Monsoon Cafe

Santa Monica, United States

3.1

23 reviews

Accepts Credit Cards
Free Wi-Fi

Contacts

QR code, vCard

Telephone:
+1 310-576-9996
Website:
monsooncafe.us
Address:
1212 3rd St Promenade, Santa Monica, CA, 90401
Santa Monica
Nearby public transportation stops & stations:
0.5 miDowntown Santa Monica
1.1 mi17th Street/Santa Monica College
1.9 mi26th Street/Bergamot
Categories:
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Bussiness info

Takes Reservations
Yes
Delivery
No
Take-out
Yes
Accepts Credit Cards
Yes
Good For
Dinner
Parking
Garage, Street
Bike Parking
Yes
Wheelchair Accessible
Yes
Ages Allowed
All Ages
Good for Kids
Yes
Good for Groups
Yes
Attire
Casual
Ambience
Casual
Noise Level
Average
Music
DJ, Live
Good For Dancing
Yes
Alcohol
Full Bar
Happy Hour
Yes
Best Nights
Wed, Fri, Sat
Coat Check
No
Smoking
No
Outdoor Seating
Yes
Wi-Fi
Free
Has TV
Yes
Dogs Allowed
Yes
Waiter Service
Yes
Caters
No

Today

Today –
Local time (Santa Monica) 2:44 PM Friday, November 29, 2024

Business hours

Monday –
Tuesday –
Wednesday –
Thursday –
Friday –
Saturday –
Sunday –

Description

Specialties

We are a pan-​Asian restaurant, a beautiful two level space designed by Margaret O’ Brien. We opened our doors November 1996. We have several sister restaurants in Japan (some of our Chefs have competed on Iron Chef).

In our Lounge:

Salsa on Wednesdays and Saturdays featuring a live Orchestra (lessons from 7.30 to 9.30).

Social Hour:

4-​close Everyday

Best Social Hour in Town, featuring $ 1 Oysters in the half shell and some great Libation too.

Kids menu, yes, yes and yes!

Dog friendly patio (dogs must be on leash, well behaved)

All our very best wishes,

Monsoon Team

History

Established in 1996.

We opened our doors November of 1996.

We specialize in pan-​Asian cuisine along with a limited sushi offering.

A two level restaurant with mezzanine dining, two bars and a cocktail lounge.

The restaurant was designed by Peg O’ Brien who was inspired by her trip to Bali with our owner. It is a special place, one that must be seen to be believed.

Meet the Manager

Fellippe E.

Manager

Fellippe is originally from Ipanema, Brazil and he arrived to the United States for expand his Hospitality and Tourism education to his portfolio. Established in Los Angeles and began working in many different positions in restaurants climbing the ladder while working towards his Degree. Fellippe then entered the world of restaurant management. «I just fell in love with the restaurant industry,» he declared. «I love to guide guests through the stories the restaurants and their menus. worked at – Crustacean in Beverly Hills — Aureole at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas — Mastro’s Steakhouse in Beverly Hills — L.A. Farm with celebrity chef finalist from the show «Top Chef» season 5 Stefan Richter. For the past 4 years Fellippe moved to Yountville, Napa Valley and be part of the great wine and hospitality community, just recently relocated to Santa Monica to embark in this great opportunity, leading Monsoon Café in Santa Monica.

