Shawn Cafe

I used to love this place when they just opened. Unfortunately, the taste and quality of the food started to go down over a year ago. It is the inconsistency issue that other reviewers mentioned. One time, they served my family fried fish that was pre-​fried, frozen and defrosted. The fried fish dish is supposed to be so crispy that you can bite and swallowed the bone. But the defrosted pre-​fried fish is cold in the middle and gamy. I pointed the cold fish to the waiter and he revealed that the kitchen pre-​fried the fish days/​weeks ago in order to save time. They used to prepare the dish fresh, but it takes too long to serve. How unbelievable! Whenever I had a bad experience, I would stop going for months till I forgot why I hadn’t been going to there. Last Friday night was one of those days that I suddenly remembered this place. I ordered the stinky tofu, Taiwanese style fried rice noodle and two railroad style meal boxes to go. The rice noodle is oily and soggy with about five thin slices of pork and some green onion, absolutely nothing else in it. The fried tofu is dry and hard like rocks. The railroad meal box is plain, not bad, but tasteless. Shawn, the owner is a nice guy. I hope that he can figure out what the problem in the kitchen is. Either the top chief is very moody or he takes day-​off way too often. After all, I can’t go there to eat just for the sake of the nice owner.

Came here as a last minute decision as the original plan to go to another restaurant was packed. I came here last year when it was first open and thought their food wasn’t half bad but did think it was on a more expensive side at the time. But since I was on a time crunch and there wasn’t a wait at the restraint thought I’d give it a try.
We order three dishes: Beef with scallion, string beans, and Taiwan sausages. To add to it we ordered a house sake (hot). «Total disappointment… Will not come back again»
Given the price, I’d expected way better quality and taste to the food.
1) Beef and scallions — there was waaaaaaay more white onions than anything else. There was hardly any beef in the dish at all and it was $ 13! The beef was weird tasting. At its location at least three other restaurants does a way better job than this place.
2) string beans — it was alright. But it’s kinda difficult to screw up string beans. It was bland and there was no «crunch» to like I’m used it. It was soggy and oily.
3) Chinese sausage — it’s pretty difficult for you to fail this dish and they still manage to do so. There was taste the the sausage and it had a funny smell to it. I had two bite and didn’t want to eat it anymore. And that dish was $ 6!!! There are two places just around the corner that has waaaay better sausages and for a lower price!
Sake-​com-​on! How could you screw up sake?!? You just buy the darn alcohol no cooking require. The sale tastes TERRIBLE. The worst, I mean the Worst sake I’ve ever had in my life. Plus the Sake wasn’t even white!!! I had 1 sip and I couldn’t even drink the rest of it…
I left the place disappointed and hungry.
Never coming back here again. What a waste of money.

So the outside of this place may not look the nicest, but the interior is definitely clean, neat, and nicely decorated.
As far as Taiwanese cuisine goes, this place is pretty darn good! A lot of dishes and they have a lot of lunch specials as well. The restaurant was also very willing to change the dishes to my families palette– less oil and not too salty. Any adjustments were welcomed. They also don’t use MSG here, which is a big plus nowadays.
During lunch, rice comes with dishes at no price and they also serve black tea. Or in Chinese, «red tea.» It was a little sweet, but the server was willing to help adjust the flavoring with water.
Service was amazing and food was as well.

My family and I randomly try this café and was so surprised how good the food is. They have daily specials and the food is quite different from other taiwanese restaurants I have try. So glad to find this new gem. If you want to try something new and tasty, come try shawn café. You won’t be disappointed!

Was here a few hours ago. Parking kinda suck… spaces seem tight. The first waitress was pretty nice but she went home. The second waitress was younger and wasn’t that great. I guess she like to help those who can speak Mandarin more or maybe more friendly with guys.
One of the appetizers I ordered was the fried stinky tofu. I tried some that weren’t fried before ie… boiling point, 626 night market etc… so I asked her if they carried it. She gave me the look and said only fried with attitude. I disregarded it and said it’s fine. She walked by several times but never bothered to refill my cup of tea. When the table in front of us asked for Togo boxes she boxed the food for them. We asked for a box to Togo the left over egg plants and she didn’t helped. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was unfair.
The food was fresh and it was decent.
Spicy garlic eggplants weren’t spicy enough but it was good and fresh. The tofu and oysters soup was pretty tasty… we enjoyed it. The fried stinky tofu was yummy because the smell wasn’t as bad as other places. I especially loved the sauce that came with the tofu. Match made in heaven lol It also came with very little pickles and cabbage… wasn’t as tasty as other places
I enjoyed the food but can’t accept the bad service. I dunno will I come back lol maybe when I learn how to speak Mandarin?
They have different kind and different prices for stinky tofu… the appetizer was about $ 6
Spicy eggplant about $ 8
Tofu and oyster soup about $ 7
Free hot tea and 2 cold dishes (u don’t get to choose, I assume)
Bill came out to be about $ 25 (tax included)

