Century Plaza Cafe

CHeap Chinese Eatery. Their beef chow fun is delicious, one of the best I had. Stir fry ramen is pretty good as well. Hong Kong Style Milk Tea is good. Wanted their dim sum stuff on the menu in the PM but they were out, how disappointing.

I usually come here for their breakfast menu. You might be thinking Chinese restaurants have breakfast menus!!! What do these Chinese people eat for breakfast? Well congee (porridge) is quite popular along with chee cheong fun (Rice noodle roll). I personally like their vermicelli and their rice noodle roll. Oh by the way don’t order their hot milk tea, its hard to describe how it actually tastes. I guess its kind of like cardboard, with a hint of creamer and crappy tea bag tea (Yes that’s what it tasted like to me.) So try their yin yang (milk tea coffee) instead. Now you might ask why would you want to mix crappy milk tea with sub par coffee? How about just for shits and giggles?
And another thing, there is a parking lot for this place. But if you come here during peak hours (usually breakfast time because all seniors love to get their cheap breakfast meals). You basically have to park in any space available. Meaning if you see a suitable space with concrete on it go ahead and shove your car in there because that is how everyone does it at that place. They might call you to move your car for another customer who’s trying to leave. But hey I guess they all want to save $ 2 on parking. The real bummer here is if you get blocked by some cheap ass who parked in that lot and went into Chinatown to do some grocery shopping…
And if you re wondering, there is a massage parlor right next to this café and right next to that massage parlor is a mah jong gambling joint. So if you re running from some loan shark or the Chinatown triads you might want to stay away from this place

Preserved egg & pork congee for $ 3.50 — great price for a sit down restaurant and not some takeout only place, but how will it taste?
I decided to give Century Plaza a try and it turned out to be great congee! Lots of preserved egg — often I get to the bottom of the bowl and there’s no egg/​pork left, but there was actually extra egg left this time.
Service was good, fast. I’ll be back to try other items on the menu…

Since I work about a block away from this place I have had the leisure to frequent it quite often. Usually I lunch here with my dad during our lunch break. I think their food is pretty tasty on a good day. Several times my dishes were too salty.
I’d recommend any of the baked dishes. The cilantro rice roll is pretty tasty. My menu pick is the Hai Nan Chicken.
Their service is only good when Chong and Wah are working. They always seem to make the service that much better. If they’re not there… then you better not be in a rush because you should expect to wait awhile.
I’d give them 4 stars, but I get turned off by the cigarette smell that lingers the restaurant. Smoking isn’t allowed inside the restaurant, but the men who hang around outside ALL the time are the ones to thank for the smell.

Best curry beef stew chow fun! Pretty good service for chinatown too!

if you go in from the left door, you get the ice cream counter, the right door gets you the main dining room. the far left door gets you into the massage parlor.
the room is brightly lit with booths on both sides of the wall. the tv screens are tuned either into sports or tv dramas. the menus were copies of typewrtten pages. baked goods (6ish) chow mein, soups. etc. i settled on curried beef brisket w/​rice (6.00). tea and a weak seaweed soup was comped. the food come out within 5 minutes. not bad. the brisket was tender and the curry slightly spicy. the price reasonable.
the main clientele appears to be young people and people who work with or are (building) contractors.

For the rice rolls, the roll part is good but the fried donut inside is crispy and hard — must be refried. The curry taste OK. For $ 7.95 at lunch in Chinatown, they should include tea or coffee. Have to go a couple more times to determine if the food is good.
But who are all those people standing out front smoking! They look like certain characters from kung fu movies. Because of them I would not go by myself!
(8÷18÷08) we went back this week and the gangster type people are gone from the parking lot. Food is still just 3***

New Café in Oakland Chinatown, it took a little time but I think it was grand opening so I decided to wait. Food was not bad at all. I have the cutlet pork shops, comes with spaghetti and red meat sauce. It was 7.95 but well worth the price. I brought half of it back to work for dinner. Kind of chaotic like all new restaurants. Menus are still being printed. Not a bad place to hang out with friends. And there’s parking in front, limited but that’s the main reason we tried it out.