pie. The pumpkin and taro mochi cakes was ok. No different then others i have tried. Only better side was the varieties in flavors. The fried sweet & sour pork was ok. They made it really thin which was interesting but then makes the fried pork more like fried batter than anything and also a little bit dry. The preserved veggie with vermicelli was also not bad but nothing special. (minus 1-​star)
Place is clean and service was great and prices comparable to other similar restaurants nearby. Overall, reminds me of home food with less salt. Not bad at all yet not the greatest. Will go back for the corn meal noodle soup though!

Came here on a week night after work. Not too busy, a few tables of people. They told us to sit wherever we like. We changed tables after a bit because it was cold by the door.
They have a cold appetizer, pick your item kind of thing at the register. Portions aren’t too big but match the price. Lots of people ordered from it but I didn’t try it.
We got the lamb skewers, cold noodles, and yam pancakes. Yam pancake was a little oily so wasn’t that great. Lamb skewers were good but the dipping sauce they gave us could not be dipped due to the long skewer and shallow plate. Cold noodles hit the spot for me since I was craving it. Not many places with the soba cold noodles.
Service was ok, not too bad as some mentioned. A little slow but bearable. Some kitchen staff saw us looking around after we ordered and thought we didn’t order and brought us a menu so that was nice.

I normally don’t give review bc I believe every one has ones flavor preference n I can not judge based on my preference. But This newly open restaurant featuring Northeastern Chinese food, family based, did not get many reviews here and I really like their food and I can’t bear if they fail to survive in the very competitive SGV. So here I’m writing review rooting for them. The porridge is one of their specialty and they are very very good, tastes like what your mom will cook for you. And all other dishes are very decent. We had sour cabbage vermicelli n pot wrapped meat and they were delicious with rich flavor. The purple yam cakes were also delicious. We bought their frozen dumplings to go and cooked them at home they were also really good. I have been visiting back several times.

I just went to a pre opening at this restaurant. The food was the best Chinese food i have had in a long wile. THe prices were great. THe different type of cooking was also good. It is not your everyday american Chinese food. The staff were polite and very pleasant. The place was clean and very soothing. I will eat there again. I think that if you are looking for something that is home cooked and served family style, this is the place!
The Grand opening is on monday the 18^th.
I am planing on being there! Good food, good people good, atmosphere and good on the wallet.