In my opinion, this is one of the best Taiwanese restaurants in Arcadia. Their stinky tofu is good, but I think their best dish is the Tofu Eggplant Hot Pot — yummmm. They do a good job making sure they serve you quickly and efficiently and the pricing is decent as well. It’s definitely a hidden gem and one of my favorite places to eat!

Random ass café me and my brother went to, I think this café used to be a bar, now it’s like one of those Chinese cafes, better yet, really close to their neighbors Tasty Garden. While it has the café atmosphere, this place is different, their food isn’t exactly what you’d expect.
We ordered 5 dishes;
Smoked duck appetizer — served cold, smoky taste, was pretty decent, good portion for an appetizer, probably needed a dipping sauce.
Gourd with white fish — diced up gourd (melon) with little small white fishes. I really enjoyed this dish, the white fish is really small, doesn’t really taste like fish though.
Pig intestines with pork’s blood — I didn’t really eat much of this dish, I am not really a fan of pork’s blood, but the sauce for this is really good, sweet and thick.
Sauteed lamb — Tasted like beef, it did not taste gamy at all, I literally thought it was beef when I kept eating it, but when looking at it, I can tell it was lamb… but idk why it tasted like beef to me, anyways, the dish was still pretty good.
Cold Appetizer trio (pig ear, tofu, tripe) — typical Mandarin appetizer you might see at noodle or dumpling houses, tasted like others.

I came here one day for dinner because I didn’t want to wait in line at other restaurants around the area. There is never a line here every time I pass by so if you are starving and just want to gobble down some food then this spot can work out for you. Beware! it is recommended that you go with someone who speaks Chinese/​Mandarin because the waiters here seems to lack English skill.
I ordered 3 plates, a stinky tofu Szechuan dish (good), a stir fried egg plant dish (good), and a pork belly stew dish (BAD!!).
The stinky Szechuan and the stir fried egg plant both had the numbing spicy effect, so if you like that type of food then go on ahead and try it.
although I love the fat on the pork belly stew dish, the ratio of fat to meat here was wayyyyy too uneven. It was about 30% meat to 70% fat. I felt like I was I was about to develop instant cardiac arrest as I tried to eat it.
Overall, this place is worth trying or worth eating when you want some decent Chinese food and don’t want to wait in line at other near by Chinese restaurants during dinner rush.

So my family used to LOVE this place. The first few times we were here, we were wowed by a couple of our main stay dishes. The problem was, as mentioned, the consistency wasn’t really there.
The thing that bothers both myself and my family is that the chef seemed to be a little schizophrenic. One day he’s the master chef that we know and love, the next day he is a sweet toothed monster who adds sugar to everything that he makes. Seriously, one day the spicy beef slices and tendons were spicy and salty good, the next time we went the spicy beef slices and tendons turned into a sugary mess that tasted slightly spicy.
Don’t get me started either on their portions and prices. It seems that the more that we eat here, the more I realize how good of a deal other places are. The price of a dish here can run from $ 10-​$ 15. But, the problem is that the portion of food is not worth $ 10-​$ 15. I can walk down the block to another place that would serve me more food for less of my hard earned paycheck.
But, the last straw that eventually broke this camel’s back, was the problem that we had on our last and final visit. We ordered a chicken dish that seemed to have spoiled meat. The meat was covered in sauce, but a part of the meat seemed to taste very… unfresh and rotten.
This place was an awesome place for us when we discovered it. I will always have fond memories of their cucumber, onion smoked duck dish and their spicy beef slices and tendons, but we just won’t be back due to the horrible lack of consistency as well as the threat of being served not so fresh food.
If you do try it though, do get the duck and cucumber dish!

