Authentic Chinese breakfast spot! I wish it is closer for me. Love their tofu nao, 煎餅果子.
meg m.
I just opened my take out order, and saw a fly inside the container. I frequent Si Hai's Arcadia branch and never had any issues, this San Gabriel branch is slow and the cleanliness is questionable. Won't be coming back. As I'm seriously grossed out.
An L.
Owner should hire another person to help at the counter! The lady is amazing! She is the only One person doing all these: cashiers; take order from the phone; take order for in house customers ; to go customer; make sure kitchen 's order is ready; and take care of those who order on line as well as check to make sure who is picking up what! Waiting time is terrible! Otherwise this is a great place.
Tommy H.
They get BUSY in the mornings, all the local uncles and aunties come here to get their morning soymilk and carbohydrate kick. If the uncles and aunties approve, this place is legit. They serve a huge variety of Taiwanese "breakfast" items, including these sticky rice rolls wrapped around a fried Chinese donut or "you tiao". If you haven't had that before, F your diet, come here and get some. It's called Salty Rice Roll on the menu.
Andrea N.
very yummy breakfast spot! i grew up eating fan tuans when I visited Asia, so I loved this nostalgic spot. You order at the counter and then either sit down or wait for your order to be called. it does take some time to get to the front because they only speak Chinese & it's slow if they don't understand what people are saying. i think they wrap the rice rolls fresh after you order it because the you tiao is super crispy in there still. the flavor is delicious & I like getting it with pickled veggies for a little twist. I also got the taro pastry which was super filled with taro paste & the skin was perfectly flakey. i definitely will try their other items next time I visit the area!
Nancy N.
I wanted to try something new for breakfast. When I first entered the store, flies were everywhere outside and inside the store. The cashier does not speak English so I was pointing to the items that I wanted on the sign. 1. Rolled rice with pickled vegetables, fried egg, pork floss and Chinese donut. It was gigantic with a lot of filling and a nice layer of rice. The only complaint I have is the Chinese donut was too oily. After the first bite, my boyfriend said it was like eating a bite of oil . Besides that, I enjoyed it. 2. Salty soy milk. Good amount of saltiness without it being overwhelming. The soy milk was delicious. They did state the soy milk is made fresh in house every day. 3. Sticky rice with pork and mushroom. It came out HOT! Flavor was iight nothing amazing. I got an egg yolk with a couple pieces of pork abd mushroom. The ratio of rice to filling was good. Overall my experience was good. Would I be back? Maybe
Leonidas L.
I've been coming to this restaurant for many years, close to 20 years. It's never been amazing to begin with, but the quality and authenticity of their food, as well as the value, were pretty decent in the past. But in the past 8 or 10 years, everything has gone downhill, while the prices keep going up. For the food itself, I would give it maybe 2 or 2.5 stars. However, I am giving this review only one star because of a horrendous nightmare experience I recently had. Experience: For background and context, normally it would only take them about 5 or 10 minutes to get the order ready after being placed, but because this was during the busy holidays, I knew it could take up to 25 or 30 minutes for a sizable order. So I called the restaurant about half an hour ahead of our planned pick-up time (actually, one of our lunch guests had offered to pick up the food on their way to our home, so I wouldn't have needed to pick it up myself; more on this later), to place a to-go order. The worker asked me to wait for a moment as she took care of one or two in-person customers, which was not a problem - IF that's all she did. By the way, she didn't place the call on hold, but she just set the phone down on the counter, "off-the-hook," so I could hear all of her conversations and interactions with the customers at the restaurant. She ended up completely forgetting that I was waiting on the phone, and she was just taking care of the customers in the restaurant one after another. After I waited for about half an hour, hoping that at some point she would come back on the phone, NOPE, she never did. And because she didn't place the call on hold, we couldn't just hang up and try calling again, because we would just hear a busy signal because she never hung up the call on her end. SO... I had to hang up and personally drive about 15 or 20 minutes to the restaurant, get in line, which took another 20 minutes or so for me to place the order. What's worse, by the time I was close to the front of the line at the counter, the worker hard started telling the few customers ahead of me that they had run out of various key items on the menu (most of which I was planning to order)... so then I had to scramble last-minute to change my big order and replace several of the major items I had planned to order. When I had finally placed the order, I had to wait yet another ~30 minutes for the food to