Bay Island Cafe

There was no wait for a table on Friday night which was good. The food is not very good there, as most of you know, many Chinese restaurant boiled the ingredients first and then when you order it they will wok fried it quickly. We order pig stomach in black beans sauce. It was not good at all. The vegetables was ok and then there’s the house fried chicken you see in the photos. For $ 16.95 that basic nothing special fried chicken with a very weak peanut dipping sauce is THE major rip off !!!
I won’t be back

There’s a server really nice. And the food r delicious! Love it! I probably will going back to try their other foods

Their drinks were amazing cheap compare to most of the milk tea joint in the area. (1.99₂.50).
I got the sesame milk tea (first time ever) and Jasmin green tea. Both were great. The sesame was unexpectedly very good. I would definitely recommend this to whoever likes nutty drinks or just to try something new.
I got the cold cut chicken and beef chow fun w/​gravy. The chicken wasn’t over cooked so I would get it again. The beef dish was like any other places. My boyfriend felt that both were a bit oily though.

first let’s start with the fact that they called this place «bay island café.» this isn’t a café. they don’t have breakfast, and the menu isn’t «café» not like garden café or Hong Kong café. It’s sort of like a China Bistro or Tasty Garden.
Next, it took 15 – 20 minutes for the food to come to our table. There wasn’t a wait bc we came when it opened. We ordered the fried sesame balls (dessert) but right before any of our dishes came, the balls were the first one to be set ok our table. By the time we finished our lunch, the sesame balls were already cold and soggy. The food wasn’t even decent, the salt and pepper pork chop was just fatty meat. It wasn’t a pleasant meal. The sautéed string vegetables left a weird taste in my mouth. The fried udon was pretty bland and there wasn’t enough beef. The deep fried pork intestine wasn’t crunchy just sad and soggy. Beef with lamb, wasn’t special.
everything about this place is just simple, there is nothing special about this place. Just like every other Chinese restaurant.

For an Asian café, this place is great when you’re coming anytime besides 7 – 9:30. The Hokkaido milk tea is delish and the Chinese food is tasty as well.
What makes this place better than all other Asian cafes in the SGV is that the service is great from the waiters. Great job Bay Island!

So this place is pretty new, since they were in the middle of putting their sign up when I came. I came here a little after peak dinner hours so it wasn’t super crowded or anything. The interior was extremely well-​lit, the tables were clean, and we were seated and greeted upon entrance.
We ordered the standard set of food usually ordered at these restaurants — Sauteed String Bean in XO Sauce, Sweet n Sour Pork, Beef w/​Mushroom Pepper, HK Style Beef Chow Fun, EggplantTofu in Oyster Sauce, and Udon w/​Beef. I have to say… most of the dishes were first class, in terms of these HK style cafes! I’m pretty sure I’ll be back regularly. The only negatives I feel I should note was the HK Style Beef Chow Fun was a little bland and the Udon didn’t seem to have a good ratio of beef in it. Everything else was great — beef tender, tofu fried to perfection, etc. The hokkaido milk tea is one of the best I’ve tasted (if you like it velvety and creamy), but the coffee milk tea was overwhelming milk tea-​tasting and lacked the coffee element of it.
I hear they have some sort of happy hour where prices are way cheaper, so I’ll probably try to find out and come back more often around that time!
Wifi pw is their phone number!

On Tuesday lunch time, we ordered our food and waited for one hour, the food still hasn’t come. Other customers also complianed the long wait at the same time.
We gave up and left the restaurant and then we went to Sam Woo instead. Waste of time, don’t go.

We ordered Seafood hot pot and curry beef stew hot pot. I would love to like the food so I can come back to frequent it. Unfortunately, I won’t be back anytime soon because the seafood hot pot was laced with heavy MSG to make it taste good. I can feel it with every bite. My mouth felt so salty and dried, had to drink a few cups of ice water. I couldn’t tell if there was a lot of MSG In the beef hot pot because of the curry.