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Vicinity

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23 reviews of Monsoon Cafe

No registration required
Place rating: 5
Valley Glen, CA
Great place to eat. More than just sushi. They’re pad Thai is Soo good, and their beer is fairly cheap too.
Place rating: 5
Los Angeles, CA
So upset that this place is now closed :(went last night to find out the hard way.
Place rating: 4
Riverton, UT
This place was DELICIOUS! For an appetizer we had Bangkok Satays half chicken and half steak. Yummy, juicy, flavorful! The miso soup was not something I usually enjoy but I did try it and it had a good flavor to it. The bento box had so many different things in it that I had to order it. Teriyaki chicken satay, California rolls, pot stickers, glazed salmon, seaweed salad, steamed vegetables, rice, and a potato cake. I enjoyed most everything, the seaweed salad was not something I really like because of the texture of it and the pot stickers were a little thin and cooked too long. The rest was incredibly scrumptious. The hubby ordered their ribs and they were perfect and flavorful no sauce needed. Our server suggested the banana tempura for dessert and we loved it. Great experience! Loved the atmosphere.
Place rating: 1
Bremerton, WA
This place was without a doubt, the worst experience I’ve had eating in Santa Monica. We were trying to decide whether to sit down in the bar and have happy-​hour stuff or to head into the restaurant area for a proper dinner. The host talked us into the latter – big mistake. Placed our order. Waited. Waited. Waited. Asked the waiter. Turns out he lost the order and never entered it into the system. So we re-​placed it. Waited. Waited. Food was far from special – definitely not worth what we paid in hassle. In one of my less-​bright moves, I decided to order some sorbet for dessert. I mean, how can you mess that up? Well, we chose 3 flavors, and one of them was flat-​out the wrong flavor. At this point, we were done trying to reconcile the experience, and just ate it anyway and left as quick as we could.
The place was huge and empty – we should’ve taken that as a bad sign.
Place rating: 3
San Jose, CA
This place is gorgeous!
A fun happy hour kind of place with a cool environment, or good for corporate events when the food isn’t the main focus but you’re mainly there to socialize with the group that you came with (not a place to mingle either).
Food:
Potstickers: so– so.
Korean tacos: so-​so and super salty.
Chicken Satay– good!
Pad Thai– so-​so.
Place rating: 2
Neshanic Station, NJ
Went on a Saturday night as a walk in. The good — great ambiance, had a wonderful booth — perfect to catch up with an old friend. The solid — we had the edamame, combo sushi platter and the sorbet. The food was brought out quickly and was decent. The ugly — service was atrocious. When food was brought out, there were no plates given. Had to ask each time. No discard bowl for edamame skins. We rarely saw our server. What was nuts was that servers, bus people, water people, traversed past our table dozens of times — no one proactively asked if we needed more water, no one checked in after food was delivered to see if ok, no one came to ask for drink refills. It was incredible and perhaps the worst service experienced in a long time. Thank goodness we were not in a rush else we would have missed wherever we were going!
Place rating: 3
San Francisco, CA
Service was poor. we had to flag someone down to wait for the table my boyfriend and I were at which is a no-​no.
Other than that the food was great. I got the scallop and shrimp and my boyfriend got the sushi combo. we both really enjoyed our meals and the ambiance. we got to sit in a booth which was really nice as well and overlooks the whole back part of the restaurant.
Place rating: 2
San Francisco, CA
I’ve been to Monsoon numerous times now and it is always only underwhelming. Sure, the interior has a cool vibe, but the food is bland and poorly executed.
I must say the crunchy spicy tuna rolls were delicious, but everything else this past time was beyond meh. Even the fried rice was bad. We had to dump salt and soy sauce on it as it was completely flavorless. The Kalbi ribs were OKAY but pretty chewy and not nearly as good as they could be. The one AWESOME thing on the menu– their XO green beans are no longer offered and so I’ve officially lost any reason to return.
Step up your food game, Monsoon. You’re currently tasting worse than cheap take-​out Chinese.
Place rating: 2
Beverly Hills, CA
This place is awesome but I was disappointed today because the service was awful. I don’t know why we had to wait almost an hour to order or why the waitress didn’t seem to know the menu but other than that the food was good as always.
Place rating: 3
Los Angeles, CA