be prepared. Then after that I had to drive ~15 minutes to bring the food back home (keep in mind that the original plan was that I wouldn't have needed to pick up the food myself). Let me break down the extra time and labor I had to spend: If the worker had remembered I was on the phone and taken my order, one of our guests was going to pick it up ~30 minutes later, and bring the food to our home. The whole thing would have taken roughly 45 minutes, from phone order to food arriving in our home, without me ever leaving the house. INSTEAD, from the time I called the restaurant until when I got home with the food, it was about 2 hours and 15 minutes total, or 3 TIMES LONGER than if they had done their job correctly. AND, none of the items would have been out if they had not forgotten me on the phone, so I would have been able to order everything I had planned to order. Furthermore, this was especially stressful and disappointing because we had several lunch guests visiting from out of town, and they had specifically requested to have Taiwanese breakfast together, and were looking forward to the food. I ended up getting home with the food over an hour after everyone had arrived, and by the time we started lunch, everyone was starving and the kids were cranky - and once again, missing several of the items we originally wanted to order. While we still tried to make the best of the situation, it was a complete disaster in terms of how things turned out, and to no fault of my own. A note on the authenticity of the food or lack thereof: Ever since 8 or 10 years ago, when Mainland Chinese people started taking over
Lu D.
Taiwanese chain. More like 3.5. Authentic. Good variety. A little on the salty side.
Cindy M.
Gave this place a visit since we usually eat at Yung Ho Cafe, and wanted to try a new place for Taiwanese breakfast. When we arrived, we were a little confused if we were in the right place. It's also known as "Si Hai Restaurant" which translates to Four Sea Restaurant. My first impression was that the restaurant looks very clean. You order and pay first and they bring your food out to your table. Unfortunately the cashier helping us didn't speak English, so we had to use our broken Mandarin to let them know what we wanted. Perhaps if there's an option to order online, do that, or have the pictures/Chinese names of the foods written out ahead of time by referencing yelp. It'll be pretty difficult to point at the names since they don't have paper menus. Otherwise the cashier helping us was very patient and kind in clarifying our preferences. We ordered the fan tuan with cruller and egg, salty tofu pudding, peanut rice milk, and fried cruller (Chinese doughnut). - Fan Tuan w/fried egg - wanted purple rice, but it was going to be a challenge translating, so we got just the white rice. Not sure if this one we ordered was supposed to come with preserved veggies or if we inadvertently didn't order it, but I thought it was good! It came out warm, the cruller was crispy and the fried egg was perfect. They also have the option of adding a steamed egg instead. There was just enough rice wrapping everything up. The staff were kind enough to cut it in thirds so we could split it among 3 people (at first I thought they had just unevenly split it in half haha). - peanut rice milk - fresh peanut taste. The texture itself is somewhat gelatinous, which is probably the rice milk aspect. It's a bit more jelly in texture than it is creamy. Good to try, but I wouldn't get it again. I kinda liked dipping the cruller in this drink, just like I do with the soy milk. - salty tofu pudding - it's the soft tofu with some preserved veggies and some pork floss maybe? It's like the sweet tofu with ginger but this is savory style. I liked it better than I expected! - fried cruller - looked kinda burned from a lot of Yelp pictures, but I think it's the lighting. Otherwise it's pretty standard, a bit on the oilier side. Dipping it in soy milk or a drink helps balance the oiliness out. I think I prefer Yung Ho's cruller. They also have a case of refrigerated side dishes and some pastries. Although it looks like there's duplicates of some flavors, note that one of the "duplicates" is has the egg yolk at the center ($4.30) and the other is the non-egg yolk version. Hope that makes sense. The Chinese name will also help indicate if it has egg yolk or not. Overall, they have similar offerings to Yung Ho Cafe, my go-to, and I would definitely come back here!
Ed W.
This is an old-school Taiwanese/Chinese breakfast place that has been in the SGV for many years in an older plaza. You order at the counter then they bring you the food. The lines are sometimes long. Their hot soy milk is slightly sweet. Their food comes out hot. I don't have high expectations about the service but it was solid. The waitress offered to cut our fan tuan because we wanted to share it. My expectation is that they toss us a knife and tell us to go at it. Also, don't try to cut it with a plastic knife. That's an attempt at futility. There aren't many places that do Taiwanese-style breakfast. I usually go to Yi Mei but this is very solid as well. Different styles but both great if you want something savory, light, and simple in the morning.
