Huo Zhou Wang

This congee place is a total rip-​off. It is way overpriced and the congee is full of MSG. We were originally planning to have Xiao Long Bao for lunch at Sugar Spice Café next door but it was closed so we gave this place a try. It turned out to be a huge mistake…

I would never try here again. The portion and price is super unreasonable. I will never recommend anyone going there. Such a crazy place.

Extremely overpriced for what it is. Quality of the porridge is poor. The shrimp is not fresh and tastes disgusting. The rice kernels are still for the most part whole.

Had big dinner the night before, just want to have something light to balance my stomach a little. But my porridge was over cooked. It tastes burned. My husband hates scallion, but they didn’t mention they would put chopped scallions in the porridge. He couldn’t finish his, just because of the chopped scallions and cilantro mixing in the porridge and impossible to pick them out. The Chinese donut is good.

We love congee and seafood, the combination will be the best. So we decided to try this place. Service I would give 1 star, food NO star AT ALL. All those seafood are from fridge! And it’s so over price !! I think congee should be well mixed rice and broth or water. However this one here more like pouring soup or broth into over-​cooked rice then mix with frozen seafood and MSG. Not recommend this place …:(terrible.

Food 4 stars
Service 3 stars
Process 2 stars
Value 1 star
The newly opened congee restaurant Huo Zhou Wang is located in the strip center next to the San Gabriel Hilton. It’s a small clean space with a simple décor. The menu needs a lot of explanation. First you choose your congee flavor and size, then you choose your toppings which varies from abalone to lobster to meats. The prices are all at market price and you need to ask for the price. The small congee is tiny and only fills about 3 rice bowls. You can then order some other kitchen dishes like veggies.
We chose a small congee with a shrimp and clam base. Abalone and and sea cucumber topping. $ 50. The congee was «good» but the value was «terrible». And to add to the «rip off» was the side of pea spouts we ordered $ 11 was a third of the normal veggie dish size. Drinks were served in cheap plastic cups. The service was politely uninspired.

It’s a pricy place for congee, I can’t taste the fresh seafood favor what they mention. Two persons spent over $ 100 which is too expensive and not get full. Meanwhile, the service is bad during dinner hours. I won’t recommend this store to my friends.

OMG! Bad, Worst food here. We found this restaurant on Chinese world journal newspaper. We wants to try it since newspaper has good comments.
We ordered EEL, $ 13.99/ order and guess what, it is same quality as supermarket $ 3/​bag one, also their portion is half size of supermarket size. It test very fishy. I believed that is frozen eel and they just microwave it, because the plastics plate was very hot too. DONT ORDER THIS!
They have very limited choices, very expensive. We spend $ 73 for 2 people. We will not come back here again.
There were two waitress during lunch time. One of lady was giving attitude, specially when my baby crying. I guess this is not kid friendly place too.
For other Unilocalers: Don’t do it, this is definitely a not good place for lunch or dinner, maybe breakfast if u want to pay $ 30−35/person.
Look other people’s comments before u go here!

I have to leave a poor review for this restaurant.
It is too much pricy for its food and environment. First, the menu is so confusing. We were not able to order without waitress help.
Second, the price is the biggest problem. I can understand that fresh seafood is pricy. But the congee, they charge too much! Party of two, we spent almost $ 90 and neither of us were full. We still felt hungry after eating here.
Third, the service was OK. This is why I gave them 2 star.
We won’t come back nor recommending any of our friends to come. This restaurant must pay a lot for the AD which called LA CHIHUO.
My husband said they put MSG into their congee because he was so thirsty after eating here :(
So disappointed!

Got rid of: — (Seriously, don’t go to this place. The porridge was good at all. It’s so watering.

This place is a joke! Tasteless meal and poor service. Over charge price with low quality food, Super complicated menu and confuse indication.
The bills is $ 94.58 for two person spent in lunch time. We just ordered one pot seafood congee and one dish chicks wing. I don’t see how they survive with business model in future.

This place is waste my money. we ordered one pot of crab porrige and a spanish for $ 100？ Is that crazy？
The base porrige we ordered scollpe and shrimp. There r only three small tiny scollpe in the porrige pot and that worth nearly $ 20！they have side dish which have three kinds，when i want to refill one of them. They also want to charge me for nearly $ 3. Seriously,
Are they worth? Very bad experience and never go back to this place !

