Li’s Restaurant and Sushi Bar

Went here several times and tipped staff well until one day a group of owners friends showed up. Well, if you’re not family, you don’t get served. Waited over an hour. Horrible service. Food decent but Sushi Zushi and Kai much better. Don’t recommend!

Finally tried this place and so glad we did. It was awesome. I definitely recommend the sushi tower. Delicious!

Can’t believe there’s not a line, small but mighty, very delightful sushi bar with an artist making wonderful sushi. Jimmy can make anything you like but also has a menu for you to choose from. Hot and cold sake infused with sweet, spicy, and just right adventures! Full Bar and wine also.
The Chendgu dumplings were awesome, (be sure to cut into them because the wonderful hot oil that they are boiled in will burn your mouth). Shrimp tempura was very light and had a tasty sesame sauce for dipping. Everything we saw coming from the kitchen looked delish! My date had the short ribs with onions and they were very good… could of used a bit more meat but tasted very good. Sesame chicken was crispy… such a pleasant surprise. Quaint spot, come visit you will be glad you did

First time here since my spouse works nearby, so decided to give it a try. (Read previous reviews)
Service/​food poor — my spouse ordered salmon sashimi a la cart so she ask for cup of sushi rice.
… She gets her sashimi before my rolls which is ok… But waiter did not bring her rice… We waited to get his attention (and reminded him that she wanted rice with her sashimi. He was sorry ok.
When rice did arrive, they gave her «long grain»
Really? And to top it off, she asked for extra ginger, never got. Water never refilled.
Like no customer awareness :(
Did not bother to take photos.
At end of the day, just a bad customer service experience.

I am so happy I found this little gem in San Antonio! We ordered stir fried clam, pork with veg扣肉，chicken hot pot (not to confused with the one with broth). All of the 3 dishes we ordered taste like home, 家乡味。This place cook like a I went home to my grandma, their attention to details down to slicing of vegetable and the marination of meat were just right, not too salty at all! The best thing is their location so close to us!!! This place will definitely be our regular place from now on. We look forward to try more dishes. It was a busy night for a small crew but the crew were very polite and nice. Please stay open!!!

My family ate here on a Friday night around 6. Our server was a older lady who I felt rushed us during our entire meal. Food is average not the best I’ve had but not the worst. Not sure if I’ll ever come back

I love this place. Finally a place i can go to that is authentic. I little piece of heaven, a little piece of home.

This is such a great place to eat. The chengdu dumplings and all their dumplings are made fresh. I ordered a pork dish with sizzling rice, great taste.
Crispy spicy chicken, really tasty,;lots of red Chile flakes, but you can remove them.
Max our waiter was so polite.
Can’t wait to go back.

Danny has the best sushi ever! He always makes me a special roll when I come to see him. Definitely worth the drive from Live Oak.

What an amazing place! The flavors and texture will amaze you. My first real sake experience. The sake was so good I would compare it to a first growth Bordeaux or fine single malt scotch.

Five star service all the way! Very nice restaurant, small and quaint. We had the sushi tower (very good!) seaweed salad (not bad but I’ve had better) and the stone oak roll (not my favorite but my husband enjoyed it). If nothing else, the 2 guy servers made our experience awesome! We will be back!

My family of 5 looking for out typical comfort food. The food was very good: seafood soup hit the spot; mixed it with a order of ma pao bean curd — soo good — esp with me suffering with a head cold. The beef & broccoli was yummy! I like the sesame chicken bcs it was small crispier pieces of chicken instead of the normal heavy battered, doughy chicken at most other restaurants. The noodles were good, too. There are also off the menu items that are good to order from. We had already placed our big order by the time we knew about this. My favorite for presentation was my sashimi shaped like a rose. Well played, Li!

Tried Chengdu Dumpling yesterday. You can tell it is house made stuffing and hand wrapped, so much tastier than those bought from distributors served in some other Chinese restaurants.

Best Szechuan restaurant in San Antonio now! I recently discovered this place and it’s close to the house of my in-​laws so it’s very convenient whenever I have to visit them. It makes me very happy since normally I couldn’t find decent Chinese food around there.
I have been to this place twice and both experiences were pleasant. I have tried the beef dry pot, Mapo tofu, stir-​fried vegetables and eggplant in spicy garlic sauce and Dan Dan noodles. Nothing has disappointed us so far. The beef dry pot was excellent. Very flavorful and full of different ingredients. I am a big vegetable eater and the pot has Napa cabbages, broccoli, lotus roots, zucchinis, celery, mushroom, bamboo shoots, baby corn and more than I can recall. This is how dry pots should be! The taste was also so good!
Mapo tofu was a delight. I really didn’t expect it when my friend was ordering it. I just told her to bear in mind that the Chinese food in San Antonio is not as developed as Houston so don’t have too high expectation. When it arrived at our table it looked great. And it tasted great too! It was even better than most Szechuan restaurants in Houston. The tofu was so soft and the sauce had the exact kick. Definitely a happy surprise.
The eggplants were also good. Got everything that this dish requires and my friend who is a big fan of this dish and has high standard also approved of it too.
The stir-​fried vegetables were also way above average. Can’t go wrong with it.
Overall this is a really five star place on my scale without getting subsidy for its location. I highly recommend it. If you can take spicy food, make sure to state it to the staff and you will get the results you desire.