This is your traditional Taiwanese breakfast spot. This was our first time here and we thought it was pretty good. You order at the counter and pick your own table. It was pretty empty by the time we got there around 11 am, I would imagine it being more packed earlier in the morning. We noticed a lot of people like to grab and go. We didn't have to wait long for the food and it was yummy. Portions were generous as well. Overall it's a good spot for Taiwanese breakfast at a reasonable price! I definitely want to come back and try their other dishes.
Bacong F.
A quick stop for my Taiwanese style breakfast. Hot soy milk and Chinese donuts. It was so oily and so good! Nothing beats freshness you can taste. I bought a few of the other pastries with sesame seeds on top - it was too dry and chalky. Not a fan but for almost $3/piece other people must love it. Not my thing nor my family's.
Shirely C.
Two star gives to the food! Service is horrible. Came here because of this is next door restaurant. This morning I went to get my breakfast think I can save some time, usually Chinese restaurant staffs are really efficient but this one. The pass the food not by order, in the morning everyone is in rush, for some reason, they gave to-to order not by the ordered time. Three persons ordered behind me even have bigger order got their food ahead of me. I've been waiting for ten minutes, this is ridiculous. Disappointed!
Daph H.
We got food from Four Sea delivered. This was my first time trying fan tuan, and based on my experience, probably my last. My pickled veg rice roll had pork floss, pickled mustard greens and fried dough. I think the roll might have been sitting around for a while because the fried dough didn't taste fresh. Once I removed it, it was much better. Also tried their flaky oven bun (sesame bread) and radish pastry - both were pretty bland and boring. At least Mom enjoyed her salty soy milk and stir-fried peanuts, so it wasn't a totally disappointing experience!
Brian F.
Lived in alhambra since 2015 and I JUST found this place 4 months ago! Get their fan-Tuan rice rolls with pickled veggies and fried egg. Taro cake is also very good as well as egg-crepe. I come for the food, not the service. That said, I've never had a bad experience. And I come a lot!
Authentic Chinese breakfast spot! I wish it is closer for me. Love their tofu nao, 煎餅果子.
I just opened my take out order, and saw a fly inside the container. I frequent Si Hai's Arcadia branch and never had any issues, this San Gabriel branch is slow and the cleanliness is questionable. Won't be coming back. As I'm seriously grossed out.
Owner should hire another person to help at the counter! The lady is amazing! She is the only One person doing all these: cashiers; take order from the phone; take order for in house customers ; to go customer; make sure kitchen 's order is ready; and take care of those who order on line as well as check to make sure who is picking up what! Waiting time is terrible! Otherwise this is a great place.
They get BUSY in the mornings, all the local uncles and aunties come here to get their morning soymilk and carbohydrate kick. If the uncles and aunties approve, this place is legit. They serve a huge variety of Taiwanese "breakfast" items, including these sticky rice rolls wrapped around a fried Chinese donut or "you tiao". If you haven't had that before, F your diet, come here and get some. It's called Salty Rice Roll on the menu.
very yummy breakfast spot! i grew up eating fan tuans when I visited Asia, so I loved this nostalgic spot. You order at the counter and then either sit down or wait for your order to be called. it does take some time to get to the front because they only speak Chinese & it's slow if they don't understand what people are saying. i think they wrap the rice rolls fresh after you order it because the you tiao is super crispy in there still. the flavor is delicious & I like getting it with pickled veggies for a little twist. I also got the taro pastry which was super filled with taro paste & the skin was perfectly flakey. i definitely will try their other items next time I visit the area!
