| Elegant Szechuan Chinese restaurant right off Castro. |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1020
Reviewed: 10/29/2004
Rating: 8
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Cafe Yulong is another sucessful wish list item submitted from a jatbar user. Keep sending them in. I don't think I've had chinese style noodles like I've had at Cafe Yulong. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but the meal was delicious.
Upon sitting down, the waiters immediately brought out soup, tea, and water. Service is excellent. Since it was recommended to order noodles, that's exactly what I got. I ordered the Tan Tan noodles which is a mix of pork, green onions, cucumbers, red chili peppers, water chestnuts, mushrooms, and medium size noodles.
Served in a large bowl, I'm positive this could have been shared with 2 people. It was a lot of food to be eating. Noodles were soft and tasted fresh...nearly about the diameter of spaghetti noodles. I can't explain what the sauce tasted like since I've never had anything like this before. I will take a horrible guess its a peanut-heavy cream sauce and asian spices?? I liked it alot but the entire dish was swimming in oil. Although it was labeled chinese, I could swear this dish could be served in an american contemporary restaurant.
Tan Tan noodles was enjoyable but watch out on the fat...this will almost ensure you the afternoon siesta when you return to work. Cafe Yulong serves large portions of food at reasonable prices. The food is good and staff is attentive, stop by this charming restaurant for an afternoon lunch.
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Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 738
Reviewed: 10/29/2004
Rating: 9
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I walked into Cafe Yulong with no preconceptions. I hadn't seen the place before, and never heard of it until it came as a wishlist request. The place is very clean and nice. I instantly felt like this place was built last week even though its probably been here for years. The friendly waiters showed us our table quickly and gave us menus. The large selection made choosing tough. I decided to go with the Red Curry Crab Noodles. It took awhile but arrived looking very tasty.
I found the noodles to be average but the sauce was just incredible. It was a bit spicy but not overly so. The crab was delicious as were the vegetables within it. I hate to say this, but maybe they put too much sauce in the dish. It was a LOT of food. If they served 12 as much on the plate I would have been satisfied, so this is the place to go if you are hungry. Afterwards, I found I needed a lot of water. My dish was quite salty. It was a very tasty meal though, it filled me up, and I was served by a friendly staff. I will return.
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Reviewer: ne00
Total Reviews: 176
Reviewed: 11/26/2005
Rating: 6.5
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Having read the reviews at Jatbar I was expecting a great meal at a reasonable price at Café Yulong. Instead my friend and I ended up paying 38.00 and walked away still hungry.
Upon our arrival Café Yulong already had a good mixture of Asians and Americans eating inside the restaurant. We were immediately seated next to the window and were given menus. We scanned through the menu wondering if we should go family style or go on our own. There is not a great selection of dishes and its a bit pricey as most dishes were 7.95. We decided to share the appetizers and go on our own for the main course.
We selected the Shanghai Sao Lon Boa, the pot stickers, I went with the Tan Tan noodles and my friend ordered kung pao chicken and a bowl or rice.
Service here is really attentive as several waitresses looked on us several times to see if we needed anything or needed water refills. The dishes took a bit long to arrive as Café Yulong is much americanized. By Americanized I mean, they wanted to serve our appetizers first before serving our main courses. The appetizers we ordered would take longer to make then the main dishes we ordered, so over all we waited 10 minutes before our pot stickers were served and around 20 minutes before we saw our meal arrive.
Pot stickers: These were great. Six pieces were served piping hot out of the frying pan. They were large and filled with stuffing. A great treat, but a bit pricey at 5.00 an order.
Shanghai Boa: I was disappointed with these. It was a surprise that the boas didnt stick but these have no juice at all. These sao lon boas were dry. I was expecting a lot more for 5.00.
My friends dish arrived and they served us Kung Pao Shrimp, even though he ordered Kung Pao Chicken. The shrimp version wasnt even listed on the menu and to my knowledge Ive never seen a shrimp menu on anyones menu before. Its nice to see they can improvise but unfortunately we didnt order this version and it cost us 10.95 instead of 7.95 for the chicken version. The shrimp version was 3.00 more for their mistake. I was about to call over the waiter to complain but my friend said he didnt want to make a scene and just started to eat it. The dish was OK, nothing special, wasnt even spicy. I can probably understand if we ordered like a lot of dishes and they confused chicken with shrimp but we only ordered two main dishes.