Very solid Chinese! So much better than the average strip mall place. There seems to be some authentic things on the menu.
We had the egg rolls, crab rangoons, general tsaos, and chicken lo mein along with some Thai tea. The Li’s seems to use very fresh ingredients which is refreshing. The only thing we did not care for was the sauce that came with the eggrolls and crab rangoon.
What we really liked was the service. The waitstaff seemed to really WANT your business, which is refreshing. Everyone was very kind and service oriented and thanked up profusely for dining with them.
We also loved the décor and ambience. Very tastefully decorated!
$ 26+a great tip for amazing service

Another authentic Chinese place to add to (growing) list of authentic Chinese places in SATX. It is probably more of a 4.5 star place, but we round up here in my Unilocal-​ville.
Menu is kind of weird, as the Americanized Chinese food is smattered in with the more authentic (mainly Sichuanese) stuff. In other words, you don’t have a separate authentic menu. From what I can see from the other reviewers, it is probably best to steer clear of the more typical, Americanized stuff and go more authentic, which is what we did. Everything we had was good and I am looking forward to going back and trying more dishes, as when we went it was just my wife and our two small children.
My one negative comment was that a couple of the dishes were a tad over salted, but it was not glaring enough to dock the place too much. Added pluses are a clean, pleasant environment and an extremely friendly and attentive staff.
Now, I just wish SATX would consolidate all its Asian offerings into some sort of Asia-​town somewhere! We have enough of a critical mass of places now that it would be totally doable, but I digress…

I guess I expected something just out of this world based on the reviews. Our experience was much more down to earth.
Had the spicy edemame– if you can look at the picture you can actually see the amount of salt on those suckers. It was almost inedible. You had to pop out the seeds and try not to taste the pod it was so overly salted.
Next come my entrée — it was veggie & rice noodles. I don’t know now the plate was under seasoned — like way, way under seasoned. It was a lot to the plate but if it doesn’t taste like much then you can’t really enjoy it.
My husband had ordered a hot & spicy soup that never arrived. So after my plate arrived, his finally shows up. It was the chicken and veggie pot. It looks amaxing1 check out the pic so we are excited then the taste test… The plate now is OVER salted– and it was like whut? First over salted then undersalted and now oversalted again? Not sure what was going on there in the kitchen but something was not right. Again– It was a huge amount of food but we could not eat it because of the salt. Finally he sends the dish back and settles for the hot & sour soup — I think he just gave up trying.
I don’t know what happened with our experience here maybe it was an unusual anomaly but that salt left an impression that we will not soon forget– unfortunately.
This was our experience.

First and last time here. Very disappointing for sure.
I ordered the Mongolian Beef and all I got were onions, very little beef.
My kids got sweet and sour chicken and sweet and sour pork. They gave it to us with no sauce or anything on it. They had to dip each bite in order to get the sauce on the meat.
Now for the fried rice. If that’s what you wanna call it. It was just rice. It’s didn’t have any meat, veggies or anything.
I only gave one star because you had to. Horrible and I will NOT be back. Total waste of $ 26.00

Gotta write a review for Li’s before I leave this town!
Before I review, you should probably know some background info. Northern China and southern China have very district cultures and food. First of all, most early Chinese immigrants are from southern China and they usually open up restaurants. Northern Chinese didn’t immigrant to the US until recent years so they are new immigrants. They usually work in higher education, tech field, and other professional field and are rarely in the restaurant business. Because of the above reasons sadly you rarely see northern Chinese cuisine which I prefer at Chinese restaurants. So your typical «Chinese» food is first of all southern Chinese for the most part and secondly far from authentic.
Another thing is Chinese restaurants are never consistent. The owner and cooks change so quickly and they usually operate under the same name after they change ownership. So just be aware of that. I could rate a Chinese restaurant 5 star today but I really would not be able to say anything about it 6 months from now.
Ok so now you have some knowledge about Chinese restaurants in the US in general, let’s begin. This place is probably not much in Cali or NYC but authentic Chinese is so hard to come by in this land of tacos. So for that, it deserves a 5 star. When my friend told me about Li’s, I wasn’t too enthusiastic b/​c I never trust asian establishment that combines several cuisines such as Chinese and Japanese. But it turns out the chef at Li’s does both well! I chatted with him who is incredibly nice. He is originally from northeastern China and I’m so glad to see new immigrants such as himself doing so well.
The ambiance is nice and classy. It’s not your typical greasy low end Chinese restaurant I seem to have a problem with. Chinese cuisine has so much to offer but in this country you don’t see many Chinese fine dining places at all. Most of them provide cheap food to feed the masses which is fine. But that’s certainly not what Chinese cuisine is about and the imagine it should project. Li’s deff sets a good example for modern Chinese restaurants. Good work.
Now let’s talk about the food here. I’ve tried the sushi tower which is super delicious. For Chinese offerings, I’ve only had the seafood hot spicy pot (not to be confused with hot pot) and fish fillet and sour cabbage. I have to say the food is very decent. It’s not on par with the ones I’ve had in Cali and NYC but it’s still one of the best and most authentic in this town for sure!
I wish I could try more offerings on the menu, but I’m moving to another state. Before I leave though, I want more ppl to know about this new Chinese establishment and have the opportunity to sample good Chinese food. I certainly hope Li’s continues to do well!

Oh yeah I can almost taste that spicy Edamame. Sooo… good. Thanks to our great waitress who highly recommended it.
We have started becoming regulars because of good quality Chinese food and also good sushi. Of course close to home so that is a really nice thing when you want a quick bite.
Pricing is very fair and portions are large. My kiddos say they have the best Lo Mein anywhere.
Service is great, seems like (not sure) but seems like a family affair and there is an emphasis on customer service and attentiveness. They do have alcohol and again the waitress made a great recommendation on sake
The place is clean and well kept. Lighting is just about right. Not too fancy-​schmancy. Just a good week night, I don’t feel like cooking, type of place. So is this the kind of place you go if it is a special occasion like your birthday or anniversary… no…but still great food.
I concur with many aspects of the other good reviews and just wanted to 5 start it up to bump up their average.