Rice Valley

Ok for quick lunch with BBQ and roasted items
Nice remodeled place seemingly cleaner than before. I had a BBQ combo of roast pork and BBQ pork over rice. Wife had rice and soy chicken. Pretty cheap eats for 5! to 7 bucks but food wasn’t that good but it seemed pretty fresh. They have s counter where you can get packages stuff like cha siu bao (frozen) or baked pastries which are pretty good. The Manapua (baked cha siu bao) is pretty good.

Food was good e cheap… it is decent Chinese/​dumpling/​roastduck restaurant. on the service side not the best but did not expect anything major.

They’ve completely redone the whole place since the last time I was here… Which was a really long time ago.
Came in here for lunch with my mom after she decided she wanted to try something new. I don’t think she fancied this place before. Like it wasn’t somewhere she would pick to eat. Anyway.
It’s set up with a section for dining in, to buy roasted meats and buns. Interesting. I’m not sure if they’re upstairs is still in use.
I ordered the spicy and sour beef noodle soup. It was pretty good. I liked the balance of sour Cuz it wasn’t overpowering. And since I can eat super spicy foods, this wasn’t numbingly spicy either. Maybe a little spicier would’ve been better but for the average person (I guess), it would have been a good balance overall. The noodles were nice and the beef was enough to make you full.
My mom ordered their wonton soup and she noticed they used shrimp wonton? And the wontons were larger than the average size. She said her soup was okay tho.
We also got green veggies. That were pretty standard.

The vegetables were well seasoned. The imitation goose was too sweet. The seafood congee had no salt nor any seasoning. Seafood was from frozen. The vegetarian dumplings were good with the vinegar soy sauce.
The bathroom was in great need of cleaning. The Health Inspector’s rating was 66 out of 100.
Cash only.

Didn’t hv my trusty Unilocal with me and that’s how I ended up stumbling upon this brightly lit place at night. I should’ve trusted my instincts when I checked out their menu but I was hungry and needed food… At first glance, it looks like a roast meats takeout joint. They hv tables on the side for «casual dining». Whole duck cost $ 13. Service was friendly and prompt. Kiddo wanted noodles as usual but it came with a $ 8.99 price tag :-(taste was average. Duck had some kind of salty-​soy-​sauce-​ish glaze all over, not what I’m used to but still tasted decent — sure was a skinny duck though, mostly skin & bones… They had some cheap eats rice & noodle plates on the menu around $ 5.99 but none of which sounded great :-(Note to self: no need to return

Lobster is pretty good, parents had a coupon for a $ 5.99 lobster and you really can’t beat that. Also ordered their manila clams in a spicy wine broth (hotpot style) and it was delicious. Took the leftover broth to cook my noodles in the next day! Prices are definitely reasonable and its a good place for some good hk cheap eats.

This place is a hit and miss sometimes with the food and the service. It was recently renovated beginning of the year. Also, it now sells dim sum and pastries.
For less than $ 15 dollars you can get a whole lobster over noodles. Sometimes, the noodles are too over cooked or drenched in oil/​sauce. But most times, it is cooked just right.
Since this is on Irving street — finding parking is such a bitch.

Amazingly tasty roast duck and dried scallop congee was the perfect dish for a cold, foggy sf morning. The wife loves congee so will bring her by soon, plus, cute bakery in the back to get some moon cakes and the like, bonus!

Before renovation: my GO-​TO place to get asian pastries and the occasional dim sum to-​go. I preferred it much more than Sheng Kee or the Happy Bakery down the street. I’d get their taro buns, coffee custard buns, red bean buns, and occasionally their savory ones with the green onion and/​or shredded dried pork. They even would have beautiful cakes and mini-​desserts!
After renovation: Prices went up slightly. Pastry and dessert choices became much more limited (which is why I would come to Rice Valley in the first place). Restaurant food is still alright but nothing I’d ever crave for.
For to-​go dim sum, TC Pastry 1 block down still wins.
The staff there are all still the same as before, and are all still just as friendly as ever. They’re honestly the only reasons I come back now and then! Sigh… I want so bad to believe that it hasn’t gone downhill, but it has.
If you DO decide to pop in for a pastry, I highly recommend their coffee custard buns which go for $ 1.25−1.50 each. YUM!

Not sure why the reviews are so bad, but I believe this place closed down for a bit and reopened again. My experience tonight was quite positive. I’d give it a 3.5 star review if I could.
Duck was a little cold but flavorful. The Chinese Chicken was kickass though. Also I enjoyed the hotplate with steak and scallops. Every dish has a fair amount of veggies so no need to order separate veggies IMO.
Overall, decent food, albeit a bit salty. Price was fair as well. Would most likely come back at some point.