The Tan Tan noodles were good but way too spicy. The noodles tasted a bit like the ones at ZaZang. The noodles were soft and it was covered with spicy peanut sauce, more so than the noodles. Im not much of a spicy eater and this dish was too much more me. As soon as the noodles were gone I couldnt continue eating. This was a reasonable dish for 6.95 but the menu is a bit misleading as it says spicy peanut sauce but didnt have the pepper sign next to the dish like others had.
The rice here is charged by the bowl instead of by the bucket. At 1.00 a bowl of rice it was a bit of a rip off.
My friend and I ended up paying 19.00 a person and we still were not full and had to supplement some fast food on our way home.
Service here is on par. The place is clean and feels homey. The noodles here are good as most of the table around us ordered noodles, and its reasonably priced, but the other dishes are a bit pricy. If it wasnt for the fiscal maybe I would rate it a 7. But paying near 20.00 a person and not being full and also mistaking chicken for shrimp? Probably not within my top 10 when Im in the area.
Pluses: Service, takes credit cards, clean, good noodles.
Minuses: Pricy on most dishes, average taste on most dishes, better options in Castro.
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Reviewer: Dan
Total Reviews: 81
Reviewed: 5/17/2006
Rating: 7.5
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I have been eating at Cafe Yulong for a few years now, mostly due to its convenient location near a used bookstore that I frequent. It is a clean, well-appointed restaurant and pleasant on the eyes. On all my visits here the service has been very speedy. Even so, I have found the service here is a little chilly.
The food usually arrives rapidly after ordering. It has a certain formal presentation you don't normally get at your standard Chinese restaurant and uses high quality ingredients. Nevertheless, I have not discovered any outstanding items here. The menu is also a little small, and I wish it had a bit more variety. They do offer a decent selection of noodle dishes, but since I am wheat-free, I'm out of luck there (only one rice noodle option is offered). Prices are about average: 7-8 dollars for lunch.
In short, apart from its good location, I can't get too excited about Cafe Yulong. It provides relatively good Chinese food in a formal setting, but the food has never knocked my socks off. It suffers from a limited menu and the ambiance can feel a bit stuffy for a casual lunch. Luckily, the prices remain reasonable. I'll be back, but not very often. |
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Reviewer: tanya
Total Reviews: 14
Reviewed: 1/3/2008
Rating: 7.5
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I've been to Cafe Yulong a few times and I've always left pretty happy. I don't order anything from the lunch menu or anything that look general's chickenish. The restaurant is pleasant to the eyes and I think there are lots of servers helping you so your water glass is always filled.
I'm putting in a proper review now since I'm bored at work and we just ate at Yulong for lunch. My two coworkers were convinced to go with me to get the noodles.
We ordered the Garlic Spinach Noodles, Stewed Beef Spicy Noodles, and Tan Tan Noodles. Like previous times, the Spinach noodles with garlic was tasty and it had a nice wok smoke flavor to it, although it came out looking a bit flat and dull, not piled high and steaming. My Stewed beef noodles was average, NOT at all spicy, but the noodles were fresh tasting and the beef wonderfully flavored. The best dish I thought was the Tan Tan Noodles. I had two tastings of it from my coworker, who apparently likes that kind of noodles a lot from PF Chang's (bleh). I've personally never had Tan Tan (or Dan Dan) noodles before and was pretty surprised by the flavor. Like Jason said it taste almost like something you can get a pasta place with a light creamy sauce. Strange but delicious! I loved the crunch from the cucumbers and water chestnuts in the sauce. I didn't really get a peanut flavor from it so it was very slight, but it was an almost creamy flavor sauce on spaghetti. Definately NOT at all spicy, so I'm wondering if they change the sauce but from reading the reviews it seemed like it was suppose to be?
Other things I've eaten at the restaurant at other times include the orange beef - interesting and surprisingly good if you like it slightly sweet, green beans - good, typical fare, tea smoke duck - pretty tasty yet, a bit lacking in salt.
Overall, I like the restaurant, you just got to order the right stuff! I'm tempted to even go back tomorrow for more Tan Tan noodles. As for pricing, for the three of us at lunch today, we paid a total of 30 dollars including one soda, not terrible since we all brought half our meals home.
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