I usually hate to write negative reviews, but three girlfriends and I experienced a really BAD April Fool’s Day joke here on this past Friday, April 1, 2016. We spent about $ 80 for an eel porridge with only about three shrimp in it & some very plain breaded fish balls.
We left hungry and very dissatisfied.
To top off our lousy experience, the ladies rest room contained ZERO toilet paper, ZERO toilet seat covers, and ZERO hand soap. Could workers and customers possibly have a more unsanitary experience!!!
I hate to think about the cleanliness of the kitchen!
AVOID & WARN OTHER UnilocalERS & FRIENDS!

This jok (porridge) is a JOKE! Worst meal I’ve had in a while.
To order the porridge, you pick a base and have options to add market priced seafood and set priced frozen items. Since it was our first time, we decided to just test out two of the porridge bases. We got one serving of the seafood porridge, and two servings of the silken chicken porridge.
When the two huge pots of porridge arrived, we were instantly let down. The bases were watery with rice pieces still mostly intact. The chicken porridge was super bland with absolutely no chicken flavor at all. The few pieces of chicken feet and bones in the porridge were hard, chewy, flavorless and not at all cooked down. The seafood porridge was slightly better with a thicker consistency and a somewhat more savory/​seafood flavor. For around $ 13 per serving, these two pots were such a ripped off.
The marinated pig ear side dish ($ 8) was also very disappointing. It’s very obvious they microwave it since the top pieces were hard and chewy. Steaming would’ve been a better choice but I guess that’s not efficient enough.
Not impressed and I highly suggest you spend your money somewhere else. We spent $ 60 on microwaved pig ears and two big pots of bland watery rice that was very hard to finish.

WORST TRIAL EVER. I decided to try this place because the pictures look nice. However, I am really regretted now. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone at all. See my feedback listed below.
1. It is not typical Cantonese porridge at all. To me, that might be not a bad idea. Each kind of food might have its own pros. But please change the description on Unilocal.Non Cantonese Porridge.
2. We ordered the A+B combination with a live meat crab add in for PART B. We expected it to be expensive. $ 19.99/lb for a meat crab. Sounds typical if you order a crab in a seafood restaurant. BUT!!! The little tiny crab weight about 1 lbs ONLY, BUT they charged this little tiny crab for 2.5 LBS. That is CHEATING. DO NOT tell me that this is normal and everyone is doing the same thing. THAT IS CHEATING. That is the UNACCEPTABLE part. They charged me 50 BUCKS just for the crab.
3. Still talking about the A+B combination. Let’s talk about the PART A. We have 3 people. So we have to pay $ 9.99 for each person for the porridge base with 3 ingredients. We picked scallops, clams, and frog legs.
When it shows up on our table, I was like «are you kidding me». There are a total of 3 tiny scallops in the size of a dime, 3 clam shells without clam meat, and a few pieces frog legs in the size of a small screw. They charged me 30 BUCKS for these crap.
In the end, they charged me 80 BUCKS for this insane porridge. And we have to wait for more than 20 minutes for it.
4. We also order a Scallion Pancake. It is again disappointing. Not about the taste, not about the price. It is the size. For the same price everywhere, it is about ¼ size of a typical Scallion Pancake. Let see. It is about the size of a hand.
In conclusion, It is a waste of time and money. We DID NOT feel full at all for paying $ 105 for 3 people. I am cheated by them.

I received a compliment from a fellow Unilocaler Mengting L.
«Dear customer we just want u know something. Firt why u were not full cuz u just ordered one person congee! mostly should be order 2person congee and we already told u how many bowl for each order. the second I think we already told u the seafood price and the weight u can’t account it? Cuz the seafood is all fresh!!! If u think is kind of pricy why u order it? Or u can go to super market to buy crab and cook at home…»
First of all, thank you for your compliment Mengting. If you do not understand what does «compliment» mean, try
or Google Translate. If you want to make a response to a Unilocal review, there is an appropriate way to do this. You will have to claim the business first.
Mengting, keep in mind that Unilocal is open to the public. Try to be professional on your response, check you spelling and grammar. You are really embarrassing yourself if you are not showing any professionalism in your writing. You were misspelling, writing too causal, and overusing exclamation point. Check out the following article, you might find it helpful.
Here is another article from 2012 to show you how to response to a negative Unilocal review.
Good luck with your business. You just earned another one star review. Hope you will learn something.
Your comprehensive skill is very weak. I was suggesting «I already spend $ 45/​person on a meal, but I am not full» meaning, I already felt I was spending too much money. And you suggested me to spend more to get full. Who on earth does not know I could order more if I am still hungry? The point is your seafood is overpriced and customers do not think your food worth the money. I was pretty surprised when I received the bill because I was not informed with the price and the weight. Dont talk like you were there next to me when I placed the order. YOU DONT KNOW THAT!
Remember my fellow Unilocalers, it will cost you $ 45/​person if you order crab in your soup! With that amount of money, you could have a decent buffet or AYCE hot pot, or Boiling crab with King crab legs, shrimp and all kinds of seafood. Look at how this business response to a Unilocal review, you could tell how unprofessional these people are.
***Dont be silly like me spending $ 90 on some rice soup.****

