Kat's 9 Lives

Why oh why don't I follow my instincts! I was just up in SF/SJ for a trip to see Avenue Q. On 1/18/10, the day I was leaving, we were indecisive on where we would like to have dinner together before I leave. We were in Cupertino to get me some delicious Q-pop Chicken and a Strawberry Milk Tea. It is a tradition of mine. That day it had been raining like crazy and we were a bit lazy on moving around in the rain. Ms. Lin suggested that we eat in the plaza. I was very hesitant because almost all food in this sad plaza is disgusting. We walked by Guan Dong House and Ms. Lin mentioned that someone told her this place was not bad. I was still skeptical but I was in a blah mood and the rain didn't help so I told her to go grab a menu... reminder to self... restaurants in this plaza are HORRENDOUS! This new place definitely did not prove otherwise.
The main reason I agreed to this place was because they offer the Szechuan Boiled Fish that has been one of my new favorite dish to eat. Reviews online gave this place 3 1/2 stars out of 5 stars... boy were they wrong... it needs to be 2 stars or less! Service here was your typical Asian place, non-existent! lol This is normal and totally fine. I had no qualms with the service but the food on the otherhand... YUCK! In Chinese this fish dish has the Chinese character "water" in its name.... and BOY was that true in this crappy place! When the dish came out you could see that it was not going to be good. The sauce was diluted by a ton of water. This dish should traditionally be cooked with chili oil and seasonings. The fish slices are suppose to be full of flavor and spicy goodness! Here it was just fishy and bland. I forced down one to two bites and put my chopstick down. FUH-GET-A-BOUT IT! I am not wasting calories, tastebuds, and more on this crap.
Luckily we both weren't super greedy and didn't plan to order much. I told Ms. Lin that I only wanted the fish dish, which turned out to be NASTY. Ironically Ms. Lin was a little bit more greedier than me and ordered two appetizers. She chose the Pork and Bean Sheets. It is a common cold dish... it normally comes with shredded chicken in Taiwanese places. I am a meat lover so I didn't have any problems with what meat it came with. Normally I really like this dish but as soon as it came out... I knew I want no part of this! Ms. Lin was astonished that I refused to take a single bite. She ate it and I asked her how it was. Just like I thought, I was NOT missing out. She barely touch that dish as well. The portion was pretty big but it should have been put in a bowl or a plate that allowed consumers to mix all the components. It didn't really matter to me because I was not touching that crap.
Towards the end they brought out the last dish which was Pork Dumplings. This is a pretty safe dish, one would assume. I thought it was tolerable but nothing I would write home about. Ms. Lin took the first bite because I was not wasting my tastebuds if it was as bad as everything else has been. She said this was a lot better in comparison but nothing special so I ate one... and that was it! I touched NOTHING that night and this place just reminded me how many bad restaurants I have been to on this specific trip. =*( The next time I am up in SF/SJ, I am going to make every meal count after this horrible food trip.

All in all do NOT go here! We discussed that maybe because it was Monday night that the head chef was off and that is why the food was bad. I retorted that if this is what the other chef cooks like then he needs to be FIRED! No excuse! I would rather eat Panda Express than here! That is how sad it is. I will take fake Chinese food over this crap any day. Heck, any fast food chain would be better than this. Poor Ms. Lin because she took home all the leftovers, which would be everything. She will have to somehow eat that crap and hopefully add more flavor to all the dishes. The one good thing is I ended up not having to pay for it because Ms. Lin was nice enough and probably felt really bad so she paid for the bill. She reasoned since I didn't even eat any of the food really. If I knew this place was so bad, I would have let Ms. Lin take me to A&J in the same plaza. At least they are tolerable! Avoid this place. Enter at your own risk! I warned ya! lol

Guan Dong House
10851 North Wolfe Road
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 253-3998