Newark Cafe

OMG this guygin says order the sauteed brown beech mushroom in flaming pot. So savory so good you will know the chrysthamum heaven of the 8 the god of the fire wood born in the year of the monkey

Two things you need to know about this restaurant. So oily. Get the lamb soup.
Literally everything is sopping with oil. The waitress said that you can ask for less oil if you want, so we’ll have to try that next time. Ironically, that’s not a knock on its authenticity since my father commented that authentic Sichuan food is super oily (his friend apparently starts every dish with a ladle of oil).
We tried their recommended Kao Yu, but unfortunately it was too spicy for my family and the fish wasn’t that great (it’s catfish so perhaps that’s expected).
The pea shoots (dou miao) were really good — if only they hadn’t been sopping in oil. I literally couldn’t bring myself to finish the dish because of how much oil there was.
The spring onion pancake was abysmal — seemed like the ones you can buy from chinese supermarkets, except they decided they wanted to drench theirs in oil, making it floppy and glistening. Skip this.
There was also this cucumber woody ear mushroom dish that was surprisingly addicting though still too oily (this is a theme…).
Finally, the dish that my family always come here for — their lamb soup (羊肉养生汤) that’s on the specials board. It’s a massive pot (we literally have been eating the leftovers for the last week) of a delicious lamb base, to which you then add napa, vermicelli, and tofu. The soup is that milky white color that comes from stewing the lamb bones for hours in a pot, after which they add the «healthy flavorings» like dates and goji berries and whatnot. The waitress said that they make each pot separately (rather than in a massive pot and ladling individual servings), so if you come on a busy day and the pots they’ve stewed have sold out, then you’re out of luck. The flavor of the soup is really great, but again, it’s too oily, so I actually liked bringing it home and then having the chance to remove the layer of oil at the top before reheating, and adding my own napa/​tofu/​vermicelli. It’s not cheap, at $ 30, but it’s humongous so it’s actually quite cheap given the size.
The interior is also super kitschy, and despite the remodeling, oddly still doesn’t feel like that nice of a place. Come here for their lamb soup and ask them to hold the oil.

food is great! .pricing is decent. but service/​workers is really bad. i feel like its because I’m not Chinese

Service is OK, food presentation is OK, price is OK, but the food itself is really good. It’s approved by serious Sichuan spicy food lover.
It’s like you have this great Taco store and all you should focus is the taco not how the service and table.
Roasted Fish (Kao Yu) is highly recommended.

Skip this place.
The service here is absolutely terrible. I won’t be coming back.
We came around 6 on a Saturday so this place was semi crowded.
We were seated at a table near the door and we were a party of 5 there were only 4 chairs, so she tried to give us this plastic blue chair by the door? There were plenty of regular chairs that customers who were seated at a big table weren’t using. And I asked the lady if I could get one of those chairs, and she refused until my parents stepped in and was like «that is not a chair to seat customers in» especially if there are regular chairs available.
Then I was ordering, and the waiter taking my order was inattentive and I had to repeat what I wanted multiple times.
This place does not understand customer service.
The food here was way too greasy and lacked flavor. I usually love spicy food but this place was spicy yet lacked other flavors.
Food ²⁄₅ stars
Service ⁰⁄₅

My friend Allen H. called in and made reservations for a party of 11 people for 7pm today (12/​30/​2015).
Wait felt extremely long because there was a party that had a few more people more than us. Unfortunately they stayed quite a long time and it just felt frustrating, but who wants to rush through their food and quality time with family and friends? I can’t hate them for that even if I felt like dying from hunger and being impatient.
Food was alright… wasn’t as spicy as I would have liked. The house noodle dish that I picked out for my group was probably the highlight of the entire night. Jk, my friends are the superstars, but the noodle dish was my favorite not because noodles is bae, because it was extremely flavorful. All that msg, haha.
Service was amazing! The waitress and waiter we had received were chill. They were very friendly and full of life. Loved them.
Bill came out to be over $ 165+ but worth the experience with my friends. Roll deep.