I decided to give this place a try despite the 3 star review. How could I resist seafood porridge?
Service was great. We came on a Monday night and the restaurant was pretty full. Lucky for us there was a table open so we didn’t have to wait. The restaurant is new and I like that everything is clean. Our waitress was very friendly and helpful. 2 of us arrived first and she asked if we were here for the first time and thoroughly explained the menu and brought us some xiao cai. The other 2 people didn’t arrive until 15 – 20 minutes later but they didn’t rush us at all and always checked in on us if we wanted more water, had any questions, etc.
So down to the food:
DUCK WINGS: I gotta say this was the biggest disappointment. One of those «Actual product may vary» type disappointments. For starters, I was already thinking $ 7.99 was pretty steep for duck wings appetizers but looking at the picture, it seemed worth it. Nope. They give you duck wings that are already cut up so essentially you’re just getting about 4 wings chopped up into pieces. The food that followed was much better so I’m not holding too much of a grudge on this, only just never ordering it again.
FRIED BUNS: YUM. We almost ordered another one. It was piping hot and the sweet/​milky sauce it came with was to die for. You have to get it. And then will probably need to run a few miles afterwards.
UNI: They happened to have them in. They were fresh. I’m an uni lover. It was $ 23. No questions asked. Gobbled the whole thing up.
SEAFOOD PORRIDGE: We ordered the main combo seafood porridge with clams, shrimp, etc. and added crab to it. They require you order a minimum of 2.5 lbs of crabs but I’m assuming that’s because we had a party of 4. Just be careful. Also, their menu is a bit tricky because the price listed for the porridge is PER PERSON so when you see $ 14.99 or whatever price tag, it’s by person not by the porridge. I feel sort of gypped for that but at the same time, my Mandarin listening skills are pretty shotty so the waitress could have explained it and I just didn’t pick up on it. Overall, the porridge was delicious and not bland at all as some of the previous posts mentioned. I also recommend using their special sauce that they set on the table — it’s a salty peanut sauce that gives the porridge an extra blast of flavor.
For a party of 4, we spent a total of $ 180 but left extremely full. It’s a bit on the pricey side so I wouldn’t frequent this establishment a lot per say but will definitely go back.

Fresh congee! Exactly what I needed on a cold night. Would recommend if you are looking specifically for congee (i.e., no noodle dishes are served here)

Went to this place to try their porridge and found that they r totally different. It’s more on the rice side. The taste is good; however, I dislike the porridge because it looks like thick rice, very thick.

Carb rice soup costs above hundred$$$, higher than Beverly Hills! Only pro is open late to 12:30am. They must pay too much money for the AD, which called «LA CHIHUO», a magazine in Chinese community!

Best seafood porridge in LA. I am not a porridge person at all but I thought I could give it shot in this cold LA cold. It was definitely over my expectations. We ordered crab, frog and scallop porridge. You can easily taste the freshness in the seafood. If you had traditional porridge in Canton before, you will know that it is watery than the Korean ones. It is the way it supposed to be. I am glad we gave it a shot and will come back soon!

Meh, ok congee, more of rice in soup than creamy glutenous porridge. Place is clean and service is not too bad. Been there 3 times already and as with almost all Chinese restaurant, quality is inconsistent. What’s troubling is when we ordered the same congee for 2 people, the quantity was almost exactly same as portion for 1. Double the price, same quantity and quality. Maybe the kitchen got it wrong but makes me think twice about going back.

