Dong Bei Mama

Two of us ordered three dishes: steamed buns stuffed with pork (I referred it as soup dumplings), fried tofu with salt and pepper, and kung-pao chicken. The soup dumplings were good, so was the fried tofu. The kung pao chicken wasn’t as expected, but above average. Except the dumplings, other dishes (from our order and our observation during eating) came with Huge/generous portion. Our order would easily be adequate for a group of four. We could only finish one-half of the two main dishes. Very efficient and friendly service. We liked it when they offered a complimentary pot of hot tea as soon as we sat down 👍

Upon entering lies a 150-gallon fish tank with three large Japanese Koi. Once inside, a hostess greets us and asks how many people in our group to be seated. While recessed track lighting illuminates the dinning area, the dinning chairs are fully draped with a royal red fabric covers reminiscent of Chinese embroidery. Each table are preset with basic dinnerware, dinning utensils, napkins, and spices. Once seated, each guest gets a folded, glossy paper menu in full color with pics of some dishes offered. We wanted to order the abalone or sea cucumber dish but neither were available. We settled for rice and beef dishes whereby the latter was a little salty but they corrected the issue. At the time, our drinks were refilled with ease. Moreover, attentive service without having to ask or wait was quite noticable. Ambience is very nice as long as there's not too many customers chatting. You can call to order takeout for pickup, or use GrubHub, Door dash, and other food delivery service. No mask required, just optional.

Great place for northern chinese food + some house specialties, even if some of the more popular northeastern classic dishes are sub-par. The restaurant's best dishes are the owner's own creations (fish fillet with tofu (巧妇豆腐鱼）and the signature eggplant (御食茄子）alongside the beef scallion rolls/pancakes The various northeastern stews range from good to great, but true northeastern classics like 锅包肉(fried pork in scoop)，地三鲜(potato+green pepper+ eggplant (incorrectly labelled as vermicelli on doordash))，and 烧茄子（braised eggplant) are quite overly battered. 扣肉/steamed pork was great though.