What is going on here?
FOOD QUALITY:
I’m very iffy about this place. On one hand, the ingredients are actually slightly better than other hong kong cafes, but on the other hand I can’t understand how you can’t make a proper curry.
Veggies are cooked properly at the least. Chicken in clay pot is a bit oily, bland chicken on the inside until you bit into the chicken skin with oiled exterior with a rounded sweetness at the end from the sauce.
CURRY. Very slightly cooked onions. Raw carrots. Raw bell pepper. Unseasoned curry paste that was slapped onto a pan with water added. Literally a pile of things that clearly didn’t have any time to stew together. They don’t try here.
SERVICE:
Is your typical … Asian establishment. raise your hand if you need anything.
ENVIRONMENT:
New. Big. Spacious! It’d be good for fitting large families/​parties or just a table for two; when there’s no one there it’s pretty ambient, otherwise the noise level is actually only moderate.
Overall. pass…

Here for lunch with wife. Waiting for about 5 mins for our table. Many customers complaint about the long wait for their food and I did too. I was about to pay for our drinks and eat at McDonalds next door.
Drinks here is actually pretty good. Food is above average. I would come back when I am not hungry and have time to spare.

Tried this place after the lunch rush around 3pm so it was not packed. Food and service was pretty good. The lemon iced tea is in a freaking huge to-​go cup and refillable. It was awesome and made pretty well compared to other cafes. Hopefully they don’t change it. Good tea taste and it was sweet enough.
Ordered 3 items and they were decent portions and tasty. Reasonably priced.

New opening and give it try ! Me and my husband very like it, many choice. Especially I love their ice tea (very traditional hong Kong test) !