Pretty decent option if you know what to order. The wait staff is always serving the wrong dish to the wrong tables, which results in a few awkward laughs. Although I’m sure you can get by with ‘communicating’ with their Engrish, it’s best to have a Chinese speaking friend when coming here.
If you like Stinky Tofu, this place serves it pretty good here, although the last time I came here, they were pretty darned chincy about their serving amount.
There’s a daily special, Mondays [I went on a Monday recently] are the lion heads [Chinese Meatballs] with cabbage. I really wish I remembered the rest of them, but alas, I cannot.
There’s a really yummy spareribs and cracked/​broken rice dish, a really spicy dish with fish and/​or beef [depending on how you order it], and if you like intestine/​chitterlings, they have a decent variety of preparations.
Overall, this place is pretty solid. They have a really vast menu and are moderately priced for what they serve.
Park in the back where others would park for Bank of America. Another plus is, if you have room for dessert, walk across the street to Yogurtland!

I was REALLY surprised by this place. At first glance, it just seems like another typical Taiwanese restaurant but the food was actually very good! The food came out hot, flavorful and just overall delicious.
We got the stir fried string beans, stinky tofu, shanghai style spare ribs and spicy noodles. My favorite was different the shanghai style spare ribs which had this delicious sweet glaze. The ribs were also a bit crispy which makes it tastes so good. The string beans and the spicy noodles were also a hit. Cooked well and lots of flavor. The stinky tofu was really stanky. You can smell it from a mile away but the flavors are definitely there. I wanted the tofu to be a little juicier instead (it was a bit dry) but otherwise still good.
Overall, come to this place. It is kind of a restaurant you would just dismiss if you drove by but definitely a good place to try for good Taiwanese food!

Actually, this place should not even deserved to have a star. Foods we ordered were terrible and the service was worse. Waitress brought foods to the table and obviously there wasn’t much room. She knocked over a very hot dish and burned me. Luckily I already moved the soup, otherwise, I couldn’t imaging what could had happened.
I don’t recommend this place. I would only give ½ star do trying to make Taiwanese foods.

I love the service here. Come on Tuesday and Wednesday!

Sichuan dry noodle completely lacks flavor as if they just boiled some ramen noodles, threw some chili oil and peanut sauce with cucumbers over it. Yuck.
Porkchop business rice combo was good but the only thing I disliked about it was the bamboo shoots, they were pretty stinky.
Overall service was good in «Chinese Café standards».
Will I come back again? No I wouldn’t. There are way better options in this area than this café.

Shawn Café might not have been so overlooked had it opened somewhere else, somewhere without big name restaurants like Din Tai Fung or Sinbala, or in another city where Chinese food isn’t so ubiquitous. This restaurant serves Chinese cuisine (with an emphasis on Taiwanese), but offers a wider variety of dishes than other places in Arcadia do, possibly rivaled only by Café Fusion.
My friends and I came by for lunch, a week after they had just opened.
Our meal started with smoked duck meat as a cold appetizer, a basic dish consisting of thinly shredded duck and some slices of pickled vegetables of tossed in. The duck had a strong dark meat flavor that was almost gamey, offset by the acetic taste of the vegetables. Slightly expensive considering how much was given, but my friends and I enjoyed it.
Next came the sauteed lamb. It was a bit oily, especially for something that was supposedly sauteed, but it had a nice spicy kick. For our final dish, we ordered the mala stinky tofu, which came piping hot in a small pot filled with tofu, pork blood and mala soup. The spiciness almost completely masked the flavor of the fermented tofu, but the broth was hearty and rich.
Service was quick and courteous. Our server was friendly, though she seemed to have a hard time communicating in English to some of the other customers. It took a while to finalize our order, mainly because they didn’t have enough ingredients stocked, so we had to select a different dish several times. This is probably less of an issue now, though.
Don’t let the lack of reviews fool you. Overall, Shawn Café is a really solid place for family-​style Chinese and Taiwanese food.

Shawn Café is one the only Taiwanese restaurant in Arcadia that serve food family style. If you go to Why Thirsty and Simbala, you get rice with everything you order. Shawn Café lets you taste their dishes without intruding on someone else’s food.
These are some of my favorite dishes here:
–Sponge Melon with Mushrooms and Fungi – Sponge melon is a traditional Taiwanese vegetable. I love how they make it here, not too watered down (seriously, the melon is pretty much 80% water), with the fungi and mushroom for a different texture.
–Stir fried stinky tofu– Don’t let the name fool you, their stinky tofu isn’t that smelly.
–Steamed fish– They filet the fish for you! Perfectly cooked, the fish falls in each individual flake (think salmon), and is tender to the taste.
Not sure why they have such average reviews, I highly recommend this place and would come back again. The only thing I have to complain about is they take a long time to serve the dishes and don’t do it at the correct intervals. My table’s sponge melon dish was served first, and nothing came after it for a long time. We were so hungry we finished it before anything else came along.
Shawn café is a pretty small restaurant too, expect longer waits during the lunch and dinner rush hours.