I wanted to try something new for breakfast. When I first entered the store, flies were everywhere outside and inside the store. The cashier does not speak English so I was pointing to the items that I wanted on the sign. 1. Rolled rice with pickled vegetables, fried egg, pork floss and Chinese donut. It was gigantic with a lot of filling and a nice layer of rice. The only complaint I have is the Chinese donut was too oily. After the first bite, my boyfriend said it was like eating a bite of oil . Besides that, I enjoyed it. 2. Salty soy milk. Good amount of saltiness without it being overwhelming. The soy milk was delicious. They did state the soy milk is made fresh in house every day. 3. Sticky rice with pork and mushroom. It came out HOT! Flavor was iight nothing amazing. I got an egg yolk with a couple pieces of pork abd mushroom. The ratio of rice to filling was good. Overall my experience was good. Would I be back? Maybe
I've been coming to this restaurant for many years, close to 20 years. It's never been amazing to begin with, but the quality and authenticity of their food, as well as the value, were pretty decent in the past. But in the past 8 or 10 years, everything has gone downhill, while the prices keep going up. For the food itself, I would give it maybe 2 or 2.5 stars. However, I am giving this review only one star because of a horrendous nightmare experience I recently had. Experience: For background and context, normally it would only take them about 5 or 10 minutes to get the order ready after being placed, but because this was during the busy holidays, I knew it could take up to 25 or 30 minutes for a sizable order. So I called the restaurant about half an hour ahead of our planned pick-up time (actually, one of our lunch guests had offered to pick up the food on their way to our home, so I wouldn't have needed to pick it up myself; more on this later), to place a to-go order. The worker asked me to wait for a moment as she took care of one or two in-person customers, which was not a problem - IF that's all she did. By the way, she didn't place the call on hold, but she just set the phone down on the counter, "off-the-hook," so I could hear all of her conversations and interactions with the customers at the restaurant. She ended up completely forgetting that I was waiting on the phone, and she was just taking care of the customers in the restaurant one after another. After I waited for about half an hour, hoping that at some point she would come back on the phone, NOPE, she never did. And because she didn't place the call on hold, we couldn't just hang up and try calling again, because we would just hear a busy signal because she never hung up the call on her end. SO... I had to hang up and personally drive about 15 or 20 minutes to the restaurant, get in line, which took another 20 minutes or so for me to place the order. What's worse, by the time I was close to the front of the line at the counter, the worker hard started telling the few customers ahead of me that they had run out of various key items on the menu (most of which I was planning to order)... so then I had to scramble last-minute to change my big order and replace several of the major items I had planned to order. When I had finally placed the order, I had to wait yet another ~30 minutes for the food to be prepared. Then after that I had to drive ~15 minutes to bring the food back home (keep in mind that the original plan was that I wouldn't have needed to pick up the food myself). Let me break down the extra time and labor I had to spend: If the worker had remembered I was on the phone and taken my order, one of our guests was going to pick it up ~30 minutes later, and bring the food to our home. The whole thing would have taken roughly 45 minutes, from phone order to food arriving in our home, without me ever leaving the house. INSTEAD, from the time I called the restaurant until when I got home with the food, it was about 2 hours and 15 minutes total, or 3 TIMES LONGER than if they had done their job correctly. AND, none of the items would have been out if they had not forgotten me on the phone, so I would have been able to order everything I had planned to order. Furthermore, this was especially stressful and disappointing because we had several lunch guests visiting from out of town, and they had specifically requested to have Taiwanese breakfast together, and were looking forward to the food. I ended up getting home with the food over an hour after everyone had arrived, and by the time we started lunch, everyone was starving and the kids were cranky - and once again, missing several of the items we originally wanted to order. While we still tried to make the best of the situation, it was a complete disaster in terms of how things turned out, and to no fault of my own. A note on the authenticity of the food or lack thereof: Ever since 8 or 10 years ago, when Mainland Chinese people started taking over
Taiwanese chain. More like 3.5. Authentic. Good variety. A little on the salty side.