This restaurant is terrible, they demand cash only and with a terrible attitude, I usually paid decent tips when the service is OK, but their attitude are just so bad, so I paid like 10%, then I forgot something and when I returned, they wouldnt let me go until I paid for enough tips they required, and declare that 15% is the requirement of the tips

Had a dinner here with Chinese and Taiwanese friends. It was alright for me, nothing really hits my soul. Almost every menu has way to much oil. By the way, I’m originally from Thailand. So, nothing beats my country’s food. #shabang!

The food wasn’t very presentable. But the spicy crab was delicious.
The customer service there SUCKS! After paying for the bill. I was packing up my food to take it to go and one of the waitress came up and took the bill. A second later another waitress brought the bill back and demanded for a tip and threw the bill on the table. I was like FIRST, I wasn’t done with the bill, second, the other waitress took it and I was going to leave tips in cash. The FUCK! Later on, a middle age man came up to me and my boyfriend and apologize for the other girls being rude to us and demanding us for tips.
I swear if it wasn’t for that man, I wouldn’t of even tip her 15%.
I swear, who eats $ 100 worth of stuff and not leave a tip. -.-

Good taste, but the taste of the fish than San Francisco city branch. Service is good, but also come back

I have tasted many Sichuan restaurants in tri-​city, Milpitas area, but this is clearly the best, most authentic of them all. Lots of so call Sichuan restaurants are heavily focused on spiciness, not much on the flavour of Sichuan-​pepper, but this place balanced really lovely on the two different spices. Strongly recommend for people who love the tongue numbing effect from Sichuan-​pepper.
這家真的是超好吃的川菜館。絕對比山城私房菜，巴山蜀水好吃多了。

Have been here several times and most of the dishes are tasted pretty decent and provided in good portions.
What I like is shredded pork with spicy garlic, Mongolia beef and general Taos chicken. You can tell different taste while having their spicy dishes; not like other spicy Chinese food restaurant, you only feel hot and spicy with buring inside your mouth.
Overall, it’s nice to come while I feel like to have some quick and good Chinese food. Also, the price is very reasonable, especially during lunch time. It will be 5 star if they can make the interior cleaner and cooler with the AC.

Great idea, but poor execution. 15 dollars for half a chicken that is actually closer to a third of a chicken? 11 dollars for a plate of vegetable that barely covers the middle of a plate? And two dollars per tiny bowl of rice and no pot option?
Unless I were in the middle of a remote location where asians were rare and importing costs high, like say, Antarctica, then sure I can justify paying so much for so little. Sadly, even with the rather striking and attractive décor, it was a disappointing meal. That’s what I get for not checking Unilocal first to check beforehand.
This is one place I won’t be coming back to anytime in the near future.

So my coworkers and I went hiking one morning, & we got lunch following.
We never eat Chinese food apparently (I just started at this job!) so our Chinese coworkers were like, K. It’s our turn. We get to choose this time. And WE. ARE. HAVING. CHINESE. & not that Panda Express, white wash, Mandarin or Cantonese shit. No. We are talking about real folk people, traditional countryland food.
:D I was all down for it. I was already expecting Szechuan style. BRING IT ON. Luhh that shiet.
Ok ok, so. brace yourselves if you come here. It’s no lie when their foods are labeled spicy & numbing. NUMBING. So spicy, it numbs your mouth. BUT FEAR NOT, YOU FOODHEADS. It’s a bearable spice. & the numbness? Adds character. :D Makes the food even better.
My favorite dish was the fried pork intestines. See, that’s already a fave dish of mine. But here, they serve it with just red hot chili peppers. Literally looks like that’s what you’re getting. just a basket of peppers. But BOMBDELICIOSO.
Pretty much what I’d come back for. Actually salivating thinking about it. lol.
Didn’t care much for the other foods because I was so engrossed with the intestines, I won’t lie. But the hot & sour soup. guys. I kid you not, SO. SPICY. I died for a little bit.
Would come back here and try other dishes in a heartbeat. (Perhaps this weekend. :D)

Cute little restaurant for an easy and fast meal. Great fit out. Makes you feel as though you’re in China.
Lamb skewers are amuse if you like spicy food and lamb!