I came here for dineLA lunch with a friend. Don’t let the exterior fool you, the place is huge inside and has a cool décor.
I ordered the salmon with asparagus and rice for my entrée portion of dineLA. It was very good but nothing spectacular. My friend ordered the lunch box and it was a lot of food for $ 10. I would recommend this option.
For dessert, I ordered mochi. Now I specifically chose the djneLA course for $ 15 so I could try this desert and I was highly disappointed. The mochi was filled with cream and they offered only coconut and green tea– no chocolate that day! Sadly, the mochi at trader Joe’s is more impressive.
Maybe I’ll come back if I’m on 3rd street, but nothing was too great for me to make that effort.
Place rating: 2
Los Angeles, CA
So decided to try this spot out. Looked at drink menu and ordered a specialty drink. After a few minutes I turn to look at bar. The guy is pulling my drink up on the screen/​register for ingredients.
He doesn’t even know how to make it! How can you not at least make your establishments specialty drinks?! Needless to say it was not good.
Then ordered goose and cran. I basically paid 12 bucks for cranberry juice.
Place rating: 4
Arlington, VA
Enjoyable lunch on the patio on a warm sunny summer California day. They have a varied menu, I went with the shrimp Kung Pao, which was spicy, flavorful, and had a lot of shrimp along with the veggies. I was able to use my chopsticks rather than resort to the fork and that’s always my goal at Asian restaurants.
They were out of Thai iced tea but still an excellent meal and I’d go back here.
Place rating: 4
Los Angeles, CA
The food here is delicious and full of flavor. We came two Fridays in a row. On both occasions we ordered the monsoon rice and noodles which were really good and filled me and my boyfriend up since the portion are great to share. We also ordered the shrimp tempura roll and the spicy salmon roll; both were good but we agreed that the shrimp tempura was the best from both.
Service is good over all, but our waiter didn’t come back to check on us very much. The table was cleared and we were waiting to order desert but waited a good amount of time for her attention.
Finally we ordered the banana tempura for desert which is soooo good! Highly recommend that desert, it comes with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.
Place rating: 3
Los Angeles, CA
15% off on dinner (food only) with Unilocal Check –In
Monsoon Café is a huge restaurant at the 3rd Street Promenade. Bf and I sat outside on a Saturday evening. Drinks were $ 12 each. We ordered the fried avocado, spicy tuna roll and California roll.
The rolls were average. We did enjoy the avocado appetizer.
Place rating: 4
Kailua, HI
We came here randomly for a quick lunch because the place next door was too crowded. The hostess was sweet and we were promptly seated at the spot of our choice. We choose an outdoor table because, sunshine and my child can be loud. Our waitress brought over drinks pretty quickly and then gave us a few min to look over the menu to decide on our food. I chose the chicken bento box, and my friends got the same. The bento box is HUGE! HUUUGE, so if you’re up for sharing, like I did, it wasn’t a problem.
The chicken and rice was tasty and I liked that the chicken had some kick to it. The rolls were your average california rolls, and the shrimp was actually large.
I thought this place was super cute, and it’s worth checking out if you want some cheap Asian infused dishes for a pretty decent price.
Place rating: 3
New York, NY
The best part about this place is the interior of the restaurant. It’s straight out of a kung-​fu movie.
The food itself was ok. I had mixed sushi which was good. Nothing fantastic. My gf got a bento box with some extremely spicy chicken.
I also got a pot of peppermint tea which was very nice. Good service. I’d stop by again to try a box or two.
Place rating: 4
Los Angeles, CA
Wow! I’ve always wondered about this restaurant and I’m so glad me and my mom finally decided to come in and try it today. The front looks really nice, but when you go back behind the bar and into the restaurant this building is amazing. The décor is beautiful and I felt like I was in a whole different place. The staff was super welcoming and friendly.
Now on to the food…
For an appetizer we ordered the beef+chicken satay duet… the chicken was really good and the beef was okay. My mom really loved the sauce it came with but I would have preferred it to be more peanuty.
I ordered the Chinese chicken salad, the chicken was a little dry but besides that it was really good!
My mom ordered the Thai gapow dish. It was presented beautifully! And it tasted delicious.
We really liked this spot, and can’t wait to come in and try what else is on the menu:)
Place rating: 2
Cherry Creek, Denver, CO