I got tricked into coming here.
I thought it was a «café» type of restaurant (e.g. Baccali/​JJ Hong Kong Café), but I guess not once I saw the menus.
Let’s keep this simple and short.
~~~01/​11/​2016~~~
FOODS:
— Honey Garlic Pork Chops — had better elsewhere (Henry’s or Tasty Garden)
— Sweet & Sour Fish Fillet — my favorite dish of all-​time, but Bay Island butchered it. sloppy presentation — felt like the chef was in a rush.
— Beef Chow Fun with Sauce — my Dad raved it, but I can’t say because by the time it came out, I’ve had enough. Not hungry anymore~.
— Cola Chicken Wings — … enough said, DON’T ORDER THIS. *face palm*
PROS:
— Food came out HOT — I love my food hot, not warm nor cold (a +…but things went down-​hill after we’ve received our first dish)
— Courteous and attentive service from 1 waitress w/​a ponytail (only reason why I am giving this place 2 stars, instead of 1) — the others are mediocre (I’ll explain why — continue on please)
CONS:
— SLOW service & UNDERSTAFFED — After the first dish came out, the waitress said she’ll be back with our rice, but 10+ minutes passed, and our food starting to turn cold, the RICE IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT. And when we flagged her down, she nonchalantly threw the hot potato to another waitress, who promptly got our rice and apologized (now, that’s service). However, as for the first waitress who obviously knew she forgot our rice but did nothing as she walked passed our table 2 – 3 times, holy pickle –_-…speechless (bye Felicia~ *roll eyes*).
— NO traditional HK café beverages (milk tea, coffee milk tea, etc.) — Speechless (again) & so ironic because the Chinese name of this place is literally Causeway Bay of Hong Kong. You would expect common HK beverages to be offered here, but nope.
— Drinks are made from SYRUP — It looked really, really good, but looks can be deceiving. One sip, and you can tell it’s made from syrup. Plus, it took forever to get my drink, which was simply a Honey Lemon Tea, and nothing complicated. Sad life.
— INVEST IN SEALED STRAWS — waitress came back with unsealed straws, handling them with her bare hands…*shivers*
And the MOST ANNOYING PART was when they have friends of the family (who runs the place) walking around and talking super loud (sometimes, yelling across the restaurant) as if they owned the place. Dude, sit down. Can’t you see they’re busy as is, running around like headless chickens. Geez, hella annoying.
Sorry for the «short» but not really short review — it’s just soooo disappointing because I really thought this place would give me a taste of Causeway Bay or Hong Kong.
But I guess it’s all in the name… only!

Jan25−2016−2pm:I understand a Grand open restaurant it’s hard to make everything perfect. the server look so busy keep running around the table. they tell us have a sit and wait for a table. but some customer they just walk in and find their own table and sit:(i feel a little bit weird~after we order, they just forgot our drink order so i have to reorder again. anyway all the server r nice to us:) i give them 2 stars is because the food. they gave me 2 different menus it make it seem like have so many choices. but the thing is~so hard to find out which one r good. we order 4 items but only 1 items taste
LA has too many good and cheap restaurant. and this one just between it. Quality not to good and the price not too cheap~then make me no reason come back for it:/

Came here for lunch and it was pretty packed~
Pros:
Items ordered: sweet and sour fried fish fillet, pretty good and it’s only $ 6.50 I like the portion! Big! Will definitely come back! Also ordered kumquat green tea (alright nothing really impressive just like any other regular kumquat green tea) by the way the waitress was pretty nice and attentive
Cons:
However, I don’t the fact that they r HK style café but they don’t offer classic HK café drinks like HK milk tea, HK lemon tea, coffee milk tea (yin yeung) and no refills for the drinks (but the drink is big u dun really need to refill) again I want my Classic HK drinks
Also, parking is a headache

The waitress forgot to put our order in so we waited. waited…waited. Really?! She was more focused in counting the tips for the end of the day (shift) that she forgot to put in our order. The wait staff wasn’t very attentive either, all of our water cups were pretty much empty, and nobody filled them. Finally, one of us asked for more water, and what did that waitress do? She only filled that one cup with water!
It doesn’t matter if you’re new to the job, customer service is priority, and most of the actions involved are common sense.
Food is alright, there are plenty of restaurants around that’s comparable in taste, quality, and price.

Came with my Mom because she was excited about a new café opening with Hong Kong style food. Should have know something was wrong when the woman next to us started washing her veggies in a bowl of water.
They offer a large variety of food from noodles, fried rice to stir fry dishes. So I had to try more than 2 entrees. We ordered:
Lunch menu–
Cumin Lamb — tasted the cumin but the soy sauce was way too much. And the dish was overly oily. They should cut back on the oil.
Cold cut chicken — had to return it. It tasted like detergent. Do not know why.
Salted fish and chicken fried rice — good thing it was not as oily as the lamb. I was worried. But this came out pretty good.
Fried pumpkin with salted egg — I know I can not get the level of this dish as I did in Hong Kong. But I had to try. Besides not enough salted egg, the batter could bee a little bit lighter. Still satisfied my craving.
Wonton noodle — wontons were flavorless. Noodles were over cooked. Too soft. Soup base was bland.
On the plus side, all their dishes are very large. I think too large for lunch. The salted fish fried rice is a good size for dinner. The fried pumpkin was crazy large. And the wonton noodle soup was gigantic.
I guess I should not complain because the price is great ranging from $ 7.50-$ 9.
Their waiters are extremely nice and efficient. They nailed customer service.
Seriously not sure if I will come back. I overheard that their drinks are good. So maybe will come back to try that.

Food comes out quick and hot. Rice is not an extra charge with your entrees which is a plus. Most items prices around $ 10. Nice waiters, always asking to refill out water.

The food here is pretty good for the price. The service was alright since it was pretty packed when I went. The lunch special prices are good and the portions match the price. The drinks were good as well. I ordered mongolian beef, fried intestines, fried salty squid, claypot chicken, fried pork, and jasmine green tea.
The lunch special runs from 11 to 6 and late night specials are from 9:30 to 1am. Not bad at all.

Fulfilling with the taste bud and appealing with the eye! Cooking with great thoughts and heart.
The bandit style deep fried chicken is presented as «standing up»! Definitely worth a Waw! Tender chicken meat and golden crispy skin with lettuce and mysteriously wonderful source create great dining experience! Great for a group of people more than 3 :)
We also ordered Chinese broccoli with dry fish — the broccoli was cut into flowering shape (better looking and easier to chew than some other restaurants have offered!)
Definitely worth trying!!!