Needed my fix of walnut shrimp! It was so good. Shrimp was perfect, but could be a little more crispy. Also had sweet and sour soup, nice and hot, would recommend.
Ordered delivery off of grub hub, took about 45 minutes to be prepared and delivered. Food was nice and hot, came with napkins, sauces and utensils.
So full from the shrimp and soup, I still have Mongolian beef and chicken chow mein in the fridge! I wish I wasn’t so full!
I would probably get delivery from this place again.

Don’t walk. RUN. As fast and as far as possible away from this establishment. And then thank me for saving you from this poor excuse of a restaurant. We should have known not to enter based on the terrible Unilocal reviews, but we were hungry, and really, how bad could it be? Let me tell you.
When we first walked in, there was a wait. However, the lady that was seating people did not have an efficient system to do this. There was repeated finger-​pointing at groups asking how many in their group (despite groups telling her at least 3 times) and if they were there before some other group. Hey Rice Valley, there’s this thing called a waiting list. You can write down the number of people in a group AND the name of someone in that group to call out when it’s time to seat them. *gasp* It’s a novel idea, but it might just work!
When we were finally seated, we were given cups of tea. Why am I mentioning this? There were tea stains along the outside of all the cups. I’m not sure who or what is doing their dishes, but stuff ain’t getting cleaned, yo!
We ordered about 10 items off their dim sum menu. Twenty minutes after our order is placed, we receive our first 2 items. Another 20 minutes go by without another dish making it to our table. Around this point I believe we received our 3^rd and 4^th item. Then nothing. My mom finally grabbed a waiter’s attention, and the waiter thought we were asking for the check. No, lady! We haven’t received all our items after an hour of waiting. She apologized and said it was busy because of the new year’s. She asked us what items we received. *sigh* Apparently they also do not have system to manage their kitchen orders. She went to check our orders, came back to tell us several items on our list were canceled because they ran out (uh huh, sure), and our last remaining dishes would be out soon.
The service really sucked balls. It really is as bad others make it seem. After you sit down, there is no acknowledgement of your existence. When our cups of tea were empty, we waved our hands in the air several time before anyone looked our way. Then, when they finally did, they blinked and continued on their merry way. It was almost comical how awful the service truly was. The service improved slightly after my mom raised her voice and demanded to know where the rest of our food was.
The food was edible, albeit very salty and full of MSG. I was incredibly thirsty the rest of the day. The quality of the food was definitely lacking, but hell, so was every other thing about this place.
We were truly grateful just to get our food so we could eat and leave. We paid cash just so we wouldn’t have to waste time grabbing the attention of a waiter to take our card. That probably would have taken another 15 minutes, and that’s a conservative estimate.
This place is definitely a NEVER AGAIN.

I’m pretty sure my 5-​star review is one of the few here. To be clear, the 5 stars aren’t for the restaurant. I’ve never actually set foot in this place. My review is based on the yummy buns they sell. One bite of their pineapple bun with mashed taro filling and your life will change. Who knew such an odd combo would be so mind-​blowingly delicious? The bun is fluffy, fresh, and springy. The outside is crunchy and sugary. The mashed taro is sweet and buttery. Party in my mouth. My parents told me that they don’t actually bake the buns there; instead they buy them from a third party. Do I care? No, just make sure the bun deliveries don’t stop!

It’s a pretty good (food/​taste-​wise) place. Reminds me of HK Cafes. Service sucks. But food (and price) make up for it in my opinion.
Yes, they use MSG, but if you’re looking for some traditional Chinese dishes… I mean TRADITIONAL, come here. Don’t be misguided, they do not have orange or lemon chicken here. =)

My parents & I were going to SoCal for the weekend & they stopped for a night in the CIty. Since we were going to be doing a lot of eating during our trip, we thought we’d just whatever was nearby.
I have walked by this place many a’times over the last 1.5 years of living in the neighborhood & I have always been turned off by the sewage-​like smell that’s outside. But maybe the food will be OK?
We started off with Shrimp & scallop with satay sauce which had a very sauce. There were way more shrimps than scallops but overall the seafood was not horrible. Then we got the Spinach with salted & thousand year-​old duck eggs. There was too much spinach which was overcooked. The eggs were cut into really itty bitty pieces so they did not contribute to the dish’s flavor or texture. We also got the Eight-​treasure tofu (in a clay pot). It was way salty; there weren’t many pieces of tofu; & the BBQ pork tasted funny… well…rancid. Instead of regular white rice, we got Steamed rice with calamari & pork. That’s rice, calamari & pork; and it tasted as weird as its concept.
If I thought the food was borderline «meh», then the service was definitely below «meh». The entire wait staff hangs around in the back & when customers arrive, they try to get each other to work. Seriously, if nobody wants to work, close your doors. At least that way you can save some $$ on your energy bill. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the waiters tossed our dished… with enough force so that plates would slide along the table a few inches before coming to a stop! I am very grateful that neither my parents nor I got splashed or spilled on because if that had happened, I probably would done more than just write this low-​rating (but fair) review.