Stinky tofu is not stinky but still good! I don’t eat a lot of stinky tofu, but I was surprised it didn’t smell stinky (I can usually smell it when it comes out of the kitchen to the table). I liked the sauce and ate it. YUMM! I enjoyed it and good amount of crunch with the vegetables.
Good waitress staff, poured our tea, but there also weren’t a lot of people there, so they might have been bored. It’s strange that the parking lot takes you through the back door and not the front door, so the orientation is backwards for me, but the counter is near the rear door. You can tell the place is recently remodeled, and there is also TV’s there. One with TVB! And another one was on the NBA All-​Star game, which is what we were watching.
Sauté eggplant is really yummy but is oily. It was REALLY good to add with rice, so mix that in together! I was really glad I got that one. It’s really soft eggplant and adds some ground beef with the sauce too.
3 flavored chicken is DELISH! we weren’t sure what to get for our last dish (came with family) and so we asked the waitress. She speaks Mandarin, by the way. She recommended the 3flavored chicken and that it is a popular dish from Taiwan. So we decided to get it. It was also very good with rice.
I don’t live close to this place, but I wouldn’t mind coming back! I know there’s a lot of Chinese food in this area, so that might be competition, but I know this place is new, so worth giving a try!

This place is very interesting: The servers are from Mainland China but they specialize in Taiwanese food! I felt like I was in China eating at the restaurants set up for Taiwanese expatriates. However, the food tasted pretty authentic, I guess there is a Taiwanese chef cooking it. The servers are very friendly and accommodating. They have a wide selection of beer and sake, including some luxury sake brands.
Overall it is a good take on more formal Taiwanese food. I would recommend for people interested in exploring more Taiwanese food than the regular snacky standbys like salty peppered chicken nuggets or oyster omelettes.

I am Chinese and know my Chinese food. This place is new and they were advertising like crazy on the Chinese channels. So when tasty garden was filled to the rim next door on New Year’s Day today, we figured we would give it a try.
The waitress told me the wait was 5 min. It was at least 20 min. I could see how they were trying desperately with only her and another waiter, a while later another waitress joined. No one looked like they are experienced restaurant workers.
We ordered the chicken/​clam/​rib soup in a pot, this was good. The other 2 dishes were ok. Then food stopped coming. We were almost done with everything then the waitress came and apologized they were out of «meatball/lion’s head rice» and «cold chicken noodle.»
First of all, if you are out of something, you tell the customers when they order or at least shortly after. Second, I can understand «lion’s heads» being sold out since it’s a braised dish that takes a long time, but cold chicken noodle takes noodle (yes you have to cool it down but how hard is that?”) and shredded chicken and seasoning. If you are out of this dish, you are probably out of everything. Sure enough, we started hearing «cancel» «sorry» «cancel» from all different tables. Looked like they were completely not ready for an unexpected busy lunch crowd on this day. Then why did you have the guts to advertise? The final thing they brought (Szechuan spicy noodle) had peanut sauce but absolutely no soy sauce/​salt component. The simply forgot it. My son took a bite and was like «where is the taste?»
Even though the wait staff were being nice, it does not make up for a restaurant that’s just not ready to serve. In the very competitive San Gabriel valley, you guys are gonna suffer or go out of business soon if you don’t clean up your act. I know it sounds harsh, and I am just a regular foodie, not anyone with malicious intent. Stock your kitchen and train the workers.

This place is still fairly new, and I have never really came to this location before for the previous businesses here. However, my parents are trying to find restaurants around the area that are good, so they are trying everything out. The first time they came here to eat, they came home really happy saying that they found their new favorite restaurant. Knowing my parents (they are really picky eaters), this must mean something.
My parents could not wait to take me there to try it out. First thing that I noticed was that their door was not exactly the most attractive thing. It turns out that was the back door, but this is probably something that can be fixed. We eventually sat down and was greeted by who I am assuming is Shawn. He was really nice and courteous and had a smile on his face. We ordered the goose, lamb, kung pao fish, and beef noodle soup. I have to say that everything that we ordered was REALLY good. There was nothing I ate that day that was disappointing. Everything was perfectly cooked. The goose was surprising plentiful for only $ 14! There was so much that we even had some to take home.
I also came here again and brought my friend who doesn’t really like Chinese food. Even he was pretty impressed and enjoyed the food. I would have to say that this place is actually a real secret. It is not really too crowded, yet I am afraid that more people are going to find out and come to this restaurant too.