Gave this place a visit since we usually eat at Yung Ho Cafe, and wanted to try a new place for Taiwanese breakfast. When we arrived, we were a little confused if we were in the right place. It's also known as "Si Hai Restaurant" which translates to Four Sea Restaurant. My first impression was that the restaurant looks very clean. You order and pay first and they bring your food out to your table. Unfortunately the cashier helping us didn't speak English, so we had to use our broken Mandarin to let them know what we wanted. Perhaps if there's an option to order online, do that, or have the pictures/Chinese names of the foods written out ahead of time by referencing yelp. It'll be pretty difficult to point at the names since they don't have paper menus. Otherwise the cashier helping us was very patient and kind in clarifying our preferences. We ordered the fan tuan with cruller and egg, salty tofu pudding, peanut rice milk, and fried cruller (Chinese doughnut). - Fan Tuan w/fried egg - wanted purple rice, but it was going to be a challenge translating, so we got just the white rice. Not sure if this one we ordered was supposed to come with preserved veggies or if we inadvertently didn't order it, but I thought it was good! It came out warm, the cruller was crispy and the fried egg was perfect. They also have the option of adding a steamed egg instead. There was just enough rice wrapping everything up. The staff were kind enough to cut it in thirds so we could split it among 3 people (at first I thought they had just unevenly split it in half haha). - peanut rice milk - fresh peanut taste. The texture itself is somewhat gelatinous, which is probably the rice milk aspect. It's a bit more jelly in texture than it is creamy. Good to try, but I wouldn't get it again. I kinda liked dipping the cruller in this drink, just like I do with the soy milk. - salty tofu pudding - it's the soft tofu with some preserved veggies and some pork floss maybe? It's like the sweet tofu with ginger but this is savory style. I liked it better than I expected! - fried cruller - looked kinda burned from a lot of Yelp pictures, but I think it's the lighting. Otherwise it's pretty standard, a bit on the oilier side. Dipping it in soy milk or a drink helps balance the oiliness out. I think I prefer Yung Ho's cruller. They also have a case of refrigerated side dishes and some pastries. Although it looks like there's duplicates of some flavors, note that one of the "duplicates" is has the egg yolk at the center ($4.30) and the other is the non-egg yolk version. Hope that makes sense. The Chinese name will also help indicate if it has egg yolk or not. Overall, they have similar offerings to Yung Ho Cafe, my go-to, and I would definitely come back here!
This is an old-school Taiwanese/Chinese breakfast place that has been in the SGV for many years in an older plaza. You order at the counter then they bring you the food. The lines are sometimes long. Their hot soy milk is slightly sweet. Their food comes out hot. I don't have high expectations about the service but it was solid. The waitress offered to cut our fan tuan because we wanted to share it. My expectation is that they toss us a knife and tell us to go at it. Also, don't try to cut it with a plastic knife. That's an attempt at futility. There aren't many places that do Taiwanese-style breakfast. I usually go to Yi Mei but this is very solid as well. Different styles but both great if you want something savory, light, and simple in the morning.
Restaurantji Recommends
This is your traditional Taiwanese breakfast spot. This was our first time here and we thought it was pretty good. You order at the counter and pick your own table. It was pretty empty by the time we got there around 11 am, I would imagine it being more packed earlier in the morning. We noticed a lot of people like to grab and go. We didn't have to wait long for the food and it was yummy. Portions were generous as well. Overall it's a good spot for Taiwanese breakfast at a reasonable price! I definitely want to come back and try their other dishes.
A quick stop for my Taiwanese style breakfast. Hot soy milk and Chinese donuts. It was so oily and so good! Nothing beats freshness you can taste. I bought a few of the other pastries with sesame seeds on top - it was too dry and chalky. Not a fan but for almost $3/piece other people must love it. Not my thing nor my family's.
Two star gives to the food! Service is horrible. Came here because of this is next door restaurant. This morning I went to get my breakfast think I can save some time, usually Chinese restaurant staffs are really efficient but this one. The pass the food not by order, in the morning everyone is in rush, for some reason, they gave to-to order not by the ordered time. Three persons ordered behind me even have bigger order got their food ahead of me. I've been waiting for ten minutes, this is ridiculous. Disappointed!
We got food from Four Sea delivered. This was my first time trying fan tuan, and based on my experience, probably my last. My pickled veg rice roll had pork floss, pickled mustard greens and fried dough. I think the roll might have been sitting around for a while because the fried dough didn't taste fresh. Once I removed it, it was much better. Also tried their flaky oven bun (sesame bread) and radish pastry - both were pretty bland and boring. At least Mom enjoyed her salty soy milk and stir-fried peanuts, so it wasn't a totally disappointing experience!
Lived in alhambra since 2015 and I JUST found this place 4 months ago! Get their fan-Tuan rice rolls with pickled veggies and fried egg. Taro cake is also very good as well as egg-crepe. I come for the food, not the service. That said, I've never had a bad experience. And I come a lot!