We came here on a Tuesday afternoon for lunch and sat outside. It wasn’t busy and our order was taken right away.
However…we waited an hour to get our food! It was just the two if us and we ordered a chicken dish and a shrimp dish.
The waiter apologized but the food wasn’t worth the wait. It was alright. It ended up being about an hour and half lunch and it cost almost $ 50!
Place rating: 1
Laguna Hills, CA
We had dinner last night at Monsoon Café and it was absolutely terrible!
When we first walked in and told the hostess that we had a reservation she seemed very confused and flustered… Maybe it was her first night? Maybe she didn’t have our reservation? It was a little awkward and I’m not sure why. When we sat down at our table outside there weren’t any menus. After waiting 5 minutes, I went to ask the hostess for menus. She wouldn’t give them to me and said she would bring them to the table, so we waited another few minutes for the menus.
We ordered:
— 1 spicy tuna roll
— 1 yellowtail sashimi
— korean bbq tacos (comes with 2)
Our server brought us chicken potstickers, which we didn’t order. He dropped them down at the table so quickly we didn’t have a chance to tell him that we didn’t order it. My boyfriend had to get up to go find the server to tell him.
Next the server brought us the korean bbq tacos, which we didn’t care for. The sauce was really heavy, and they had way too much of it on the tacos.
Next the server brought us a spicy tuna roll and a yellowtail roll. We did not order a yellowtail roll, and again he dropped it so fast at our table that we had to get up AGAIN to go tell him that we didn’t order it… The server said to go ahead and keep the yellowtail roll because they were just going to throw it out if we send it back. So we cancelled our yellowtail sashimi order. Both the spicy tuna roll and yellowtail roll were awful. The spicy tuna had a strange slimy jello-​like texture. The yellowtail roll was covered in spicy mayo sauce.
I have attached a picture of the food leftover at our table when we were finished eating. As you can see, we barely touched any of it because it was so gross. We ended up coming home and cooking our own dinner. Monsoon Café’s service was terrible, and the food was terrible. I will never be going back.
Place rating: 4
Los Angeles, CA
I came here for the first time for DineLA!
Chicken Potstickers — You get (3) fried, rectangular potstickers with a sweet/​sour dipping sauce. There isn’t a lot of filling in the potstickers and the flavor was just ok. I don’t think I would have gotten this again as the appetizer. Maybe try the Vegetarian Samosas. Rating: 6⁄10.
Scottish Salmon — The Salmon itself was nicely cooked but the complementing vegetables seemed to pale in comparison. You get a lot of bok choy and some of them tasted a little slimy (overcooked?) while the Yellow Curry around the salmon was very watery. I would have rather gotten the Snake River Farms Ribeye. I tasted some of my friend’s and it was delicious! Rating 7⁄10.
Valrhona Chocolate Gâteau — Just in case you didn’t know, Gâteau is basically a chocolate cake. This dessert was very good and went super well with the included Salty Caramel Ice Cream. Definitely get this over the Sorbet Trio! Rating 8.5÷10.
Service was very, very good for a 6pm on a Tuesday night when no one else is there. I would definitely come back for the atmosphere and possibly the food!
Place rating: 3
Les Corts, Barcelona
salsa en piso superior miércoles y sábados. Los miércoles dan clases los de Soho Dance, atentos y entretenidos, a partir de las 10 pm open general, 95% salsa liniera.
En sala grande amenizada con banda en vivo, junto a la barra se agradece fuente de agua por el calor que a veces hace y en la sala pequeña, Bachata, merengue, nivel medio excepto algunas chicas de pro, después de The Granada lo colocaría en segunda opción junto a los lunes salseros de Zanzíbar.
Place rating: 3
Hambourg, Allemagne
Assez bon et copieux. Souvent bruyant au 1er étage avec musique très forte
Place rating: 5
Marseille
Ce restaurant nous a été recommandé par notre hôtel et nous les remercions car nous avons vraiment été surpris par la qualité, l’ambiance et le formidable accueil. Un petit coucou à Sandy et Filippe.
J’ai découvert de fabuleux plats, de superbes desserts. 3 jours à Santa Monica, 3 diners au Monsoon. Nous n’avions pas envie d’aller ailleurs pour vous dire.
Je me languis d’y retourner…
Ça tombe bien, j’y retourne au mois de mai !!!
Profitez de l’happy-Hour sur les Sushis.
Santa Monica est une très belle ville et ses grands plages, c’est aussi un ville mythique pour ses films et ses séries TV; entr’autre le film Forest Gump, la série Californication. Vous y verez la salle de musculation (à Venice Beach) où s’est entrainé Arnold schwarzenegger (j’ai du aller sur le net pour avoir l’orthographe).