So my dad was telling me to go to this place and I decided to try something new since I haven’t had congee in a while. We came around 12:45pm on a sunday and got seated and ordered around 1pm. We ordered the scallion pancakes, pig ears, and congee with shrimp, clams and scallops. The first two were pretty good and tasty, reasonable amount of time to come out. But the congee took about almost A WHOLE HOUR TO COME OUT! I mean I understand that yes its made to order but if you see a crowd of people waiting you should anticipate a little better considering congee is what you are known for. The congee was light, smooth and not salty at all. Pretty good. Overall the food is ⁴⁄₅ but the wait just to get the food was terrible which made me bump it down to a 3.

Won’t go back… had some good features but the congee is not congee, it’s rice soup with fancy seafood.
So sad too, we love congee and was hoping this was our go-​to place. I wouldn’t even mind paying $ 25/​person if the congee was worth it, but it wasn’t…
Pros:
Service: excellent for Asian place! Spoke English, canto, mandarin. Very helpful and patient.
Flavor: yes, the flavor is actually pretty good. We had the seafood mix and beef (for non-​seafooders) and it was tasty. But, we’re Asian, it’s just as much about texture as it is flavor…
Cons:
Texture: I dunno if this is a different part of China/​type of cuisine, but congee should be a homogenous gruel if they actually take the time to make good congee. It tastes more like soggy rice dumped into more water so they can make a quick congee with whatever seafood/​flavor the customer orders. I’ve had better congee from a street vendor making canto congee in Taiwan than here.
Vietnamese congee is similar but even that was more cooked. Here, u see full kernels of the rice
Price: $ 13/​person and up for congee?! Yes, it is fresh seafood… but the amount u get for one person was NOT enough. So when u order a drink and appetizers/​fillers too, we spent $ 25 per person! For hoity toity… congee?! I’m gunna go get myself a juicy steak or even a lobster yee mein from a Chinese restaurant at that point
We saw a group of kids next to us sat down, looked at the menu, and walked out the door. We went on a Saturday night and it was not busy. I don’t know what other reviewers are talking about.

Stopped by for dinner on the way to weekend shift and came across here… looked so clean and new! They serve basically congee with a number of ingredients like live lobster, crab, abalone, beef, lamb, chicken, etc. with only with a few appetizers… their «personal» congee pots are pretty big and can share 2 per pot easily. I got the shrimp congee which came with 3 small to moderate sized shrimps and about 7 clams but the congee flavor was excellent! Not Cantonese style but more Chinese style! The lamb congee was pretty good as well… their Chinese donuts were fried pretty well! Good place to come for a cold night out! Basically you come here if you feel like congee!