I think not, this place looks so run down but I gave it a try even though I saw the two stars.
Long story short, nothing is flavorful!

The name of this restaurant fits the description of Asian-​friendly Irving Street. Mayor Ed Lee should name the stretch of Irving Street between 19^th and 25^th Avenue, «Rice Valley». I think the city should do that!
Prior to my visit, I was aware of the poor overall rating of this restaurant. Therefore I have decided to give this place a chance on a rainy weekday after doing some quick work nearby. The restaurant also have a bakery where they do their own baked goods. The spot also sell refridgerated dumplings and other sweet and savory pastries for us to bring home to nuke in the microwave.
For lunch, I ordered the Peppered Steak over Pan Fried Noodles. For $ 8.00, I get peppered flank steak strips mixed and grilled Fajita-​style with onions, spices and red and green peppers over a nest of pan fried noodles. The meat and vegetable topping were very tender and noodles was very crispy and tasted well combine with the other ingredients. My pasta:
I was very hungry that lunch time. I also ordered a plate of pot stickers. For $ 4.95, I get ten small pieces. The fried dumpling is the same small size you get at the freezer aisle at all Asian Markets. As I left, I just found out the restaurant also sell the frozen gyoza. The same dumpling I ate for lunch. It was not a good choice on my part. I should have bought pot stickers from any other Chinese Bakery along Irving Street. My dish of tiny Gyoza:
I am not sure what other reviewers ate here. But it seems I ordered the right dish with the pan fried noodles and the wrong appetizer.
This place isn’t bad despite the poor rating.

(See pics) Review #1304. Was here to pick up some Chinese pastries and buns. Seriously the pastries were just okay but they were better if you reheat them. Was not expecting phenomenal goodies but this was sub par at best.
The preserved egg pastry was a bit hard on the egg. The buns were a bit dry and tasted like the doughs were not kneaded enough to make it puffy.
They have a restaurant at the back and looked packed. Maybe their dinner service was better.

When Mama-​Fabulous (my mom) told me that there is $ 13 lobster yee mien, I was restless until I finally scoped it out for myself. It’s true, the dish comes with a good about of lobster but I was disappointed to find that the noodles were soupy. From my past experience, the noodles should be dry and lobster flavored.
Mr. Dubs and I also ordered a tomato beef pan friend noodles and an order of xo sauce rice rolls. They were both ok but nothing to rave about. The tomato beef could’ve been more flavorful and the rice rolls didn’t have any xo sauce taste at all.
I was also incredibly turned off by the fact that I walked into an empty restaurant and nobody even looked up at me. Correction, they looked up, saw me and continued on with whatever they were doing. I awkwardly walked down towards the register and just sat down at a random table. Five minutes later I had to steal a menu from another table as no one even walked over to offer me one.
Whatever. You get what you pay for. I may be back to get the $ 13 lobster yee mien but likely I’d get it to go. I still gave them a 2 star review rather a 1 star review though– let’s just say, the price is right!

I have to say that I was quite surprised looking at the reviews prior to eating here… and then feeling a sense of decent yummy goodness as I was leaving. It’s your run of the mill Asian café with super cheap prices and food that will get you so full that your next meal is out of the questions.
My mom had walked by this place with my aunt and decided to try it due to the really big sign in the front window of lobster noodles. She brought me here last night and I ha to refrain her from ordering 4 lobsters! Haha. Instead we ordered 2 lobster noodles, one rice pot with pork belly and salted fish, and one wonton soup.
The lobster noodles were the star of the show. You seriously get a whole lobster with your choice of thin or thick noodles… the latter being a little more expensive. For $ 12, you can’t go wrong with a whole lobster and a pretty good portion of fresh noodles. Winner.
The wonton soup was nothing special… that was ordered just because it was raining cats and dogs outside. Skip out on that one.
The rice pot with pork belly and salted fish… the presentation is not very pleasing to the eyes… but it tasted great! The rice was slightly crunchy on the bottom. The saltiness was perfect… the pork belly was plentiful although they could’ve made it a little less flimsy. Not bad!
The service was typical… just point to the menu what you’d like. They’ll bring it out your food, give you some extra napkins, and refill your tea. That’s all I really need at this type of establishment.
Solid 3 stars. I’ll come back again just for the lobster noodles!