Fried fish is good, so does the rice noodle. I tried the Sichuan cold noodle and other dishes last time, but not so much impressed

This sichuan style restaurant is the best sichuan style Chinese restaurant in the bay area. My wife and I have tried many sichuan style restaurants in the bay area and this is the most authentic one, especially their BBQ fish (kao yu) on the big plate and spicy boiling fish because they use fresh and live fish and it makes a huge difference for the taste.
Just be alert, if you don’t like sichuan style, which is heavily in red pepper (chili) oil, you won’t like it and don’t go. If you do appreciate sichuan style, it’s the best place to go.

I’m not sure what people were saying about the service, but it was fine for me. At an authentic Chinese restaurant, I don’t expect courteous and attentive service nor do I ever receive it. Service at Newark café was definitely adequate and our dishes came out relatively fast.
I ordered the fried pork intestine with chilis. It was absolutely delicious. I can empathize with other fellow Unilocalers regarding the greasiness of the dishes. While there was oil seeping through the holes of the basket of my fried pork intestine, it was still absolutely delicious. It was like chewy pork rinds with the perfect amount of spice for my taste.
I also had the fish fillet in chili oil. The fish was tender and the chili oil wasn’t too overpowering.
Pro-​tip: they don’t split the bill between multiple cards so bring your cash or venmo in advance.

I’m not big on spicy food, but since my husband is Taiwanese, he pretty much drinks chili oil out of a bottle if he can. We walked in on a Sunday afternoon for lunch. The place wasn’t packed or full. They were slow to seat us.
We were in the neighborhood to get some bread next door and thought we check this place out. There are none spicy dishes. My daughter and I shared a bowl of noodles and it was tasty. Even though it wasn’t suppose to be spicy, it was still very peppery. Nothing that we couldn’t handle. My daughter loved it. We barely finished the bowl. It was big. A deep bowl.
We also ordered the cold tofu with preserved eggs. Very refreshing. I know, how could spicy be refreshing? Well, when you heat up eating all this spicy and hot food, having some cold tofu that’s been sitting in chili oil is actually really soothing. We got the onion pancake. I like how thin it is. Crispy on one side yet still chewy. Yum. The wonton was nothing special. I was hoping that it be sitting in some sort of satay-​ish chili oil. Nope. Just plain ol wonton soup with tablespoons of chili oil. Good but not worth re-​ordering.
We kept seeing people order the catfish dish that sits on top of a hot tray over the burner. Yes, we need to try that next time when we have a bigger party.

This place is a waste of your time and your money.
First of all, the staff here is rude, inattentive, and just unpleasant in general. When they brought us the food, they just kind of threw it on the edge of the table and left without saying a word. When I asked for rice, the waiter acted as if I asked him to kill a puppy or something. As if asking him to do his job was such an inconvenience.
As for the food, I’d rather be stranded on an island and force fed celery and Brussels Sprouts than eat their food again. Maybe it’s because we didn’t order the super spicy dishes, but the food was just utter crap. There is no real flavor because everything is just drenched in salt and oil. If I took their food and ran it under a faucet, the water would be probably saltier than the Dead Sea.
tl;dr: Their food was utter crap. No offense to crap.
Lastly their menu is misleading. As you can see from the photos, the menu for their Salt And Pepper Prawns clearly shows the already peeled jumbo prawns. But the dish that we got (in addition to being covered in salt) had shrimp that was the unpeeled, with head, tails, and poop still attached. This may not be a big deal to some people, but I highly dislike it when their menu looks completely different from the food served. Also, the menu showed there were little red chunks of pepper, but the picture of the actual food had none of that. As usual, when I brought this up with the waitress, she brushed me off and said the picture is only a «reference.» Well, it helps if the reference resembles the dish I’ll be served instead of something completely different.
I swear, I wouldn’t mind standing outside the restaurant telling people to go somewhere else if I had the time. This place brings sucks to a whole new level.