Was lunch time around 12:20 pm. Got to place in 5 minutes cause its close to my house. I wanted to try out this new place and with some Unilocalers saying it was good. My experience. Went in with my cousin and was seated. The waitress came back to give us the menu. The menu was confusing. Some of the items don’t show prices just pictures. So we waited 5 minutes to flag the waitress down. There were only 6 people in the place. Most of them wear in pair. Will my cousin flagged her down to explain to us the menu but she only speak mandarin to my cousin and I do not understand. So I waited until she was finish explaining to her then she explain to me. Ok, I said thanks for the explanation. So I asked my cousin what she wanted she don’t know. So the owner or someone who know the owner came and tells me to try the house special which is dried scallops and clams and prawns. My cousin got the black chicken congee. I also got the chinese donut and scallion pancake. My cousin just got water and I got hot tea. It was a green tea tea bag. Went and told the waitress what we wanted and she went to get water and the tea for me. Sat there talking away. Ten minutes pass and we got our chinese donut. When I first looked at it. It was cooked again cause the center is white when fresh and the donut is hard. Who ever got false teeth becareful I don’t know if your false teeth would crack. I just told my cousin that it was not fresh and cooked again. I opted to wait because I put the donut in my congee. My cousin had a few and she told me its old and hard outside when we left. As we were talking I can see the chef eating and BS with the other person. Another 5 minutes I got my scallion pancake. Came out in a basket with cabbage on the bottom same with the donuts. I took my first taste of the pancake it was greasy. You can see the shiny oil on it. For a same pancake cost 4 dollars and the donut cost 5 dollars. I just finish the pancake don’t want to waste food and money. So we continue talking and time past by and the waitress went to the kitchen and ask whats taking so long for the food. Other customer were waiting for a long time. the chef yells at the waitress and speaks to her in mandarin. I don’t understand what he was saying but I can tell by the high voice. That really pissed me off when she only asked the chef how long thats all. She came out and told the other 2 customer that were waiting before us. Their congee finally came out after 10 minutes. When she came out each time I thought it was for us. We had to wait another 10 minutes until ours came out. The portion are small. I checked my congee for dried scallops. I can’t find them. So I asked the waitress if she can find it for me. So she finds the small scallops. They were 5 little less than a peanut size scallops. I got 3 shrimps and 3 clams in my congee. In my head what a rip off. I could have gotten something else better and more for the price. The price of my congee was 15 dollars. My cousin has black chicken and its 14 dollars and have 5 small piece of chicken. I tasted my congee and it tasted like it has some msg. cause I was thirsty a lot. The congee was ok nothing special. That’s why they got 2 stars. The service sucks cause the waitress never gave me a refill or come by and check on things. I finished my congee and donut and pancake and I was still hungry. I sat there just waiting for my cousin to finish her congee. The pot only hold 2 bowl of congee. When my cousin asked for a container for her congee. the waitress also brought the bill. I open the bill and it was 43 something. I saw on the bottom how much are the tips So I just put in 50 dollars so I can get my change back. for the tip. So the waitress came back with my change. They did not break the change and I got 5 dollar bill and 1 dollar bill and some change. I was going to give only 3 dollars cause of service and the wait but she did not break the 5 so I had to leave a 5 dollar tip. So we left the place and I was still hungry and thirsty. Some of you may ask why I finish the food is I don’t want to waste the food cause there are more hungry people without food and the money I spend cause I can’t work no more. So every penny counts. If you came here for lunch I advised you to call 10 minute ahead to get your order in or you might be late for work. It was lunch time when we came here and not that much people and food are still slow. For the price its too much. Not thinking of coming back due to price and service and take a long time for the food. We were going to leave but I said lets give it a chance. Well I guess its our last chance of going there.

We came to Huo Zhou Wang for a light lunch. We ordered the seafood congee, chicken wings, and the Chinese donut. Loved the congee and the Chinese donut, which was a perfect combo. The chicken wings were a little bland though. I love Chinese comfort food and will come back.

A friend and I had dinner at this place after he suggested getting congee on a cold L.A. night. We had to wait for a few minutes as the place was packed on a Thursday evening. They, however, let us place our order as we were waiting for our table.
As soon as we were seated, they brought out some peanuts and kimchi. The kimchi was surprisingly tasty and had a little bit of kick to it, which I enjoyed. We ordered the chicken wings for appetizer and the lobster and seafood congee. The chicken was served with scallions on top, which complemented the soy sauce marinate on the chicken.
A few minutes later, the lobster congee was served in a big pot. I was surprised to see that it was actually filled with more seafood than the rice porridge itself. You could also tell that the seafood is fresh, most likely taken from one of the live seafood aquariums they have inside the restaurant. Although the congee might be a little bit on the bland side, you could always add the yellow bean paste sauce to it for added flavor. I did like it less salty though, as I thought it brought out the seafood flavor of the congee more.
I also will point out how nice the servers were and how they constantly checked on our table to refill our water and kimchi.
Although their menu is a little bit on the pricey side, I will definitely be coming back to this place when I’m craving congee.

Worth trying. One of my favorite congee place!
I ordered
— shrimp, scallop, clams congee: the congee base was good plus the seafood it was amazing. You don’t have to add any seasoning in the congee.
*if you want more saltiness, you could add their homemade sauce (yellow bean paste)
*its a bit pricy, but the crabs, lobsters and abalone are alive and fresh in the congee!!!

Try out this place today. Nothing much special the only thing I have to mention is that it is very pricey! Two pots congees and two appetizers turned out over $ 50 for two people. We didn’t even order any market price seafood congee… Taste just so so feel like i can make the congee at home by myself. It’s not worth to try personally.

There are very few in the United States sell congee restaurant, and this is the first I know. Really delicious. Taste and material is very fresh. If you are a Chinese, have been used to eating Chinese food. This absolutely let you feel very different, if you are an American, this porridge is absolutely won’t let you down. come on !!! Try it!!!

I want this style porridge for a long long time so before I ate it, I was so nervous. I don’t want to disappoint again. After I ate it, I felt my life is changed. I will be better woman for sure. I am so happy my dream come true. This restaurant is highly recommended. Please come to try it.